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Dear friends,

First of all, let me say that I write this article in order to try and pass on lessons I myself have learned over the years. I don’t have any intrinsic journalistic ability, and nobody is a ‘born writer’, or a born anything for that matter. Anyone with some intelligence and determination can be good at anything, provided they have the knowledge, skills and experience.

Experience is, I’m afraid, something you have to gain for yourself. Knowledge and skills however can be learned, from reading and from teaching. I will cover the teaching aspect in the later part of the article, but for now I want to go over the basic lessons I have learned so you can benefit from them as well.



How to write an article

There are a number of key steps you have to take each time you decide to write an article, as listed below:

1. What do you want to write about?
2. What style of journalism will you use?
2. What is the purpose of your article?
3. What do you need to know?
4. Who is your audience?

Each of these stages are themselves broken down further, and I will go into them in more detail below. I can’t stress enough how important it is that you consider every element of this every time you write an article. Otherwise it’s just a fluff piece, or spam. You might get a lot of votes or a chuckle, but you won’t get people coming back to read every time you publish, and as a writer that’s what you want.



Choosing a topic

Choosing a topic to write about is often the thing most people struggle with, especially newer journalists. There are a few things you should know when you’re thinking about what to write about. The first thing is that most people have similar experiences, and think in a fairly similar way. You might think you’re unique, and find it hard to relate to others (especially if they are from another country), but the truth is you probably have a lot in common- especially when you’re already a self-selective group (like eRepublik players) who have a lot of internet culture in common already.

What does this mean? It means that likely any experience you have had, others have had as well. People like to read about people’s experiences because they can relate to them, whether they are positive or negative ones. It shows them that other people have had the same experience, lets them vent or show support, and brings people together. I’d always recommend new players spend their first few articles writing “first impressions”, because they’re easy to write, and most players will relate to them. Frustrated at the ingame missions, or the tutorial, or the war module? Write about your experience, and people will vote it so long as you take the time to do it well.

Aside from personal experience, you can also write about the game itself. There are several different modules, each of which has some straightforward and some more technical aspects. One of the most highly voted articles of the last week was a very thorough guide to the aircraft module by a player called Feynmann. This was presented as a tutorial, but is actually a very good example of an article describing and commenting on the game mechanics. Let’s look at why it was so successful briefly:

- It appealed to both new and old players by including basic and advanced tips
- It was well written and the author spent time making sure there were no errors or mistakes
- It was presented in a neutral tone which didn’t take sides or show bias

For these reasons it appealed to the widest possible audience. The advantage of game mechanics articles is that when done well they can achieve almost universal support.

Aside from the game itself, you can also write about the communities within the game. Each country has its own national identity, and in turn several sub-national identities in the form of political parties and military units. Writing about a community (if done well) will almost always gain the interest of that community. However you have to be careful- unless you’re a member yourself you run the risk of alienating people, or angering them if you make mistakes. You are also usually limited to the amount of votes you will get from outside that group. If the military unit you write about has thirty members, you might get forty or fifty votes, including well wishers or interested players who know the unit. If it’s a bigger country of course that’s not such a problem. What’s the advantage then? People enjoy reading about their community, and are more likely to subscribe if you do it well and give a good and realistic representation of their experience.

Current affairs is another popular topic. It is possible for anyone to write about current affairs, regardless of their age or experience. Most of the time having a good knowledge of what is going on is needed, but this is something that any active citizen can gain simply by talking to other players on discord (or telegram). Current affairs is more time critical than other types of journalism, naturally, but often gets a lot of support as it saves players the time and effort of doing the research themselves. The downside of writing current affairs is that it is usually very political, and however you write it may sound like you are taking a side. As a journalist this can lose you votes, and more importantly lose you the confidence of the general gaming population in your newspaper. This is why it’s always best to consider your article from both sides before publishing, and remove any suggestion of bias or negative language.

Speculative writing is when you think about the current situation, and try and imagine how things may look in the future. In a sense this is a meta-topic and can cover all of the above topic areas. You could speculate about the future of the game, a community, or the military/political situation. This is what I would consider a more advanced topic, since you have to be quite heavily immersed in the present, with a good understanding of the past, in order to make any predictions about the future. Banal or entirely unrealistic commentary also tends to be met with derision from the general population, especially if they know better.

Finally there is a whole category of what I think of as fluff pieces. This includes competitions, party circulars, government announcements, political manifestos and so on. They all serve their purpose, but they’re not really journalism and these rules don’t apply to them. They are more about getting a message across, or acting as a signpost for something else, and so their purpose isn’t to educate, inform or entertain.



