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Substance and Style: Writing for REALTOR Association Executive Magazine

Are you thinking about writing for REALTOR Association Executive magazine? Helping you to achieve clear, accurate, and interesting expression is the goal of these guidelines, but first, put your ideas to the readiness test:

Are your insights unique, sound, compelling, and relevant to REALTOR association executives in their roles as leaders and managers? Can other AEs learn from your experience?

If the answer is yes, these guidelines can make the publication process--organizing and focusing your ideas, writing, submitting a draft, and making revisions--one that helps you achieve excellence in communication. You do have the time! AEs find that once they get writing about a subject that they're passionate about they just can stop until it's done and the time investment actually helps them formulate their thoughts and come up with new ideas.

If you don't want to write but have an idea for an article you'd like to read. Send them in to cschwaar@realtors.org.

The magazine and its audience

REALTOR Association Executive is a one-of-a-kind business magazine written and edited specifically for REALTOR association executives. Each quarter it provides timely coverage of association management and real estate issues and trends relevant to REALTOR associations of all sizes and scopes, along with in-depth how-to articles on running an association.

Most of our readers are the chief staff executives and decision makers at REALTOR Associations and the magazine is also distributed to MLS executives, communication directors, education directors, government and political affairs directors and commercial association executives.

What to write about

Personal experience is probably your best source of article ideas. As a practitioner of association management, you have encountered problems, developed solutions, and corrected mistakes that your colleagues can learn from. Has your association created a program or a policy that works better than anything you've used before? Do you have a fresh approach to an old problem or a cost-effective solution to a new one?

How-to versus case study. Not every article in REALTOR Association Executive appeals to all readers. Your article has a better chance of being a hit with readers if you think beyond the scope of your association and show readers, through examples, the relevance of your insights to their circumstances--that is, how to apply your insights to their situations.

A case study of a process, event, or solution at your association becomes valuable to readers when you focus on communicating the lessons learned rather than focusing on, for instance, describing the chronology of events at your organization. Thus the framework of your article is not your association's case study but rather the how-to insights deduced from your association experience and explained through examples.
Don't deter readers by making them guess about the connections between your experience and theirs. Readers are eager and grateful for tools that help them solve problems and achieve new levels of understanding about their challenges, but the information has to be readily applicable.

So in writing from your experiences, ask these kinds of questions:
· How can other associations adapt what you've done?
· What kinds of pitfalls might they run into?
· What costs are involved?
· The rule of thumb here: Try to anticipate a reader's questions--and answer them.

Before you write...

Watch out for these common writing mistakes in articles:

· they deal with topics that are elementary or are irrelevant to running an association;
· they are poorly organized;
· they lack insight;
· they describe an idea whose narrow scope and depth do not warrant feature article treatment;
· they offer too few examples from associations; or
· they are self-promotional or market a product or service available from only select vendors.

Moreover, REALTOR Association Executive does not publish speeches, articles that have been published in other publications, or articles that are relevant to only a single association or vendor.

We'd like to help you avoid some of these pitfalls. That's why we recommend that--before you write the article--you send us a short inquiry consisting of a summary of the proposed article to Carolyn Schwaar, Editor, REALTOR Association Executive magazine, 430 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60611, or send an e-mail to cschwaar@realtors.org. If you have questions about how to orient your topic to REALTOR Association Executive, call one of our editors for guidance.

After receiving your inquiry, an editor will write you to discuss your ideas. If they are appropriate for REALTOR Association Executive, the editor will provide direction for developing the manuscript: how to organize the article, what questions to address, what messages to convey, and the like.

Getting it down on paper

Now you are ready to write. Like any skill, writing is learned by doing--again, and again, and again. Here are a few suggestions that may make it easier for you to get your thoughts in order.

· Create a working title. Your working title helps focus your ideas. Make it brief (three to six words), use an active verb, and aim to be clever but not obtuse.

· Provide the byline, that is, the author's or authors' full name(s).

