When writing an article, the more research you do about the article the better the article will be. If you decided to write about longboarding's rise in popularity, for example, you would want to go after the subject in a unique way. Longboarding hasn't been popular for a very long time. If you go to your local library, you're sure to find books on surfing and skateboarding, but longboarding's a different matter. There just aren't that many books out there (yet) on the subject. That means that you'd have to take a different approach when writing your article. You'd have to look to other sources than books.

In this case, the internet obviously comes to mind. The internet, after all, has thousands of sites about longboarding. When you begin your research, however, you'd discover that most of these sites have to do with selling longboards - they aren't about the history or the trends of the sport itself. This means that you'd have to hone your research methods quite a bit even on the internet. You'd have to go to longboarding blogs and chat rooms, longboarding thread discussions and Q & A's, and slowly compile information from the comments of regular longboarders and professionals alike. It would also help to get out into the community and talk to longboarders and to longboard vendors. In writing your article, you'd want to fill it with stories and with the words of actual people. When you're quoting people, you start to come up with really interesting stuff. It is a fact that while most people are bad at writing, they're good when it comes to telling a story verbally. The verbal stories of regular people are therefore a gold mine for the effective article writer.

In writing your longboarding article, your last (and perhaps one of your most helpful) resources would be newspaper articles. Newspaper articles always record the latest trends. Most newspapers have an online version that's fully searchable. By reading numerous articles on your subject, you can fill your own article with bits and pieces of things you've read here and there.

In using the example of writing a longboarding article, we see that we would gather information from many sources. We'd gather them from the internet - from blogs, chat rooms, discussion threads, etc.; we'd gather them from newspapers; and we'd gather them from "the man on the street." The process of writing an article on another subject might send you to different areas. You might spend all your time in the library when it comes to writing articles on certain subjects. Whatever the case may be, you want to research well and solidly, write simply and clearly, and, above all, hold the interest of your reader by putting in the kinds of details that you yourself like to see in articles. In fact, that's a great rule to keep in mind when writing articles. Write the sort of article that you'd like to read. Write the sort of article that would give you pleasure while eating breakfast or sitting in the park.