Welcome to Writer Savvy!

Welcome to Writer Savvy - the blog for anyone interested in becoming a savvy writer! My name is Elisabeth Prouty-Gilbride and I decided to start this blog to educate and become educated on the art of writing. As the Assistant Editor of a leading monthly equine publication based out of New England, I will have a lot of tips to offer both beginners in the writing world and writers that have published articles in multiple magazines and trade journals. I also plan on interviewing a writer or editor once a month and will include a copy of the interview here on my blog so that readers can glean advice from some experts in the industry. Please feel free to leave comments or email me at writersavvy@gmail.com.

Tips of the Day: Fact Checking
When submitting articles for publication, writers are often told to check their facts. The problem is, many writers that are starting out don't know exactly how to do this, which often leads to sloppy final drafts. By checking your facts and making sure everything is accurate, editors are more likely to publish your work again in the future. Here are a couple pieces of advice on how to make sure your facts are accurate.

1. To make sure your quotes are correct, it is a good idea to record the interview. If you are conducting an interview over the phone, or don't have a recorder that you can use, it's a good idea to email the interview to the person you are quoting. This will ensure that the interviewee is happy with happy with how everything sounds, without having to send them the entire article. If they do ask to see the article, it is always important to check with the editor of the publication first. If worst comes to worst, you can always email them the quotes that you are planning on using in the article. By sending a pdf file, they are less likely to make too many changes.

2. Make sure names are spelled correctly. This is probably one of the biggest problems that writers have - they get so caught up in interviewing that they forget to ask the spelling of the name. How would you like it if a magazine misspelled your name in the byline? It's important to give the people you're interviewing the same courtesy. If you are retrieving photos for an article, always be sure to check the spelling of the name from the photo against the text in the article. If the name doesn't match, you can always Google it online, or call the source to get the correct spelling. The same goes with photo captions - make sure the caption is accurate by checking it against the text in the story. This will save magazine editors a lot of time!

Coming Attractions: In my next blog, I will discuss some key elements that every writer should include in an article or press release.