17 ms·

A blogging style guide

495 points by mbaytas 8y ago

graystevens 8y ago
Well timed – I’ve been trying to get back into blogging, as a way of sharing and giving back, as well as improving my personal ‘brand’. I was never really happy with the visual format of my site, which I think put me off writing at times - “if it were me, I’m not sure I’d read this in this format, it’s too visually taxing”. However with a quick style change to something much more basic, I’m feeling much more confident. I think my final hurdle, which this article may help with, is my writing style. I get the impression that my ‘style’ changes fairly regularly, or depending on the topic or post I write for a different audience. This likely doesn’t matter too much for those visitors who come for a single post and move on, but anyone who would like to peruse around may get a slightly jarring experience.
- saagarjha 8y ago
  You've basically summed up my experience: I just revamped my blog and pushed myself to put some content out, and now I'm much more receptive to putting stuff on it. Writing well is still difficult, though…
- CM30 8y ago
  This is a similar issue to my own one; I'm way too easy to distract with the promise of neat tech or extra features, so end up spending longer coding the site than actually writing anything on it. Wonder how many other developers end up falling into that trap?
  - Tallain 8y ago
    I did, and realized that I'd spent all this time that was meant to be for writing on coding / finding cool tools / setting things up. Guilt overpowered the fun in this and I threw it all away and just installed Wordpress. I still play with the tech, but in a different time block, away from the writing itself.
matt4077 8y ago
I love Robert’s humanity shining through in this piece. “It doesn’t hurt you in any way, so just do it instead of arguing” is both trivial and rare. Today’s low-hanging fruits of moral advice, so to speak.
bigblind 8y ago
Loved this style guide. As a non-native English speaker, I think it's even more important to be mindful of your style, so you don't continuously use a limited vocabulary or small set of idioms. I would have liked some good/bad example sentences for some of these.
- rubatuga 8y ago
  I think number 26 was an example of bad humour.
0xferruccio 8y ago
Great tips on writing, made me want to read more from the author and I found his post on WeSeeYou democratizing de-anonymization hilarious and thought provoking https://robertheaton.com/2017/10/17/we-see-you-democratizing-de-anonymization/ https://robertheaton.com/2017/10/17/we-see-you-democratizing...
zabana 8y ago
Non native English speaker writing: I have perfect understanding of the language and I can even differentiate between different accents, but one of things I struggle with the most is written communication. I don't seem to be able to express my thoughts as fluidly as I can orally. My brain just freezes out whenever I try to write "complicated" sentences which I find extremely irritating. I don't know why this is and would love some pointers on how to improve my (and others in the same boat) writing skills.
- sametmax 8y ago
  Read a lot of books of various style and content. Meanwhile, practice writting in a rewarding and safe environment. That's it.
- tzmudzin 8y ago
  > My brain just freezes out whenever I try to write "complicated" sentences which I find extremely irritating. Don't do this. Follow "The Economist Style Guide" instead: "Clarity of writing usually follows clarity of thought. So think what you want to say, then say it as simply as possible."
  - shaki-dora 8y ago
    I like the version of a former judge on Germany’s Supreme Court: “Think like a philosopher, write like a peasant”.
    - senderista 8y ago
      If only German philosophers had taken that advice.
      - tvanantwerp 8y ago
        A guest lecturer from Germany comes to a university classroom and begins giving his speech in German. After five minutes, a bored student gets up to leave. "No, wait!" interjects the German lecturer. "I've almost gotten to the verb!"
Veen 8y ago
This is great, although I'd suggest people steer clear of Strunk and White -- it's ancient and full of nonsense. Instead, try Steven Pinker's "The Sense of Style", "Artful Sentences" by Virginia Tuft, and a new favorite, "First Write a Sentence" by Joe Moran.
- okl 8y ago
  > This is great, although I'd suggest people steer clear of Strunk and White -- it's ancient and full of nonsense. Could you provide an example?
  - Veen 8y ago
    This is a good place to start, and you'll find some defences on the same page: https://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/happy-birthday-strunk-and-white/#geoffrey https://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/happy-bir... This is a more complete set of criticisms. http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/50years.pdf http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/50years.pdf Also see Language log, which has many posts on the wrongness of S&W. EDIT: If you're not familiar with Pullum, he's the co-author of the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language and probably the most respected grammarian alive today.
    - okl 8y ago
      I found the comment section on the NYT blog more intriguing than the article. The arguments brought forth by Pullum (I don't appreciate your appeal to authority) are completely ridiculous, examples: > .. both authors were grammatical incompetents. There are many ad hominems of this kind in the article. > No force on earth can prevent undergraduates from injecting opinion. And anyway, sometimes that is just what we want from them. Whether you should write subjectively surely depends on the type of text that you are writing. Providing style advice based on expectations of which urges undergraduates can't resist is laughable. > "There were a great number of dead leaves lying on the ground" has no sign of the passive in it anywhere. The book does not claim that this sentence is in passive form at all: "Many a tame sentence of description or exposition can be made lively and emphatic by substituting a verb in the active voice for some perfunctory expression as there is, or could be heard." (cited sentence follows) Pullum also cites three works of literature from around 1900 that do contain the phrase none of us exactly once (?!) followed by a plural verb to make the point that none of us should be followed by a plural verb. > "The copy editor's old bugaboo about not using \"which\" to introduce a restrictive relative clause is also an instance of failure to look at the evidence. Elements as revised by White endorses that rule." I don't know where he found that rule; my edition of the book does not contain it. For that article Pullum gets no respect from me. He set out to bash the book and its authors with ad hominem arguments, falsifications and far-fetched proof.
firefoxd 8y ago
Many years ago, i added a script to my blog to scan for certain words and throw an error if I ever use them. Earlier this year, i was having trouble publishing my article. No matter what I did, it would simply refuse. I try locally with a sample text, it works fine. I spent hours testing, and blaming technology until I reread the error logs carefully: > The word "Viviparous" is not allowed in this blog.
- killaken2000 8y ago
  Why did you block "viviparous"?
- saagarjha 8y ago
  Now I'm curious about the content of your blog…
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
rubatuga 8y ago
I see a lot of great tips, and I believe that anybody who wants to touch up on their writing skills should bookmark this page, especially for later editing. For the tips about humour, I have to strongly agree. Badly executed humour just comes off as confusing or unprofessional (or both!).
dewey 8y ago
Thanks for posting that, it sums up a lot of points I always have in my head when I'm reading other blog posts but couldn't quite put my finger on it. I really wish more people would especially take the advice of 11 and 12. Too many articles (Main offender being posts on Medium) are just made unreadable by using memes, gifs and swearing.
Entalpi 8y ago
Slighty off-topic but I find (as a non-native English speaker) the whole deal with ”he/she” to be super annoying when reading. Especially when the gender is basically not important such as when talking about what the dentist said (or w/e). Is there any trick so to speak to avoid such situations? Also, in Swedish we have ”he/she/* = han/hon/hen”. Which is soo useful and I am still kind of amazed that the term ”hen” is a relative modern invention. I wonder how in earlier days people referred to other people when the gender was not the main focus. Maybe it was always more important before? Or was perhaps the use of titles (the Dentristess..?) a way to denote gender an important communication tool?
