If you look for article writing tips by searching online, you will find plenty of tips about the best approach to writing Ezine articles. You will also find advice on "article marketing" and any good ebook about niche marketing will contain references to the importance of writing and distributing articles. With all this information available, even newbie webmasters know they should be writing and publishing articles to get more exposure for their websites.

Amongst all the article writing tips you will find on the Internet, there will be masses of good tips for shortcuts to article writing. These shortcuts will include legitimate advice to help you get started, to speed up the writing process, to make submitting to ezine article directories easy etc. You can even find tips on where to look for hot topics for your articles (there's not much point in writing an article nobody will want to read).

Another thing a search will turn up is advice for people who really cannot write their own articles. The options for persons who can't write or do not have time to write their own articles include buying limited edition articles they can publish as their own work, and hiring a ghost writer to produce unique articles for their sole use. These options are considered to be legitimate. If you buy an article, it can be considered yours even if it is not your own work. You do, however, need to be alert to writing tips that cross the line between legitimate marketing and plagiarism (or worse).

If you search for Ezine article writing tips online you will come across plenty of dubious advice and you need to be careful not to pick up these tips. Disregard any suggestion that you take another person's article, change a few words and then claim it as your own. This is on a par with the suggestion that changing the hubcaps on a car you have stolen will make you the rightful owner. Don't do it. Apart from the obvious fact that this is theft, the search engines can easily pick out this sort of clumsy attempt at trickery. You might as well put your efforts into honest endeavours because you'll get further that way.

The worst writing tip I have ever seen was outstanding in its horrific possibilities. I'd like to share it with you:

The Dr Frankenstein Ezine Article Writing Tip

'When you need to publish an article, do a search online for ezine articles in your niche. Pick three or four articles and paste them all into the same Word document. Use the auto summary tool in Word to condense the articles down to the number of words you require. Give the end result a quick scan and edit if necessary to ensure it makes some sort of sense. Voila: you instantly have a new unique article ready for submission to the ezine article directories without having to do any research or writing.'

If you decide to try this writing tip, ask yourself the following questions before you introduce your creation to the world. Have you put together a good article? Will it have appeal for anyone who sees it? How sure are you it is entirely coherent? Does the mixture of styles blend together seamlessly? Can you love it for what it is? Do you feel proud of what you have made? Will you be happy to have your name forever associated with it?

Unfortunately, if you are lazy enough to try this at home, you might become "the author of unalterable evils". It is most likely that you will produce an ugly shambling monstrosity that nobody will want to see. Luckily for you, your hideous creation will not be capable of turning on you and attacking you when it realises its pitiful circumstances. You had just better hope you escape the notice of the owners of the articles you mutilated so casually, since they will undoubtedly feel entitled to take revenge on you. A spell on the Arctic ice with no shelter would be tame compared to what a group of outraged creative writers could devise for you.

Elaine Currie
http://www.huntingvenus.com/