Social media, SEO, marketing and writingImproving Your Articles with Anecdotes
One secret of good article writing is to make effective use of anecdotes. Anecdotes can be the magic ingredients of articles, and they do a great deal to bring an article to life, give it substance and depth, and hold the reader’s interest.
Definition of an Anecdote
The American College Dictionary describes an anecdote as “a short narrative of a particular incident or occurrence of an interesting nature.”
An anecdote is a very short story with a point. The best anecdotes have a beginning, middle, and end. Little stories like this help illustrate the basic points or purpose of an article. If you have the ability to tell a story or relate an incident, then you probably already have an anecdote or two in your back pocket.
Sample Anecdote
General George Patton’s fighting spirit revealed itself clearly at West Point. While many of his fellow students disobeyed the academy’s rules, Patton was serious about them and believed in keeping them.
One day the future general saw a classmate breaking a rule and felt he had to report it––a rule required by the West Point code. Later that night, several of the largest and toughest cadets visited George and threatened him with a beating should he make the report and squeal. Patton calmly replied, “I’m reporting him. I’ll fight you now, one at a time, and when I get out of the hospital I’ll start again where I left off.” Nobody accepted his offer.
Where to Find Anecdotes
Here are some useful sources for anecdotes you can start tapping at once:
- Your own past. Search your memory. You are bound to discover a rich variety of little stories you can use from your youth, school days, jobs you have held, hobbies, or travel.
- Interesting tidbits you’ve gleaned from Digg, Technorati, Twitter, the Drudge Report, your local paper–wherever. You can put them into your own words or use them as they are, if not too long.
- Your friends, neighbors, and relatives. This can be another rich source. When you hear a good anecdote related by a friend or relative, get it down on paper fast while it’s fresh in your mind.
- Books are a fertile source for anecdote material. There are even whole books devotes to the subject of anecdotes!
As time passes, you will eventually develop quite a backlog of anecdotes. Once you have a lot of them, you might wish to divide them into categories. Then when you are writing various articles, you have only to thumb through your anecdote file cards to select those you want to use.
Suggested Anecdote Category List
- Humorous anecdotes
- Anecdotes about money and personal finance
- Technology and social media anecdotes
- Health and job hunting anecdotes
- School and college anecdotes
- Anecdotes from entrepreneurs and great leaders
- Travel anecdotes
- Anecdotes on marriage, death and taxes
Basic Tips for Using Anecdotes
Here are three basic guidelines for using anecdotes in the articles you write:
- Anecdotes may be used anywhere in an article. They usually appear in the body or midsection, but many articles open with an interest-grabbing anecdote.
- Even seemingly unimportant incidents can have the effect of an anecdote. Don’t rule out trivial sounding incidents (what happened to your neighbor, getting caught in the rain, and so on).
- Anecdotes can be short or long (from a few lines to one or several paragraphs), though they are usually short.
