on The Write Life:

Would you consider yourself a pantser or a planner? No matter what you write, there are those who approach their projects with a plan, and those who prefer flying the seat of their pants. Most writers are somewhere in between. They like knowing where they’re heading, and would rather not have another staredown with the blank page. This is where the article template comes in.

Article templates are especially suited for freelance writers, bloggers or journalists who write articles, rather than those who are writing book-length works. (But if you’re looking for a book outline template, check out this resource.)

How to use an article template

Before we get into types of article templates you can use for your next project, I want to talk about how I prepared this article using a template. This is not to say there is a right or wrong way to use templates, but rather to demonstrate one way an article can come together using this type of tool.