- smnscu 8y ago
  They https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
- TonnyGaric 8y ago
  See point 19: >"They" is a great word for referring to an unspecified person of an unspecified gender.
- glormph 8y ago
  I guess in earlier days they used the form they found appropriate and didnt think about it much more. Also, as much as you and I like it, the gender-neutral pronoun in swedish is relatively modern enough for it to be yet hardly used in everyday communication (YMMV of course).
- opan 8y ago
  I heard at some point (maybe in school, maybe not) that if the gender is not known, you just pick one and stick with it. Some people also take the approach of switching back and forth out of fairness. I find this even worse than saying "he/she".
- freehunter 8y ago
  Historically in English, the masculine form was the default gender-neutral term. "Mankind" to refer to all humans. "All men are created equal" to refer to all humans. "No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality" refers to all humans. More recently as other comments have pointed out, singular "they/their" has become more accepted. "No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of their nationality nor denied the right to change their nationality".
azangru 8y ago
Do people write (blog) for themselves any more? This blog post frames the whole experience as an extroverted attempt to please the audience that is not yourself. Which is totally fine if you regard blogs as a medium directed primarily outwards, at others. I am just curious whether anyone writes primarily for themselves (in order to better organise their thoughts, or leave a reference for their future self), where any readership is purely accidental, not the raison d'etre? I know that I do.
- random_kris 8y ago
  I plan on doing something like that. I work as a programmer and recently I've been tackling some interesting problems and I've been thinking about documenting everything (the problem, my approach, my solution etc...) my goal is to have that blog as a future reference for myself and track my progress... if anyone comes to my blog and read that stuff then that is even better!
- ig0r0 8y ago
  Sure we do. I personally I have a programming blog mainly as a "reminder" about how I solved the programming problems I had. And it happened to me a few times that searching for a solution led me to my post :)
- tpaschalis 8y ago
  Yes, people do! From my time in HN, I've accumulated a list of links to smaller/niche blogs, that you wouldn't stumble on by chance, except if you were searching for something extremely specific. You don't have to add analytics and play the numbers game, but just as ig0r0 mentioned, it's a great exercise to improving your writing, document your learning experience or an obscure solution for easy future reference. It's easier than ever to get started (as easy as forking a Github project and uploading your markdown), and as a bonus it might also look good on a CV.
- henrik_w 8y ago
  Many of the reasons why I blog are for my own benefit, but it is also fun if people read what I write, so it is a mix really. My reasons in roughly order of importance: - Knowing what I think - Sharing knowledge - Venting - To learn (when I get comments on my views) - To remember better, e.g. for books I've read - To have an archive to refer people to - For the thrill of having people read what I write - For self promotion I wrote about it in more detail here: https://henrikwarne.com/2017/11/26/6-years-of-thoughts-on-programming/ https://henrikwarne.com/2017/11/26/6-years-of-thoughts-on-pr...
julesie 8y ago
As a female computer programmer called Julianne, I chuckled at point 18.
tpaschalis 8y ago
Robert has an awesome blog! Stuff like this makes me appreciative, but also jealous of people who can have the skill to put concepts and thoughts into simple and eloquent words. It's been almost two years since I've started my own little corner of the internet and of course, it initially it was somewhat awful, but I'm also happy to see my writing (and that corner) improve gradually. I'd recommend to anyone to do the same!
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
davemp 8y ago
My problem is editing. I’ll write an article, do a revision, then let it collect dust. I don’t really believe in posting a long form article that hasn’t been reviewed by someone who understands the topic. I almost always leave out some not-so implicit knowledge or don’t expound enough on the more interesting points. It’s hard to address these types of issues without a fresh pair of eyes. Most of my peers don’t know how to effectively get through a 10 page pdf and give only the most useful feedback. I feel like they are scared of being overly critical or think I’m expecting they invest more than a single read through and thoughts. Maybe I’ll go back and give the third draft on some of these articles a try anyways.
- gtirloni 8y ago
  A 10-page blog post is hard to digest for most people. If you break it in a few parts, your peers will be able to review them more easily, plus it gives your audience an incentive to come back (and also time for them to digest each piece as well).
- barman 8y ago
  For editing, one thing that has helped me is learning sales copywriting and direct response. Copywriting forces you to trim the cruft and makes you take the reader's perspective. Their time is valuable so you need to be entertaining and engaging, AND you need to get to the point fast. Tested Advertising Methods & Scientific Advertising are just some of the classic books about sales copy. I don't know what topic you're writing about, but sometimes you really just need to get your work out there, despite it not being perfect. I spent too much time writing and re-writing this article on procrastination (https://medium.freecodecamp.org/procrastination-sucks-so-heres-the-eat-that-frog-way-to-powerful-productivity-543b07ecf360 https://medium.freecodecamp.org/procrastination-sucks-so-her...) till I finally said "f--- it, I'm going to write this last section about finishing and shipping, then hit the publish button"
  - davemp 8y ago
    I’ll give copying writing a try! Letting an article sit seems like it might be needed for self editing. At least for me specifically. > I'm going to write this last section about finishing and shipping, then hit the publish button" Fitting. Nice article as well!
gizzlon 8y ago
Good input and definitely worth considering. Bookmarked :) I really do dislike #18 though: "If you need a quick name for a generic fictional character, consider using one from a culture or gender that you usually wouldn't.[..] the cost of sometimes calling your imaginary computer programmers Julianna is zero." First of all, there's a often a good reason you usually wouldn't: It's not realistic. And many readers will pick up on that and be annoyed. So the cost is not zero. More generally, I think truth matters, and talking about the world as it is does not mean we don't want change. Pretending the world is somehow "better" than it really is does not help anyone.
- CJefferson 8y ago
  It's not realistic to have a programmer called Julianna? I better let my friend know. I always thought her C++ was good, but I was obviously wrong.
  - gizzlon 8y ago
    Women can code. Most programmers are men
    - whack 8y ago
      I think you're reading far too much into a blogger naming one of their fictional characters "Juliana" Speaking of reality, I seldom come across Chinese/Indian names either, even though they make up a huge portion of the industry. Do you get annoyed by that as well?
      - gizzlon 8y ago
        "I think you're reading far too much into a blogger naming one of their fictional characters "Juliana"" That's not what OP is saying, and it's not one blogpost. For a more general background check out this podcast (or hes book that I haven't read): https://www.jordanharbinger.com/jonathan-haidt-the-danger-of-good-intentions-and-safe-spaces/ https://www.jordanharbinger.com/jonathan-haidt-the-danger-of... (ok, not the same, but related) That stands to reason, yes. It's not the case where I live though.
k__ 8y ago
When I wrote one blog article a week I tried to write small pieces with actionable content. Explaining render props in React. Explaining JavaScript promises. Explaining Webpack's offline plugin. Often with code examples.
Hard_Space 8y ago
> Many articles begin with a human framing, even those about highly technical topics. Having established a relatable hook, the author quickly moves on to the general point of the piece, before returning at the end to the mid-Western accountant they opened with. Radically disagree with this. Starting everything from recipes to teardowns with a story about your first dog is getting to be a real curse of the internet lately.
