I once worked in the market operation of an open source community (company) for a long time. The open source community, Geek, not only wrote strong code force, but also had amazing text output, so that there may be hundreds of thousands of articles reviewed and published from my hands. As a layman and brick-removal worker who reviewed manuscripts for big wigs, I have been exposed to them for a long time, and I have a general understanding of the criteria for what is called a “good article”.

This article shares some of my “side observations” with the Nuggets’ creators (juejin. Cn) in the hope that they will be helpful.

Why do these bigwigs “love” to write articles?

In addition to personal hobbies, I mainly have the following two aspects:

1. Accumulate personal experience and reflection by keeping a journal

If you go to the personal blog sites of tycoons, many of them just want to record their study notes and life details. Daily accumulation kuibu, even thousands of miles. Present experience is the best reference for solving problems in the future.

Well, bigwigs aren’t born bigwigs. Regular review and long-term thinking is a habit of the strong, and keeping a study/work journal is the best way to develop this habit.

2. Build personal brand through text output

If personal experience and thinking can help others solve problems and inspire others to create value, then that person is an attractive star. And that “pull” is personal branding.

As for the use of invisible “brands”?

  • Get your foot in the door: Don’t bother with your resume. Just put it on your Github home page and blog column
  • Is the golden sign of entrepreneurship: product cold start users need not worry, with fans trial feedback, word of mouth publicity.
  • It is a flow pool for realisation: there are many channels for realisation of professional knowledge, and big V with fans is the scarce product that the platform grabs.

I’m sure a lot of project/company names come to mind when you read these.

What are the commonalities of popular articles?

Hopefully the reader can get some “profit” from reading this article, which has the potential to become a hit, otherwise it is a private note.

Look for “popular articles” with particularly high reading, interaction (comment/share) data, which generally have the following characteristics:

  1. Practicability: Readers can use this article as a reference to solve their own practical problems.

  2. Inspiration (creativity) : readers can get inspiration from the text – broaden their horizon (new cognition of the same thing, horizontal comparison of different things), broaden their horizons (get a new perspective/new vision of things).

  3. Topic: this is for the “article title”, attractive good title is essential, but can not do the title party, “text is not right topic” the most reduced points, from the title is a metaphysics (here not to say, or will become “reading understanding” language class).

Figure/pixabay.com

How to write a popular article? An executable list

Before you start, you need to make it clear that you expect the reader to “benefit” from reading this article. And in the process of writing, always evaluate whether it is appropriate from the reader’s point of view.

Next, if you already have a creative theme, here is a list of actionable actions.

1. Identify your target audience

Identify the technical group for which the topic is targeted (divided by technical stack/work experience/position status, etc.), and consider whether the target readers can understand this article based on their technical foundation and familiarity with the topic?

2. Define the type of essay

In terms of genre, technical articles are basically expository. From the subject matter, can do simple classification:

  • Source code classes: not much to say.
  • Project Introduction: for every project on GitHubREADME.mdIs a project introduction article overview, project introduction can be more in-depth.
  • Practice: commonly known as tram pit text, the introduction of scenario-based use experience, tuning experience, best practice. For individuals, this is roughly equivalent to a “project roundup.”
  • Opinion: Analyze and evaluate technical trends and products through personal insight into a certain technical field and project, and output opinions.

(Requirements for the ability of creators are increasing in order)

3. Determine the structure of the text

Pay attention to the logic of the whole article, focus on the main points, priorities.

As mentioned above, “Technical articles are basically expository articles”. In principle, expository articles only illustrate one issue.

Take a classic structure:

  • Background – Overview of existing design objectives/functional implications/pain points, etc
  • Interpretation – implementation architecture/key details/usage/solution, etc
  • Summary — Summary of highlights/future improvement direction/open thinking.

The model does not list, we can find some articles set a set, or along the way to comb their own “comfortable” writing template.

4. A few writing tips

“Make things clear” is the first essence of writing an article, on this basis, then consider technical guidance, such as:

  • Guide readers’ interest in reading:

    Design a reading route from the reader’s point of view. For example, start with questions that the reader is interested in, and guide the reader to continue reading with the questions.

  • How to write the first and last paragraph:

    First paragraph: To guide the reader’s interest in reading, pay attention to the introduction of the meaning, refine the highlights of the article. The series can be echoed by the previous article.

    Conclusion: In addition to summarizing the highlights of this article, you can also discuss other solutions and industry trends, look ahead to future optimization/development efforts, and even leave questions for the reader to ponder. The end of a series can also give you a preview of the next article.

  • Reflect comparison: Before the conclusion chapter, test comparison results can be highlighted, and rich charts can more intuitively and strongly support the conclusion.

  • Use parallel sentences: when analyzing the reasons or summarizing the results, use parallel statements (1,2,3), which will be clearer and more logical.

  • Use metaphors to set the mood and pace.

(The model is not listed here, in order to rush the time to be weak, there is no time to find.)

5. Pay attention to detail — Strong people are detail oriented

Code, articles should pursue extreme elegance, strong details are able to withstand a wide range of tests.

  • Note the TOC presentation: you need a good editor, and a publishing platform for articles
    • The nuggets Markdown editor will soon be updated with flowcharts, mathematical formulas, and code highlighting support. It’s not the best ever, but it’s the most sincere on any developer creation platform.
  • General vocabulary (unfamiliar words are not used to explain strange words), unambiguous proper nouns (a noun in the full text of the case should be uniform).
  • Examples should be selected for the technical base of the target audience, be as concise and representative as possible, and make use of pseudo-code.
  • Chart and text combined to ease the reading burden.

I am small white, how should practice?

If you are a white person, in addition to delving into technology and developing skills, you can also try this in terms of writing articles.

1. Actively acquire quality information and read widely

Strong input, strong output.

First, establish your own information database, such as subscribing to domestic and foreign technology Weekly (some are email subscriptions), authoritative website RSS, or do your own personal information Bot.

Of course, a faster way is to install a Gold nuggets browser plug-in that can partially replace this function.

2. Translation is more efficient than reading. Try to process the information yourself

When you see excellent articles from abroad, whether you can read them fluently or understand them through machine translation, you can try to translate them by yourself. The process of translation is also a process of learning and thinking. You can also join the Nuggets Translation Project, an open source project that allows you to post, claim translation tasks, review them, and learn and progress with others on GitHub.

3. Summarize and validate your methodology

Publish your own articles on an open third-party platform, and find your own creative routines by summarizing reading data and feedback from others. Creation → summary → verification, infinite cycle.

4. Learn to “compare” yourself to others to find room for improvement

here There is a hard wide.

We did an activity based on spring recruitment. We designed task lines and rewards for students who want to punch in and get offers and those who want to improve their skills by staying put. I won’t go into details here.

Among them, the task of “Route 2: Technical Review” is from March 1st to March 13th. If you complete 3 technical review articles (including translation of excellent overseas technical review articles), you can win the grand prize (we are considering increasing the weight of the prize). Welcome to join the group and communicate with us.

Scan the qr code below, add nuggets sauce as friends, reply “promotion and salary increase” to join the group, we play together.