Virtual Expert: John Phipps Contributing Editor and Columnist Farm Journal and Top Producer John is a farmer in Edgar County, Illinois, and a contributing editor to Farm Journal magazines. He writes humor and commentary, appearing regularly in Farm Journal and Top Producer magazines as a contributing editor. His work has been published in Farm & Country in Canada, Produktion in Denmark, and The American Enterprise. In 1995, 1996, 1997, 2001 and 2002 his works were selected for Best Humor; in 1995, 2000 and 2003, Best Regular Column; and in 2003, for Best Editorial Opinion by the American Agricultural Editors Association. He also appears regularly on "Weekend Marketplace," an AgDay production, as a commentator. John's phone: 217-269-3245 E-mail: jphip@tigerpaw.com John won the Regular Column category in the 2003 AAEA Writing Awards Program with his story, "September 11 and Beyond," in Farm Journal. How to write award-winning articles 1. Be lucky. Of all the factors I see in competitions like this, luck is a whopper. This may not seem like useful advice, but all of us are luckier than we recognize. Because we don't want to see our rewards as arbitrary, we discount luck as a factor. The trick is to leverage those happy coincidences into learned skills or new opportunities. 2. Choose subjects that interest you and find a way, if possible, to relate the information to your reader. Writing about stuff you don't care about is really, really hard and usually this shows in the final product. 3. Write opinion. This is crucial for me, because I am not a writer. I'm an engineer/farmer, for Pete's sake. The point is that I am incompetent at interviewing, for example. Consequently, I don't enter profile story contests. The goal of an all-round writer may be as difficult today as finding pitcher who can hit, or two-way football players. Polish the skill you have the most talent for. 4. Google. Taking tablets/tape recorders out on the road may not be supportable either by travel budgets or staff man-hours. I find telephone conversations difficult to distill into useful information from if I ask more than two questions. For the most part, I use the Internet: search engines, blogs, on-line subscriptions (newspapers, magazines, journals, etc.), websites that scan multiple sources for items of interest (e.g. aldaily.com), e-mail. 5. Read. Lots. Turn off the TV. 6. Edit. I edit pieces more than I used to mostly because it irritates me when my editors find an error or mess with my pearlescent prose. Thanks to middle-age, I can read an article I wrote two weeks ago and it seems practically new to me, so I let manuscripts simmer for a while to renew my perspective. I am also indebted to my wife for illuminating those consistent typos that I persistently read right over. 7. Understand what your mission is. Writing for me is one of several ways I find fulfillment and modest sums of cash. There are not many slots for full-time ag journalists, but there seems to be a reasonable demand for contract specialists. |