- libdjml 8y ago
  Agreed. If you’re trying that hard to build a relatable hook, maybe what you’re writing about just simply isn’t that important/useful?
- sacado2 8y ago
  If it's too artificial, that's right. But, answering the question "why am I blogging about that? Why is that important?" is a great way to start an article. And, most of the time, you can do it with a story-like setup.
  - belorn 8y ago
    I think doing so is a major mistake. The reader found the text through either searching or reference (like a link on HN), and thus the answer "why am I reading this" is already provided before they even loaded the site. It is much better to hook the reader with what makes the text unique, confirming the decision to continue reading, and then further down explain why this is important, the history, and why the author is writing about it.
    - sacado2 8y ago
      Indeed, but IMO that's the role of the "chapô" (not sure about the English word there; abstract? leading paragraph? I mean the short first paragraph, sometimes written in a different font, that's here to engage the reader). So, in an article titled "is blogging still relevant?", that first paragraph could be something like "Contrary to popular belief, blogging is still a viable economic activity nowadays. Finding readers may be harder than before, and require some more efforts from the reader, though". And, then, have your article start as a pure story : "You're in front of your computer, facing the blank screen. Finding ideas is hard, today. You start asking yourself "Does it even make sense? Bah, nobody will read my prose anyway". Then, you close your word processor and look for the new cat video, thinking it's a better use of your time. Well, you couldn't be more wrong. Blah blah..." OR, after the leading paragraph, you could still use a narrative stucture (setup, problem, attempts to solve the problem), but in a low profile version, ie without the made up character: "Numbers don't lie: there are 10 times more blogs nowadays than 5 years ago, and people spend 5 times less time on blogs, since they spend most of their online time on facebook or instagram. One might wonder if starting a new blog today still makes sense. Well, first, blah blah..."
fathead_glacier 8y ago
The post provides useful set of rules to follow when writing text. I want to add another one which I have found to be beneficial to my work: the write-good linter for English prose (https://github.com/btford/write-good https://github.com/btford/write-good). Using linters for writing text helps to systematically avoid transcribing everyday speech into written text. A habit which is widespread among people who write infrequently and without a peer review. For me the best workflow is to pass a text document to the linter before the build/deployment procedure (after finishing all writing work!) and modify the highlighted entries. As a result I can see which sentences can be phrased in a way which improves their structure and ultimately the quality of the text.
maaaats 8y ago
> Stay away from memes - they're just cliches propagated at the speed of Twitter. Never do anything to "all the things". :tada: A standard technical post on Medium is a couple of meme-images with no context throughout :ok_hand:, and emojis absolutely everywhere. :partyparrot: - Commented with :heart: by Mats
nickjj 8y ago
I've been writing for a while (few years, 200+ technical posts) and I have to admit, I don't follow most of the advice in that guide. I pretty much go with: Explain the why, show the how, make it as concise as possible, and whenever possible share shorties from real world experiences to make it relatable to a use case. Also, up until writing this comment I didn't even realize I was doing the above. In other words, I don't set out to do that for every post. It just comes out like that naturally because most of my posts are based on experiences instead of forcing or trying to invent a blog post.
codingdave 8y ago
One final item I'd add to this list: It is your own writing for your own reasons. Feel free to ignore any rule that you disagree with or just don't like, in particular if your write as a personal exercise, and not to try to build an audience.
sideshowb 8y ago
Can someone expand on this? > There’s a three-way tradeoff between establishing credibility, being honest when you aren’t an expert, and sounding like a douche. For example: “No, I didn’t go to writing school. I learned my trade at the University of Life, the School of Hard Knocks, and the physics department at St Catherine’s College, Oxford University.” Is the example meant to be douchey or not?
- dredmorbius 8y ago
  False humility. "I'm unqualified, except that I'm extraordinarily qualified."
  - sideshowb 8y ago
    To me it comes across as self deprecating e.g. I am very qualified in something but it isn't writing which is the relevant thing in this context. Goes to show how tone can come across differently than you think. Anyway aren't Oxford departments separate from colleges?
claudiawerner 8y ago
>It's entertaining to poke fun at the downsides and pomposities of capitalism without denying the fact that strengthened property rights appear to have been responsible for much of humanity's progress in the last century or two. What a bizarre ideological point to see in an article like this.
platz 8y ago
> strengthened property rights appear to have been responsible Economists do not universally agree on the root cause of 20-21st century growth
- pluma 8y ago
  That sentence really came out of left field. "Here's how to write a blog post. [..] It's okay to poke fun at my particular ideology but you still have to admit I'm right."
cafard 8y ago
"""It's fine to use a thesaurus to look up an alternative word for "clever" because you already used "clever" a few sentences ago. Just don't come back with "meretricious".""" Good grief. I don't have a thesaurus, but do they really give those as equivalents?
- endisukaj 8y ago
  They give many (all?) alternatives. It's up to the writer to pick the word they want and usually inexperienced writers will pick a complicated word that makes them seem clever.
- wenc 8y ago
  Also, "meretricious" doesn't mean clever at all. It means "apparently attractive but having in reality no value or integrity." The only time I've seen the word in print was in the Sherlock Holmes books. Benedict Cumberbatch also used it once in BBC's Sherlock.
bovermyer 8y ago
I love that the second point is basically: "No, what you write won't matter, but nothing else does either, so go ahead and write." Curiously, that makes me want to write more.
- Sileni 8y ago
  It's going all the way through to the other side, in the spirit of Camus. The world is so saturated with absurdity that absurdity is the only place to grab hold.
  - nyc111 8y ago
    > The world is so saturated with absurdity that absurdity is the only place to grab hold. That's why my blog is called something like "World's Absurd States" which sounds better in Turkish. But also I think nothing I write matters so I keep writing. I write about so many different subjects that people read the article they came for and they leave without checking other stuff. It's true that you have to find a nich and write only about that subject. I don't even think people have patience to read my long articles. But I write for myself. My most popular post by far is a brief article about the relationship of nipples with litter size. Is there a relationship with nipple number and average litter size? I still cannot understand why so many people are curious about this topic. Everyday a few people drop by to read that article. Unfortunately, in wordpress.com I cannot see which search terms leads to my article.
    - Sileni 8y ago
      Google analytics is really easy to set up, and would allow you to see what lead to your page. That would mean you have a google tracker on your site though.
      - nyc111 8y ago
        I read that GA is only available if I upgrade to Business plan which is obviously out of the question for me now.
- 8y ago
proxygeek 8y ago
There is some good advice in here, some which I myself stumbled across after trial and error. But 39 points?! May be it's just me but whenever I see a list with over 10 items, I just get so tired when thinking about it. Ultimately it just gets filed away, never to be referred again. I wish the post started out saying "9 things to get your writing style better" instead of "...39 ways to make your blog..." In fact, even 10 is a long list. These days I try not to make lists more than 5 items long. Even shorter when it comes to list of things to do. Of course, each item can have some sub-items, if needed. Edit: auto-correct mistakes and rewording