· Write a lead sentence or paragraph that compels your audience to read the article. Among the devices you can incorporate into a lead are a surprising statistic, a witty or shocking quotation, a question, a scenario, or an analogy. Most important, your lead must be relevant to your topic and get to the point quickly: What is the purpose of your story?

· Write freely, and let go of your inhibitions. Don't attempt perfection in the first draft of your article. This is the time to get down all your thoughts.

· Use subheadings in the manuscript to signal to the reader the direction and focus the story is taking. Use a subhead (i.e., like the "Getting it down on paper" heading of this section of these guidelines) at least once every two pages.

· Pay attention to tone. The tone you adopt is crucial to your article's readability. You risk insulting readers by preaching or lecturing. Convey your ideas by showing, not by telling, readers what they should do. Pretend that you are explaining your ideas to a colleague, face to face. Avoid excessive jargon, and define the jargon you must use. By the same token, don't create acronyms, and spell out any common or necessary acronyms on the first usage.

· Be comprehensive. Use details that add clarity. Provide statistics, dates, and quantities that support your points. Note the people involved, the money required, the time and resources available for a solution, and the tools or measures used to evaluate success. Pertinent information that is related but perhaps self-contained (e.g., steps in a process or a list of resources) can often be organized in a sidebar (a box of information that stands apart from, but within, the article).

· Point out the relevance to others. Make your points using examples from your experience; then explicitly tell readers how they can apply your experience at their associations.

· Write as you speak. Shun the passive voice in favor of the active voice. And, as Strunk and White say in The Elements of Style, "Do not be tempted by a twenty-dollar word when there is a ten-center handy, ready, and able."

· Make your conclusion as memorable as your lead. Instead of merely summarizing, try to surpass the limits of the article. To quote the editors of Harvard Business Review, "A good conclusion adds something new, but relevant, to the article--a forecast, a challenge, a clinching bit of evidence, or, ideally, something to do on Monday morning."

· Write a one-sentence author identification (providing the author's full name, title, current affiliation, and location) at the end of the manuscript.

· As your research and writing continue, don't hesitate to call an Association Management editor with questions.

· Edit your article thoroughly at least twice. Delete unnecessary words and phrases. Turn passive sentences into active ones (e.g., change "The strategic plan was created by the team" to "The team created the strategic plan."). Move paragraphs to achieve continuity. Rewrite entire sections. Make sure that every paragraph follows logically from the one before it. Introduce subheadings at least every other page. Don't be satisfied until every sentence says precisely what you want it to say. If you do this now, there's less chance that the article will require extensive rewriting once it reaches us.

· Double-check the accuracy of your article using the "red check" method. Return to your original source material, and verify every name, date, fact, and figure, placing a red check mark over each in your manuscript. Accuracy is your responsibility. Remembering how irritating it is to see your name misspelled in print is motivation enough for red checking.

· Test market your article by asking a few colleagues to read it. They may point out ways to clarify your message, add an example, or liven up your lead sentence.

Reaping the rewards

Most authors feel great personal satisfaction from having an article published in REALTOR Association Management and helping association executives across the country do a better job of managing their organization.

Yes, writing is an effort that takes time, planning, organizing, and plenty of reworking. To that, Samuel Johnson would say, "What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure."


The Editors
REALTOR Association Executive


The editing process

Upon acceptance for publication, we tentatively assign your article to an issue. Because each issue's make-up is dependent on a number of factors, including advertising levels for the issue, the scheduling of an article to an issue is subject to change.

We solicit manuscripts for an issue six to eight months in advance of the issue. We edit and rewrite accepted manuscripts about three to five months in advance; so, for example, if your article has been assigned to Winter, your editor will probably contact you in September.

Your writing style is your own, and we make every attempt to preserve it as we prepare your manuscript for publication. But we will try to make the copy as substantive, clear, and lively as possible. If your article is substantially revised, we will send you the edited version, and you will have about three days to review it.

If questions arise after that, we'll call you; but otherwise, the next time you see your article will be when it's in print.

(This guide was adapted from the American Society of Association Executives)

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