Rewriting – Pitfalls and Rewards

Rewriting is tricky. Some underestimate it and some overuse it, some take it too seriously and others never give it a thought. Fact is, rewriting can be a powerful tool if done correctly, and just so much more garbage if not.

There are several different types of rewrites. The first is when you find a really fabulous piece of work by someone else and you want to share it, but perhaps you disagree with a portion or two, or want to expand or summarize it and add your own thoughts.

In this case, you are really just using your own knowledge and adding the new information you have learned to produce an article or blog post that is unique and reflects your own voice. This isn’t really rewriting – it’s utilizing a combination of information from different sources.

Another type of rewrite involves alteration from one type of piece to another – usually reworking a press release into an article, or a PowerPoint presentation into a blog post. This is more of a change in format, to make the content useable in another arena.

True rewrites are derived from articles that you wish to submit to different directories or places on the web without running into duplicate content issues. There are a lot of misconceptions about rewrites.

An abundance of theories exists on the web about the proper way to rewrite. Unfortunately, most theories are aimed at magically increasing your number of articles with a minimum of time invested to generate a large amount of material in a short amount of time. Several ‘automated systems’ even exist.

Honestly, none of these tricks will really improve your material or increase it in any meaningful way. If you are told to supply four articles with a specific number of paragraphs and a specific number of sentences in each paragraph, and explicit instructions as to titles and formatting, with the guarantee of dozens of ‘original articles to be delivered inside a week’ – run away!

They are simply planning to run your articles through a program that will interchange paragraphs between the four articles you supplied and shuffle them to make up a bunch of material that may or may not make sense.

Likewise, avoid such methods as taking an article and simply substituting synonyms in each sentence. This is shoddy work, and will show to anyone reading it that you didn’t take the time to write a good article.

The best way to do rewrites is simply to write a new article. Take the information and imagine explaining it to different people. Ask yourself how would you explain it if talking to a newcomer to the business, a veteran you want to impress with your knowledge, a colleague who wants your take, a client you need to break it down for.

Do one as an FAQ, another as a bulleted list, a third as an interview or a friendly ’top ten ways to:’ article. Try a formal style, a friendly style, or a humorous one. Remember, you will be submitting to different venues, and here is the opportunity to reach a vast amount of different people.

If you do your rewrites right, you will really benefit. If you cut corners, you might as well not waste your time!