- SyneRyder 8y ago
  I was about to criticize you for not strengthening your attention span, that maybe sometimes you really do need 39 points... but on closer reading, I agree this could have been trimmed down. At the very least, 34 - 36 are variations of the same theme, and I'd simplify the entire section on humor down to just point 25: "It's better to be clear than funny." But it seems like this was written as 39 points that help the author when they write, and it just happens that many of the points that help them are also useful to others. There's a lot of really good stuff in here & I wouldn't dismiss it just on length.
- calcifer 8y ago
  I suppose this is a natural consequence of the Twitter generation where attention spans longer than 2 minutes are for firmly in the realm of old people but no, if a 15 minute read gets you "so tired when thinking about it", the problem isn't with the author.
adtac 8y ago
So I used to have a blog, but I felt this pressure to publish stuff regularly. And that showed in the quality of posts I wrote; shitty, unsolicited articles about nothing. And when I didn't have enough content (whatever that means), I just filled it with random garbage. I've deleted that blog entirely since then. I've also come to the conclusion that there are two kinds of posts - regular, essay-like blog posts and just random thoughts. These random thoughts could just be 1-2 lines or just a paragraph. You don't need to develop them into a full article. Twitter is designed for this, but Twitter is also suitable for a lot of other things, so you shouldn't feel like you can't have these in your blog. Maybe I should write a blog post about this lol. I've been collecting topics to write in a text file so that I won't run out of stuff to write. But I now think it's perfectly fine to go 3-4 months without an article, until you feel like writing one that's worthy. I know this is a bit contradictory to point 2/39 in this post, but I just thought I should share.
- justinator 8y ago
  I remember when you could just throw just anything you'd like up on a site and call it good. Curating was (or could be) part of it, but if you wanted to say, "fuck curation" you could. It was YOUR website; it's not a curated exhibit in a museum. Just be an amateur at something. Make a lot of noise!
  - wenc 8y ago
    I think that's ok if you're writing for yourself or for a bunch of friends. But good blogs with steady readership generally curate. Readers gravitate towards quality (because time and attention span are precious) and lose interest fast if the quality is all over the place. Most bloggers write more posts than they actually publish. The published ones are the ones that pass muster. We don't see the stuff in their drafts folder.
- thex10 8y ago
  > I've also come to the conclusion that there are two kinds of posts I had come to this same conclusion for my own posting habits! I'm hoping to finish my website this weekend and will probably implement a microblog for the little thoughts and a (macro?)blog for the bigger pieces. (I'd just use Twitter as my microblog but I like the idea of inline hyperlinks in my posts more than is perhaps healthy.)
vaer-k 8y ago
> 29. Be sparing with pronouns in technical writing. It's better to repeat a noun than have it be unclear what "it" refers to. This is the most valuable piece of advice I hope most readers will take from this article for their technical writing.
- ergothus 8y ago
  This advice ("avoid unspecified pronouns") also applies to communicating in text, period. SMS, IRC, Slack, in all of them you can avoid a lot of confusion by being clear in your nouns. BAD: "We're hooking up the refresh token to the API next week. It was broken by a bad commit, but that is fixed" GOOD: "We're hooking up the refresh token to the API next week. The token was broken by a bad commit, but that commit is fixed" This advice is one of the two most important tips for clear communication in text I know of. The other tip is: don't ask an A or !A question - you'll just get "yes" or "no" as an answer. Instead, ask to confirm A and not B. BAD: "Are we releasing this week? Or next week?" GOOD: "We are releasing this week, not next week, right?" This second tip, however, requires a lot more work to make natural.
  - LinuxBender 8y ago
    Great examples. For the release, I would specify the date, time and timezone.
  - tunesmith 8y ago
    The A or !A thing never fails. But it's more a hack to work around other people having poor communication skills. It's also good advice to pay attention to the question being asked of you, and actually answer it. So if someone asks you, "Are we releasing this week? Or was it next week?", don't reflexively answer "yes" or "no".
StellaQueen 8y ago
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chiefalchemist 8y ago
Perhaps one of the more helpful / useful things I've read in the last few weeks. My personal rule of thumb, which arcs over a number of the finer points, is: "It's not what you say, it's what they hear." So when it comes to humor, pronouns, self-deprecation, etc. you have to step back and crank up the empathy. Will they hear what you intended, or might you be misinterpreted / misunderstood?
ncmncm 8y ago
He should have said about the thesaurus: it's only for reminders -- don't use a word from it you would not have used; your readers probably won't know it either. And, "Elements of Style" is a manual on how to lose confidence in your writing. Read Geoff Pullum's essay on what he calls "the nasty book": "The land of the free and The Elements of Style", http://ling.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/LandOfTheFree.pdf http://ling.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/LandOfTheFree.pdf
- derefr 8y ago
  The best use of a thesaurus, is to replace a ten-dollar word you remember, with a one-dollar word you just can't seem to.
- combatentropy 8y ago
  Let me just add my take here. You don't have to agree with it. But it seems unrepresentative for this to be the only remark about the Elements of Style. I started to read the PDF you link to, "The Land of the Free." I found myself disagreeing with sentence after sentence. It doesn't help that he uses Strunk's first edition, which is very, very different from the famous second and third editions (my favorite). The edition he looks at is just Strunk. There is no White. - Strunk and White did not write it together. Strunk was one of White's professors. Strunk had a homemade textbook. Strunk died. Decades later, White's publisher asked White to take Strunk's old handbook and rewrite and add some stuff. White did. The second edition. I can't remember if I have read this edition. I own the third edition and have read it over and over. - When I look at the first edition online, it is much less inspiring. It has a lot more tedious tidbits and completely lacks the second half that White added. - Even the third edition has stuff that I'm not sure is that important. But for me the overall gist was groundbreaking. Things like shorter is better. Don't try to be fancy and draw attention to yourself. Basically, writing is not some competition for fanciness. Many people think it is, but if you are trying to write for the sake of the reader --- instead of just to make yourself look good --- you will try to write efficiently and clearly. - To me this was groundbreaking, because in not a single English class was this book ever mentioned, the overall teaching of all my classes was totally different, and the output by most of the world (blogs, textbooks, emails, whatever) seems to indicate that they have never read Strunk and White at all. "The Land of the Free" seems to say the opposite, that the Elements of Style is oppressing everyone, that most people are following it. Maybe in his neck of the woods, but not anywhere I have been.
burnt_toast 8y ago
Thanks for the post. I really like point 2: "If you’re wondering whether you should write a piece at all, you probably should" If the topic is something you've just learned, it can be helpful to write about it right then versus a week down the road. The topic will feel more meaningful, and your less likely to downplay your own accomplishments.
kapilkaisare 8y ago
> 20. Alternatively you can also alternate between "he" and "she" and toss a coin to see who goes first. Please, don't. Pick a single pronoun and stick to it. The alternating between he and she has left me confused for a minute on more than one occasion. If you must be politically correct, why not use 'they' instead?