What style to use?

There are several key forms of journalism, but in eRepublik there are three that apply: the personal column (like this article), investigative journalism and feature journalism. A column is essentially an opinion piece, and although it can cover all of the above topics it isn’t usually widely sourced and is based on personal experience. For that reason it usually expected that a column will contain personal bias and that it is more about the author’s personal experiences.

The main purpose of investigative journalism is to look into a specific question which is often the title of the piece, or related to it. An example of this might be “How did the eUK-Croatia training war begin?” Investigative journalism is intended to focus in on quite a narrow area and draw out the deeper elements of it, giving a fresh perspective on a question or even answering something previously unaddressed. For example, to try and identify what made a country decide to declare war on another country.

Feature journalism is broader, and tends to offer a wide perspective on an event, feature, person and so on (really any of the categories in the part above). What makes it different is that it comes at the topic from every angle and builds up a wider picture of the world, or the region, or the country at the time. It puts the event, person etc in question in context, and in a sense it tells a story. Feature pieces are harder to write as they require a lot of work and research, so they’re not usually written about time sensitive pieces like current events.

In both cases you will finish the article with a conclusion. Ideally your conclusion should be supported by all of the information and findings in your article. A good journalist, like a good scientist, should gather all of the information and use that to draw their conclusion. But how you spin that conclusion is up to you. Even if your conclusion is (for example) that a war was a terrible mistake, it is still possible to spin a positive angle from that if you want.



What is the purpose of the article?

Most players actually fall down at this point, because despite thinking of a topic, they don’t think through what they want their article to achieve. As I explained at the end of the section above, the core function of any media is to educate, inform and entertain the audience (in that order, roughly). However there is more to it than that. As the author you are not simply providing an information bulletin, but you are also providing your own thoughts and opinions. That means you are presenting an agenda.

So the key element: what is the purpose of the article? In most cases you will be aiming to either persuade the audience of your conclusion, to present an alternative opinion, or to uncover information that was hidden. Before you begin to write you need to decide what the purpose of the article will be, so that you can make sure the tone matches what you want to achieve.

With persuasian there are seven general traits that all persuasive arguments should have. They are repetition, consistency, social proof, agitate then solve, prognosticate, tribalism and storytelling. Without going on too much of a tangent I’m going to explain them briefly below so that it is clear:

- Repetition: to make a point stronger, you need to argue the same position but from a variety of different angles. Each repetition reinforces the point.
- Consistency: maintain a consistent tone and opinion, make sure there are no contradictions (both obvious and implied ones) that you can be criticised on, as this undermines everything else.
- Social proof: most people will take an opinion more seriously if someone they respect agrees with it. If you’re not someone widely respected yourself, then you can get social proof by quoting someone who is, and supports you. Try not to be too obvious about it though, otherwise it feels like you’re beating the audience round the head with it.
- Agitate then solve: In most cases when you’re trying to persuade, you are persuading against the status quo, or against a decision that has been made. To agitate then solve you first criticise the status quo, present all of the problems, and then follow with the solution. Provided the solution is well explained and does actually logically follow from the problem, this is a powerful tool of persuasion.
- Prognostication is basically predicting the future a bit. It links with the above- extrapolating the current problems outwards, to show that unless something is done, things will only get worse. Now is the time to act!
- Tribalism: Humans are tribal, and we group in many different ways. Be careful of this one as it can get ugly if you turn tribes against each other. The best option if you don’t have any others is to appeal to the bigger tribe, though the link is weaker- either the whole country is struggling against this problem (rather than against Party A that made a bad decision), or we as players are struggling as the tribe.
- Storytelling: It goes without saying, but storytelling is the key piece of any writing. Humans are naturally drawn to a narrative, and they like to see a beginning, middle and end, with genuine believable characters and an interesting plot. Most human stories fit a narrative, so use one. I’m not going to sub-tangent into how to construct a narrative, maybe something for a future article.

So apart from persuasive journalism, you can also write to present alternative opinions, or to reveal the truth. In both cases these are what is commonly called news, and should be essentially presented as fact. In these cases many of the above factors would weaken the impact of the article, the purpose of which is to present clear and current information, rather than to persuade the reader to a point of view. In these circumstances all opinions (for example from involved persons/interviews) should be clearly identified so the reader can understand that the source. Any analysis should be as impartial and thorough as possible. So in short: be clear, be factual, be impartial.



