This article is not meant to give specific guidelines to those who successfully follow other methods.  If you have a writing method that works for you, please do continue to use it.  This piece is merely meant to give some hints to those who feel more out of their depth when it comes to writing longer prose.  If you have tips that are not included here, please feel free to submit them to the Editor-in-Chief.

When you first decide (or are asked) to write an article, you may feel overwhelmed.  The theme may be too broad, or you may not think you have much of import to share on that topic.  Please be reassured – everyone has something interesting to say, and we are here to help if you need it!

There are a few steps that will help you as you work on writing your article or essay:

1. Narrow down your topic. A broad theme like those we will be using for AutistiConnections cannot easily be covered in a single article.  In fact, most of these themes have (or should have!) books written about them.  So it is very important to find something about the theme that interests you or impacts you in a big way.
2. Collect information. If you are going to write a personal essay, you probably don’t need to do a lot of research, but you might want to write down all of your thoughts on the topic you have chosen.  If you are writing something that is more about facts and science, you will need to do research.  Whenever you do research – that is, whenever you collect information from someone other than yourself – be sure to write down everything you can about where the information came from.  We can help you put together the references in the end.
3. Organize your information. It is often a good idea to look at the information you have gathered and group it based on how it is related.  That way you can easily find something when you want it, and it will be easier to put together a logical essay or article.
4. Write an outline. An article or essay typically follows this simple format:
   • Introduction
   • Point One
   • Point Two
   • Point Three
   • Conclusion
5. Start writing. Use your information and follow your outline.  Don’t worry about if it’s too long or too short, or if it even makes sense.  Just get the words on paper.
6. Edit. Go through your piece and make sure it all makes sense.  Cut some things, add other things.  It can be helpful to have a friend read it and tell you their thoughts, but make sure you ask someone who will be honest and not just tell you all good things because they don’t want to hurt your feelings.

When you submit your piece to AutistiConnections, we will read it through and see if there are any changes we would like to see.  We are cognizant of people’s writing styles, so if you consistently avoid the use of capitals or punctuation, or if you consistently use non-standard sentence structure, we will probably not ask you to change that – it is too much a part of your voice as a writer.  We might, however, request some language edits (we would prefer, for example, that you avoid vulgar language as much as possible, but understand that sometimes there’s no other word that will get the point across) or some other minor changes to make it more readable or easier to understand.