495 points by mbaytas 8y ago

Well timed – I’ve been trying to get back into blogging, as a way of sharing and giving back, as well as improving my personal ‘brand’. I was never really happy with the visual format of my site, which I think put me off writing at times - “if it were me, I’m not sure I’d read this in this format, it’s too visually taxing”. However with a quick style change to something much more basic, I’m feeling much more confident. I think my final hurdle, which this article may help with, is my writing style. I get the impression that my ‘style’ changes fairly regularly, or depending on the topic or post I write for a different audience. This likely doesn’t matter too much for those visitors who come for a single post and move on, but anyone who would like to peruse around may get a slightly jarring experience.

saagarjha 8y ago
You've basically summed up my experience: I just revamped my blog and pushed myself to put some content out, and now I'm much more receptive to putting stuff on it. Writing well is still difficult, though…
CM30 8y ago
This is a similar issue to my own one; I'm way too easy to distract with the promise of neat tech or extra features, so end up spending longer coding the site than actually writing anything on it. Wonder how many other developers end up falling into that trap?
- Tallain 8y ago
  I did, and realized that I'd spent all this time that was meant to be for writing on coding / finding cool tools / setting things up. Guilt overpowered the fun in this and I threw it all away and just installed Wordpress. I still play with the tech, but in a different time block, away from the writing itself.

matt4077 8y ago

I love Robert’s humanity shining through in this piece. “It doesn’t hurt you in any way, so just do it instead of arguing” is both trivial and rare. Today’s low-hanging fruits of moral advice, so to speak.

bigblind 8y ago

Loved this style guide. As a non-native English speaker, I think it's even more important to be mindful of your style, so you don't continuously use a limited vocabulary or small set of idioms. I would have liked some good/bad example sentences for some of these.

rubatuga 8y ago
I think number 26 was an example of bad humour.

0xferruccio 8y ago

Great tips on writing, made me want to read more from the author and I found his post on WeSeeYou democratizing de-anonymization hilarious and thought provoking https://robertheaton.com/2017/10/17/we-see-you-democratizing-de-anonymization/ https://robertheaton.com/2017/10/17/we-see-you-democratizing...

zabana 8y ago

Non native English speaker writing: I have perfect understanding of the language and I can even differentiate between different accents, but one of things I struggle with the most is written communication. I don't seem to be able to express my thoughts as fluidly as I can orally. My brain just freezes out whenever I try to write "complicated" sentences which I find extremely irritating. I don't know why this is and would love some pointers on how to improve my (and others in the same boat) writing skills.

sametmax 8y ago
Read a lot of books of various style and content. Meanwhile, practice writting in a rewarding and safe environment. That's it.
tzmudzin 8y ago
> My brain just freezes out whenever I try to write "complicated" sentences which I find extremely irritating. Don't do this. Follow "The Economist Style Guide" instead: "Clarity of writing usually follows clarity of thought. So think what you want to say, then say it as simply as possible."
- shaki-dora 8y ago
  I like the version of a former judge on Germany’s Supreme Court: “Think like a philosopher, write like a peasant”.
  - senderista 8y ago
    If only German philosophers had taken that advice.
    - tvanantwerp 8y ago
      A guest lecturer from Germany comes to a university classroom and begins giving his speech in German. After five minutes, a bored student gets up to leave. "No, wait!" interjects the German lecturer. "I've almost gotten to the verb!"

Veen 8y ago

This is great, although I'd suggest people steer clear of Strunk and White -- it's ancient and full of nonsense. Instead, try Steven Pinker's "The Sense of Style", "Artful Sentences" by Virginia Tuft, and a new favorite, "First Write a Sentence" by Joe Moran.

okl 8y ago
> This is great, although I'd suggest people steer clear of Strunk and White -- it's ancient and full of nonsense. Could you provide an example?
- Veen 8y ago
  This is a good place to start, and you'll find some defences on the same page: https://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/happy-birthday-strunk-and-white/#geoffrey https://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/happy-bir... This is a more complete set of criticisms. http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/50years.pdf http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/50years.pdf Also see Language log, which has many posts on the wrongness of S&W. EDIT: If you're not familiar with Pullum, he's the co-author of the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language and probably the most respected grammarian alive today.
  - okl 8y ago
    I found the comment section on the NYT blog more intriguing than the article. The arguments brought forth by Pullum (I don't appreciate your appeal to authority) are completely ridiculous, examples: > .. both authors were grammatical incompetents. There are many ad hominems of this kind in the article. > No force on earth can prevent undergraduates from injecting opinion. And anyway, sometimes that is just what we want from them. Whether you should write subjectively surely depends on the type of text that you are writing. Providing style advice based on expectations of which urges undergraduates can't resist is laughable. > "There were a great number of dead leaves lying on the ground" has no sign of the passive in it anywhere. The book does not claim that this sentence is in passive form at all: "Many a tame sentence of description or exposition can be made lively and emphatic by substituting a verb in the active voice for some perfunctory expression as there is, or could be heard." (cited sentence follows) Pullum also cites three works of literature from around 1900 that do contain the phrase none of us exactly once (?!) followed by a plural verb to make the point that none of us should be followed by a plural verb. > "The copy editor's old bugaboo about not using \"which\" to introduce a restrictive relative clause is also an instance of failure to look at the evidence. Elements as revised by White endorses that rule." I don't know where he found that rule; my edition of the book does not contain it. For that article Pullum gets no respect from me. He set out to bash the book and its authors with ad hominem arguments, falsifications and far-fetched proof.

