What's in a Word Count?
by Jennifer Ruwart | July 30, 2009 at 10:28 AM
Quick comments:
1. There is a common thread I am seeing in the comments to your AMAZING Frontline Journals. Word count! Yes, word count is important. When your article is unnecessarily too long, your reader will drift off, especially when it gets dense with too much detail about a specific situation, experience, or fact. Drifting off often means the point of your story was missed.
On the other hand, and I think I speak for everyone involved in VOF, we do not want you to exclude quotes, stats, or other important elements that could really strengthen your piece, just to stay under a certain number. Let's meet in the middle.
If you go over the word count, I suggest you reach out to your mentors, midwives, colleagues, me, or Cristi for help editing your final draft down. It's much easier for us to edit because we are not as attached to your journal as you are. And, if you still go over, that's okay. Just keep it reasonable.
2. Paragraph breaks. Sounds silly, but make sure you hit "return" twice between paragraphs so there is space between them. It will make reading your journals that much easier.
3. Don't forget, the deadline is this Sunday. Corine and the editorial team will be selecting THREE of your journals to publish through World Pulse editorial channels. If you would like to have your frontline journal considered, you must have at least a solid draft posted by then.
You are all blowing us away. Great job!
