do you read other articles before writng on a topic?
By serenidity
@serenidity (641)
India
October 25, 2007 12:38pm CST
My plan is always to first look for interesting stuff to write. I browse and go through article titles and select a few on which i feel I can write. Next I start writing on any one and see if I can finish it at one go, if not than maybe a day or two. It is only after posting that article do I go through the other articles which have already been written on the same topic. I am of the opinion that if i read other articles first, it is going to cloud my own vision and somewhere subconsciously i will end up writing on the lines of what I have read and originality will be lost.
2 people like this
10 responses
@healer (1779)
• India
26 Oct 07
Yea of course i read a lot before writing any topic, firstly i sketch a rough picture of the article on my own and than look at other aticles. Its always nice to read others also as we get some points or derieve some points that we know better then the article that we are reading. There are people who do copy and paste options which is very ugly to me. We should throw our own ideas to what we are writing.
1 person likes this
@varunkrishna007 (1909)
• India
26 Oct 07
hmm well i would have to say i dont but usually i find interesting articles soon its working for me to get nice topices without putting on much effort
1 person likes this
@peavey (16936)
• United States
26 Oct 07
I like to read other articles on a particular topic before I write, because someone else may have already said what I have to say. If I have an opinion that hasn't been expressed or I want to expand on it, or if there's a point that hasn't been brought out, then I'll write. I haven't written at Helium for quite awhile... I was just thinking about going over there!
1 person likes this
@raijin (10345)
• Philippines
25 Oct 07
The articles that I look are from the books I read, that's where I mostly get some ideas. Sometimes, I also watch some movies, documentary films or even news, just to have a topic that I would be glad to share and discuss.
There are times that my mind doesn't cooperate, so I just look around and search for ideas wherever my thoughts lead me!;)
@buliangxianren (425)
• China
26 Oct 07
i used to do that . if you want it to be a good one, you'd better to do that. but most time i don't . there is no time for me to do everything like that .
1 person likes this
@anniepa (27955)
• United States
1 Nov 07
For me it kind of depends. On some topics I know immediately what I want to write without reading anyone else's articles but on others I'm no quite sure what they're getting at. I guess it all depends on the mood I'm in and what's on my mind at any given time!
Annie
@gwendovere (1279)
• United States
7 Nov 07
I do sometimes. It depends. Sometimes I just want to write. But what you said makes sense. Sometimes it's easy to inadvertantly plagiarize without even knowing it!
@kodie420 (872)
• Canada
25 Oct 07
Ya I usually go through a ton of discussions before I find one that interests me enough to stop and write on it. Other then that I usually type in keywords of interest to me in the search bar then boom all kinds of discussions I like to answer pop up. I can remember spending hours on here looking for good discussions until I finally used the search box.
@carlajean42 (26)
• United States
6 Nov 07
I try not to read all the other articles in the section,but instead read the top ranked one and try to take a slightly different approach, or include information that the top ranked one didn't. That way, when being rated, mine somehow has a little edge over that #1 article. But I don't like reading them all because I feel the same way as you on that. I want to make sure I'm writing for me, not to be like everyone else.