firefoxd 8y ago

Many years ago, i added a script to my blog to scan for certain words and throw an error if I ever use them. Earlier this year, i was having trouble publishing my article. No matter what I did, it would simply refuse. I try locally with a sample text, it works fine. I spent hours testing, and blaming technology until I reread the error logs carefully: > The word "Viviparous" is not allowed in this blog.

killaken2000 8y ago
Why did you block "viviparous"?
saagarjha 8y ago
Now I'm curious about the content of your blog…
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

rubatuga 8y ago

I see a lot of great tips, and I believe that anybody who wants to touch up on their writing skills should bookmark this page, especially for later editing. For the tips about humour, I have to strongly agree. Badly executed humour just comes off as confusing or unprofessional (or both!).

dewey 8y ago

Thanks for posting that, it sums up a lot of points I always have in my head when I'm reading other blog posts but couldn't quite put my finger on it. I really wish more people would especially take the advice of 11 and 12. Too many articles (Main offender being posts on Medium) are just made unreadable by using memes, gifs and swearing.

Entalpi 8y ago

Slighty off-topic but I find (as a non-native English speaker) the whole deal with ”he/she” to be super annoying when reading. Especially when the gender is basically not important such as when talking about what the dentist said (or w/e). Is there any trick so to speak to avoid such situations? Also, in Swedish we have ”he/she/* = han/hon/hen”. Which is soo useful and I am still kind of amazed that the term ”hen” is a relative modern invention. I wonder how in earlier days people referred to other people when the gender was not the main focus. Maybe it was always more important before? Or was perhaps the use of titles (the Dentristess..?) a way to denote gender an important communication tool?

smnscu 8y ago
They https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
TonnyGaric 8y ago
See point 19: >"They" is a great word for referring to an unspecified person of an unspecified gender.
glormph 8y ago
I guess in earlier days they used the form they found appropriate and didnt think about it much more. Also, as much as you and I like it, the gender-neutral pronoun in swedish is relatively modern enough for it to be yet hardly used in everyday communication (YMMV of course).
opan 8y ago
I heard at some point (maybe in school, maybe not) that if the gender is not known, you just pick one and stick with it. Some people also take the approach of switching back and forth out of fairness. I find this even worse than saying "he/she".
freehunter 8y ago
Historically in English, the masculine form was the default gender-neutral term. "Mankind" to refer to all humans. "All men are created equal" to refer to all humans. "No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality" refers to all humans. More recently as other comments have pointed out, singular "they/their" has become more accepted. "No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of their nationality nor denied the right to change their nationality".

azangru 8y ago

Do people write (blog) for themselves any more? This blog post frames the whole experience as an extroverted attempt to please the audience that is not yourself. Which is totally fine if you regard blogs as a medium directed primarily outwards, at others. I am just curious whether anyone writes primarily for themselves (in order to better organise their thoughts, or leave a reference for their future self), where any readership is purely accidental, not the raison d'etre? I know that I do.

random_kris 8y ago
I plan on doing something like that. I work as a programmer and recently I've been tackling some interesting problems and I've been thinking about documenting everything (the problem, my approach, my solution etc...) my goal is to have that blog as a future reference for myself and track my progress... if anyone comes to my blog and read that stuff then that is even better!
ig0r0 8y ago
Sure we do. I personally I have a programming blog mainly as a "reminder" about how I solved the programming problems I had. And it happened to me a few times that searching for a solution led me to my post :)
tpaschalis 8y ago
Yes, people do! From my time in HN, I've accumulated a list of links to smaller/niche blogs, that you wouldn't stumble on by chance, except if you were searching for something extremely specific. You don't have to add analytics and play the numbers game, but just as ig0r0 mentioned, it's a great exercise to improving your writing, document your learning experience or an obscure solution for easy future reference. It's easier than ever to get started (as easy as forking a Github project and uploading your markdown), and as a bonus it might also look good on a CV.
henrik_w 8y ago
Many of the reasons why I blog are for my own benefit, but it is also fun if people read what I write, so it is a mix really. My reasons in roughly order of importance: - Knowing what I think - Sharing knowledge - Venting - To learn (when I get comments on my views) - To remember better, e.g. for books I've read - To have an archive to refer people to - For the thrill of having people read what I write - For self promotion I wrote about it in more detail here: https://henrikwarne.com/2017/11/26/6-years-of-thoughts-on-programming/ https://henrikwarne.com/2017/11/26/6-years-of-thoughts-on-pr...

julesie 8y ago

As a female computer programmer called Julianne, I chuckled at point 18.

tpaschalis 8y ago

Robert has an awesome blog! Stuff like this makes me appreciative, but also jealous of people who can have the skill to put concepts and thoughts into simple and eloquent words. It's been almost two years since I've started my own little corner of the internet and of course, it initially it was somewhat awful, but I'm also happy to see my writing (and that corner) improve gradually. I'd recommend to anyone to do the same!

deleted 8y ago
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davemp 8y ago

My problem is editing. I’ll write an article, do a revision, then let it collect dust. I don’t really believe in posting a long form article that hasn’t been reviewed by someone who understands the topic. I almost always leave out some not-so implicit knowledge or don’t expound enough on the more interesting points. It’s hard to address these types of issues without a fresh pair of eyes. Most of my peers don’t know how to effectively get through a 10 page pdf and give only the most useful feedback. I feel like they are scared of being overly critical or think I’m expecting they invest more than a single read through and thoughts. Maybe I’ll go back and give the third draft on some of these articles a try anyways.

gtirloni 8y ago
A 10-page blog post is hard to digest for most people. If you break it in a few parts, your peers will be able to review them more easily, plus it gives your audience an incentive to come back (and also time for them to digest each piece as well).
barman 8y ago
For editing, one thing that has helped me is learning sales copywriting and direct response. Copywriting forces you to trim the cruft and makes you take the reader's perspective. Their time is valuable so you need to be entertaining and engaging, AND you need to get to the point fast. Tested Advertising Methods & Scientific Advertising are just some of the classic books about sales copy. I don't know what topic you're writing about, but sometimes you really just need to get your work out there, despite it not being perfect. I spent too much time writing and re-writing this article on procrastination (https://medium.freecodecamp.org/procrastination-sucks-so-heres-the-eat-that-frog-way-to-powerful-productivity-543b07ecf360 https://medium.freecodecamp.org/procrastination-sucks-so-her...) till I finally said "f--- it, I'm going to write this last section about finishing and shipping, then hit the publish button"
- davemp 8y ago
  I’ll give copying writing a try! Letting an article sit seems like it might be needed for self editing. At least for me specifically. > I'm going to write this last section about finishing and shipping, then hit the publish button" Fitting. Nice article as well!

