Write a single article
One topic or headline in, one source-backed article out - every step of the single-article request, from the brief to the finished piece.
The quickest way to get an article is to type one topic into the field on your dashboard. This page walks through that request step by step: what you type, what Mastheads shows you, what you can change, and what comes back.
On this page
Choose where it goes
Above the field, the writing surface says where the article will be filed: For you (your profile) or the name of one of your domains. The article takes that profile's or domain's language, country, voice, length and other defaults. Pick before you type.
Type a topic or a headline
You can type either:
- A topic or keyword -
cold brew coffee ratio. The desks first settle on a headline the article will be researched and written to, and show it to you as the suggested headline. - A headline you wrote -
How to Make Cold Brew That Isn't Bitter. Your headline is used exactly as you wrote it.
Write it the way your reader would search for it. That is the phrase the desks research.
Read the brief
Send the topic and the brief opens under the field, on the same page:
- The suggested headline, or your own.
- What the competition is doing - what the pages that already rank for the topic cover, so you can see the ground the article has to beat.
- Secondary keywords - related phrases worth using.
Nothing has been spent yet.
Shape the plan
Under the brief is the plan for the article:
- The sections - each heading, and what that section must answer.
- The kind of piece - Article, News story, Blog post, How-to guide, Opinion, Humour / light-hearted or Personal story. The plan proposes the kind your words point to; change it if you want another.
- Research - on by default. Leave it on for a source-backed article.
All of it is editable. Rename a section, delete one, add one, rewrite what a section should cover. The desks keep the structure you leave - they rewrite prose, not your headings. An article has at most eight sections.
If your domain uses a fixed section structure in its Article defaults, the plan starts from that structure instead.
Press Write
You see what the article costs from your allowance and confirm it. The ten editorial desks then research, write, check and illustrate the article. See How an article happens for what each desk does.
Your account can run five articles at once, so you can start another while this one is written. When it is done you get a notice in the app and an email.
What comes back
One finished article, with:
- the headline and sections you approved
- links inside the text to the pages it was written from
- a cover picture, if pictures are on
- the named byline it will publish under
- the authenticity panel: the desks that worked on it, the recorded checks, and anything the desks could not fix
From here you can edit it, review and publish it, or turn it into social posts with Distribute.
If no sources can be found
Sometimes the web has nothing usable on a topic, or what it has is about something else. Then nothing is written and nothing is charged. The run says which of the two it was, so you can rephrase the topic - usually by making it more specific, or by using the words the pages on that subject use.
One article, or a steady stream?
One request writes one article. For a subject you want covered again and again, there are two other routes:
- Paste many topics at once as an Assignment.
- Set up the autonomous newsroom for a domain, and it finds and writes stories on the topics you cover, at the times you set.
Related: Ask for an article · Find ideas · How an article happens