How does associatedcontent.com work?

I see you have gotten some excellent advice already. Another good thing to do is go into the site and read articles in the section you are wanting to write in. See what the content is so you know what is expected. Go back and improve your articles and resubmit. It takes a little patience, but once you get the hang of it you will be all set! Good luck!

It is definately not a scam. I've been writing for them for a few months. Some of my articles receive up-front payment, a couple did not. Many I published for views, as they were current news type articles. My last 2 articles both have over 2,000 views each and will be receiving a payment for views at the end of the month. If you are having problems getting an article published at AC, I would recommend going to their forums and reading their primers on their expectations of your work. In my opinion, it's a great site and you can certainly make decent residual money on timely articles, if you bang out a decent product quickly and on demand.

No, it isn't a scam. You do need to be able to write good articles, though, and not everyone is capable of writing without some education. Please don't misunderstand me. I believe that almost everybody has something valuable to contribute somewhere or other. Not everyone, however, has the natural ability to put their thoughts into words that others find easy to read or understand. The reason that your articles have been rejected is that you haven't put your ideas into words that others can read or easily understand. I'm sure that you can do this. You, perhaps, need to read what others write and learn from the way they write. If you write about things you know and understand and write in the way that you would talk when teaching someone else, I am sure that you would have more success.