What you need to know to write the article

It is really important with any piece of writing to hear and understand what happened from the people involved. With the exception of a personal column/writing from experience, every topic you write about will be about, and involve, other players. How you get and include this information is up to you- some writers interview, and publish that interview directly. Others speak with people on an informal basis and ask questions, then use that to inform their writing. Others blend the two, paraphrasing discussions and quoting when needed. I tend to favour the latter system myself as it means I can have a natural conversation with the interviewee and still have a coherent article without all the seguays and tangents a conversation throws up.

When you speak to your first interviewee, you’ll find they start to tell you the “story” of what happened. It’s important to hear that, but that isn’t what you’ll use in your final article. What you want to know is their personal experience of what happened- who they spoke to, what they did, or saw, and what impact they observed. Hearing someone else’s second hand report is no use, because that in itself might be second or third hand, and things get confusing. You can ask the interviewee if they can recommend anyone else to speak to who was involved. Often through this trail of breadcrumbs you get enough perspectives to understand the full story. Often in eRepublik these type of stories are written by people who know all the key players and thus can talk to everyone quite easily- but no matter how new you are if you follow the above technique you can write about any topic.

To write an article you also need to understand how things happened. Most interviewees will be comfortable talking about things they’re expert in, but generally you shouldn’t have to ask them questions about game mechanics, country borders, tax rates and things like that. Know where to find that information- on the wiki, through guides, or by speaking to your government education minister. Sometimes the game mechanics will even give you an answer to some questions without you needing to ask. For example, if the question you have is “why are these three regions used in the training war?” the answer may be that it is because they have no resource bonuses.

With any article you will want to conclude, and to do that you need to understand the impact of the subject- whether it is a game change, a war, an election - or any topic. To do that you can look to both of the above. Look to see what the media reaction was, check to see what effect it had on tax income, on congress laws. Speak to the government - they are often most aware of this type of thing. Ask your interviewees what their experience was, and how their community reacted. Bring all this together to give your impression, and your predictions for the future. If your predictions follow logically, they will be the most important part of the article.



Who is your audience?

Finally, make sure you know your audience, and write for them. There are seventy plus different communities in eRepublik and all of them have their own separate media, and most their own languages. In eRepublik English is the most universal language, but there are huge communities in the game that speak other languages, and sometimes writing in those (or asking someone to translate) can be advantageous as well. Sometimes it is worth publishing in another region for 2 gold, to pick up new readers or to spread your ideas to a more appropriate community. For example if you are writing about a war between Romania and Hungary, you may get more interest publishing in one of those countries.

Nationality aside, there are other questions you need to answer. Are you writing the article for new players? If so you need to make sure you avoid acronyms or slang that they won’t understand. Are you writing for old players? If so you need to make sure you are not simply repeating the obvious too many times.

If you’re writing an article talking about (for example) a change in national or international politics, your real audience is actually very small. Whilst many people might vote for you, the people you need to persuade are the small group (usually less than 10 people) in the countries concerned who have influence over those decisions. In those circumstances, you need to really understand those people and their motivations in order to convince them.

Conclusions

To conclude, writing a good article is not a simple business. It is something that can be taught to a certain extent, but also requires practice with the help of a good editor who can offer comments and advice. In the past we had a large community of writers in the game who would post helpful feedback and advice, but that has somewhat dwindled now. Hence…



Economist School of Journalism

I am starting a school of journalism for interested writers. To be eligible you can be from any country, but since (initially at least) we will be writing in English, I need you to be fluent in the language. That is my fault; sadly linguistics is not amongst my skills.

The program will work through a series of weekly articles on a variety of topics we will decide together, collaboratively. I will work with you to advise on what elements you may need for your investigation and point you in the right direction if you struggle. Once you have written the article I will act as an editor and make any comments or (tracked) changes so you can see what needs to be improved and why. Because of the way this works, I would need you to have discord so that we can talk easily and you can speak with others on the program.

Any costs associated with the programme will of course be born by me. That includes publishing in other countries, or any other various expenditures that might be needed in the course of duty.

I hope that once completed, we will have a few more good journalists in the world, and the media will be a lot more lively. Anyone who really wants to can then help me with the next generation of students 🙂

If you’re interested, you can contact me on the UK discord channel, @Spite, and we can talk about whether it would be a good fit for what you’re looking for.

Thank you for reading,

Iain



Thank you’s

Back to the dry articles, I would like to thank all those who vote, subscribe and endorse the paper. You keep me going!

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