gizzlon 8y ago

Good input and definitely worth considering. Bookmarked :) I really do dislike #18 though: "If you need a quick name for a generic fictional character, consider using one from a culture or gender that you usually wouldn't.[..] the cost of sometimes calling your imaginary computer programmers Julianna is zero." First of all, there's a often a good reason you usually wouldn't: It's not realistic. And many readers will pick up on that and be annoyed. So the cost is not zero. More generally, I think truth matters, and talking about the world as it is does not mean we don't want change. Pretending the world is somehow "better" than it really is does not help anyone.

CJefferson 8y ago
It's not realistic to have a programmer called Julianna? I better let my friend know. I always thought her C++ was good, but I was obviously wrong.
- gizzlon 8y ago
  Women can code. Most programmers are men
  - whack 8y ago
    I think you're reading far too much into a blogger naming one of their fictional characters "Juliana" Speaking of reality, I seldom come across Chinese/Indian names either, even though they make up a huge portion of the industry. Do you get annoyed by that as well?
    - gizzlon 8y ago
      "I think you're reading far too much into a blogger naming one of their fictional characters "Juliana"" That's not what OP is saying, and it's not one blogpost. For a more general background check out this podcast (or hes book that I haven't read): https://www.jordanharbinger.com/jonathan-haidt-the-danger-of-good-intentions-and-safe-spaces/ https://www.jordanharbinger.com/jonathan-haidt-the-danger-of... (ok, not the same, but related) That stands to reason, yes. It's not the case where I live though.

k__ 8y ago

When I wrote one blog article a week I tried to write small pieces with actionable content. Explaining render props in React. Explaining JavaScript promises. Explaining Webpack's offline plugin. Often with code examples.

Hard_Space 8y ago

> Many articles begin with a human framing, even those about highly technical topics. Having established a relatable hook, the author quickly moves on to the general point of the piece, before returning at the end to the mid-Western accountant they opened with. Radically disagree with this. Starting everything from recipes to teardowns with a story about your first dog is getting to be a real curse of the internet lately.

libdjml 8y ago
Agreed. If you’re trying that hard to build a relatable hook, maybe what you’re writing about just simply isn’t that important/useful?
sacado2 8y ago
If it's too artificial, that's right. But, answering the question "why am I blogging about that? Why is that important?" is a great way to start an article. And, most of the time, you can do it with a story-like setup.
- belorn 8y ago
  I think doing so is a major mistake. The reader found the text through either searching or reference (like a link on HN), and thus the answer "why am I reading this" is already provided before they even loaded the site. It is much better to hook the reader with what makes the text unique, confirming the decision to continue reading, and then further down explain why this is important, the history, and why the author is writing about it.
  - sacado2 8y ago
    Indeed, but IMO that's the role of the "chapô" (not sure about the English word there; abstract? leading paragraph? I mean the short first paragraph, sometimes written in a different font, that's here to engage the reader). So, in an article titled "is blogging still relevant?", that first paragraph could be something like "Contrary to popular belief, blogging is still a viable economic activity nowadays. Finding readers may be harder than before, and require some more efforts from the reader, though". And, then, have your article start as a pure story : "You're in front of your computer, facing the blank screen. Finding ideas is hard, today. You start asking yourself "Does it even make sense? Bah, nobody will read my prose anyway". Then, you close your word processor and look for the new cat video, thinking it's a better use of your time. Well, you couldn't be more wrong. Blah blah..." OR, after the leading paragraph, you could still use a narrative stucture (setup, problem, attempts to solve the problem), but in a low profile version, ie without the made up character: "Numbers don't lie: there are 10 times more blogs nowadays than 5 years ago, and people spend 5 times less time on blogs, since they spend most of their online time on facebook or instagram. One might wonder if starting a new blog today still makes sense. Well, first, blah blah..."

fathead_glacier 8y ago

The post provides useful set of rules to follow when writing text. I want to add another one which I have found to be beneficial to my work: the write-good linter for English prose (https://github.com/btford/write-good https://github.com/btford/write-good). Using linters for writing text helps to systematically avoid transcribing everyday speech into written text. A habit which is widespread among people who write infrequently and without a peer review. For me the best workflow is to pass a text document to the linter before the build/deployment procedure (after finishing all writing work!) and modify the highlighted entries. As a result I can see which sentences can be phrased in a way which improves their structure and ultimately the quality of the text.

maaaats 8y ago

> Stay away from memes - they're just cliches propagated at the speed of Twitter. Never do anything to "all the things". :tada: A standard technical post on Medium is a couple of meme-images with no context throughout :ok_hand:, and emojis absolutely everywhere. :partyparrot: - Commented with :heart: by Mats

nickjj 8y ago

I've been writing for a while (few years, 200+ technical posts) and I have to admit, I don't follow most of the advice in that guide. I pretty much go with: Explain the why, show the how, make it as concise as possible, and whenever possible share shorties from real world experiences to make it relatable to a use case. Also, up until writing this comment I didn't even realize I was doing the above. In other words, I don't set out to do that for every post. It just comes out like that naturally because most of my posts are based on experiences instead of forcing or trying to invent a blog post.

codingdave 8y ago

One final item I'd add to this list: It is your own writing for your own reasons. Feel free to ignore any rule that you disagree with or just don't like, in particular if your write as a personal exercise, and not to try to build an audience.

sideshowb 8y ago

Can someone expand on this? > There’s a three-way tradeoff between establishing credibility, being honest when you aren’t an expert, and sounding like a douche. For example: “No, I didn’t go to writing school. I learned my trade at the University of Life, the School of Hard Knocks, and the physics department at St Catherine’s College, Oxford University.” Is the example meant to be douchey or not?

dredmorbius 8y ago
False humility. "I'm unqualified, except that I'm extraordinarily qualified."
- sideshowb 8y ago
  To me it comes across as self deprecating e.g. I am very qualified in something but it isn't writing which is the relevant thing in this context. Goes to show how tone can come across differently than you think. Anyway aren't Oxford departments separate from colleges?

