So the article goes forth. A few days pass, and the aspirant is beginning to meditate upon the best manner of spending the money to be received for it, when lo! it returns....
Needless to say, the aspirant has set about the difficult business of becoming an outside contributor in quite the wrong way. Before daring to enter upon the writing of an article, it is needful that she should, in particular, make a study of four important subjects:--
1. The distinguishing characteristics, policy, and general tone of all the leading dailies, weeklies, and monthlies.
4. Composition, including punctuation. I will deal briefly with these four.
1. The object of the journalistic aspirant is to supply a demand. But in order successfully to supply a demand, it is necessary to know with some exactitude the nature of that demand. Of what use to send stuff to editors until you have determined what sort of stuff they lack? To obtain this valuable information (since editors do not often issue circulars defining their wants) the only way is to make a scrutiny of their papers. Go daily, therefore, to a public reading-room, and examine attentively, observantly, the contents of the various publications. Ignore no paper because it has little interest for you personally, or because you have never heard its name before. The more papers you are familiar with, the wider your field for the disposal of articles. The outside contributor can never tell what paper must serve her turn next. At any moment a subject may occur to her which will suit, say, _The Pottery Gazette and China and Glass Trades Review_, and only _The Pottery Gazette and China and Glass Trades Review._ Study styles and subjects and idiosyncrasies, and count no detail unworthy of attention. The importance to the aspirant of this branch of self-training can scarcely be magnified.
2. Few men and very few women can be trusted to spell correctly every word in common use. I have seen the MSS. of many of the foremost women journalists of the day, and have found orthographic errors in nearly all of them. Of course spelling is not a matter of the highest importance--a certain great English novelist is notoriously incompetent in this respect, and relies upon his printers--but it deserves attention. Bad spelling spoils the appearance of the cleverest article, and raises a prejudice against it in the editorial mind. And not all bad spellers have the ingenuity of Mr. Umbrage of _The Silchester Mirror_, in Mr. J. M. Barrie's novel, _When a Man's Single_:--