WRITING ARTICLES WORKSHOP IN LGL

As usual, last Thursday, 17th November, a workshop took place at Pylimo g. 21. LGL opened its doors to a new amazing volunteer, Carmen, who used her experience from working in the field of communication for many years to teach participants tips and tricks for writing articles.

After a very short introduction in which people explained the reasons that prompted them to come and learn about writing, the presentation started. Carmen organized her work using power point, and thanks to her Spanish verve and extroverted personality, the “lesson” was not boring at all! Some funny tips here, few jokes there, and everything moved so smoothly and swiftly that in the end we also had time to practice (I actually had already started writing this article that evening … as we say in Italy “the sooner, the better”).

The first thing that Carmen underlined is that a writer`s job begins long before you start writing. It is the same principle as talking: if you are supposed to think before speaking, you have to research before writing about something! And here you have the first secret to becoming a good writer: “read, read, and read” (reading is also a source of inspiration that can lead the lecturer to interesting topics, so if you have no ideas, reading is the key).

Once the topic has been chosen, you have to plan the structure of the article, for example, via bullet points. Only after that it is actually possible to start writing. From this moment on, rule number one becomes “to grab the reader`s attention”, and Carmen gave us all sort of tips and tricks for doing so. That, of course, I am not going to share with you now – you should have joined the workshop ehehehehe (all kidding aside, I am not sure I already have the control of the topic, so… let`s leave this responsibility to the right person ;) ). The session ended when, after having started writing our own article, Carmen relieved some of our doubts and invited us to send her our final draft, so that she could edit it and tell us her opinion.

To conclude, the workshop was useful and I am personally impressed by Carmen’s helpfulness, because she showed her availability also outside the office, sharing with us her power point presentation and offering to correct our drafts. As for me, I have always had quite a big passion for writing and I think I am good in doing it … in Italian! But when it comes to English, things change, and I find it helpful to count on rules and guidelines. Apart from this, some of you will probably be happy to know that we are currently thinking about a second session of writing workshop, so if you are interested, #staytuned and check LGL’s official webpage or Facebook page to find out when it is going to happen.