claudiawerner 8y ago

>It's entertaining to poke fun at the downsides and pomposities of capitalism without denying the fact that strengthened property rights appear to have been responsible for much of humanity's progress in the last century or two. What a bizarre ideological point to see in an article like this.

platz 8y ago

> strengthened property rights appear to have been responsible Economists do not universally agree on the root cause of 20-21st century growth

pluma 8y ago
That sentence really came out of left field. "Here's how to write a blog post. [..] It's okay to poke fun at my particular ideology but you still have to admit I'm right."

cafard 8y ago

"""It's fine to use a thesaurus to look up an alternative word for "clever" because you already used "clever" a few sentences ago. Just don't come back with "meretricious".""" Good grief. I don't have a thesaurus, but do they really give those as equivalents?

endisukaj 8y ago
They give many (all?) alternatives. It's up to the writer to pick the word they want and usually inexperienced writers will pick a complicated word that makes them seem clever.
wenc 8y ago
Also, "meretricious" doesn't mean clever at all. It means "apparently attractive but having in reality no value or integrity." The only time I've seen the word in print was in the Sherlock Holmes books. Benedict Cumberbatch also used it once in BBC's Sherlock.

bovermyer 8y ago

I love that the second point is basically: "No, what you write won't matter, but nothing else does either, so go ahead and write." Curiously, that makes me want to write more.

Sileni 8y ago
It's going all the way through to the other side, in the spirit of Camus. The world is so saturated with absurdity that absurdity is the only place to grab hold.
- nyc111 8y ago
  > The world is so saturated with absurdity that absurdity is the only place to grab hold. That's why my blog is called something like "World's Absurd States" which sounds better in Turkish. But also I think nothing I write matters so I keep writing. I write about so many different subjects that people read the article they came for and they leave without checking other stuff. It's true that you have to find a nich and write only about that subject. I don't even think people have patience to read my long articles. But I write for myself. My most popular post by far is a brief article about the relationship of nipples with litter size. Is there a relationship with nipple number and average litter size? I still cannot understand why so many people are curious about this topic. Everyday a few people drop by to read that article. Unfortunately, in wordpress.com I cannot see which search terms leads to my article.
  - Sileni 8y ago
    Google analytics is really easy to set up, and would allow you to see what lead to your page. That would mean you have a google tracker on your site though.
    - nyc111 8y ago
      I read that GA is only available if I upgrade to Business plan which is obviously out of the question for me now.
8y ago

proxygeek 8y ago

There is some good advice in here, some which I myself stumbled across after trial and error. But 39 points?! May be it's just me but whenever I see a list with over 10 items, I just get so tired when thinking about it. Ultimately it just gets filed away, never to be referred again. I wish the post started out saying "9 things to get your writing style better" instead of "...39 ways to make your blog..." In fact, even 10 is a long list. These days I try not to make lists more than 5 items long. Even shorter when it comes to list of things to do. Of course, each item can have some sub-items, if needed. Edit: auto-correct mistakes and rewording

SyneRyder 8y ago
I was about to criticize you for not strengthening your attention span, that maybe sometimes you really do need 39 points... but on closer reading, I agree this could have been trimmed down. At the very least, 34 - 36 are variations of the same theme, and I'd simplify the entire section on humor down to just point 25: "It's better to be clear than funny." But it seems like this was written as 39 points that help the author when they write, and it just happens that many of the points that help them are also useful to others. There's a lot of really good stuff in here & I wouldn't dismiss it just on length.
calcifer 8y ago
I suppose this is a natural consequence of the Twitter generation where attention spans longer than 2 minutes are for firmly in the realm of old people but no, if a 15 minute read gets you "so tired when thinking about it", the problem isn't with the author.

adtac 8y ago

So I used to have a blog, but I felt this pressure to publish stuff regularly. And that showed in the quality of posts I wrote; shitty, unsolicited articles about nothing. And when I didn't have enough content (whatever that means), I just filled it with random garbage. I've deleted that blog entirely since then. I've also come to the conclusion that there are two kinds of posts - regular, essay-like blog posts and just random thoughts. These random thoughts could just be 1-2 lines or just a paragraph. You don't need to develop them into a full article. Twitter is designed for this, but Twitter is also suitable for a lot of other things, so you shouldn't feel like you can't have these in your blog. Maybe I should write a blog post about this lol. I've been collecting topics to write in a text file so that I won't run out of stuff to write. But I now think it's perfectly fine to go 3-4 months without an article, until you feel like writing one that's worthy. I know this is a bit contradictory to point 2/39 in this post, but I just thought I should share.

justinator 8y ago
I remember when you could just throw just anything you'd like up on a site and call it good. Curating was (or could be) part of it, but if you wanted to say, "fuck curation" you could. It was YOUR website; it's not a curated exhibit in a museum. Just be an amateur at something. Make a lot of noise!
- wenc 8y ago
  I think that's ok if you're writing for yourself or for a bunch of friends. But good blogs with steady readership generally curate. Readers gravitate towards quality (because time and attention span are precious) and lose interest fast if the quality is all over the place. Most bloggers write more posts than they actually publish. The published ones are the ones that pass muster. We don't see the stuff in their drafts folder.
thex10 8y ago
> I've also come to the conclusion that there are two kinds of posts I had come to this same conclusion for my own posting habits! I'm hoping to finish my website this weekend and will probably implement a microblog for the little thoughts and a (macro?)blog for the bigger pieces. (I'd just use Twitter as my microblog but I like the idea of inline hyperlinks in my posts more than is perhaps healthy.)

vaer-k 8y ago

> 29. Be sparing with pronouns in technical writing. It's better to repeat a noun than have it be unclear what "it" refers to. This is the most valuable piece of advice I hope most readers will take from this article for their technical writing.

ergothus 8y ago
This advice ("avoid unspecified pronouns") also applies to communicating in text, period. SMS, IRC, Slack, in all of them you can avoid a lot of confusion by being clear in your nouns. BAD: "We're hooking up the refresh token to the API next week. It was broken by a bad commit, but that is fixed" GOOD: "We're hooking up the refresh token to the API next week. The token was broken by a bad commit, but that commit is fixed" This advice is one of the two most important tips for clear communication in text I know of. The other tip is: don't ask an A or !A question - you'll just get "yes" or "no" as an answer. Instead, ask to confirm A and not B. BAD: "Are we releasing this week? Or next week?" GOOD: "We are releasing this week, not next week, right?" This second tip, however, requires a lot more work to make natural.
- LinuxBender 8y ago
  Great examples. For the release, I would specify the date, time and timezone.
- tunesmith 8y ago
  The A or !A thing never fails. But it's more a hack to work around other people having poor communication skills. It's also good advice to pay attention to the question being asked of you, and actually answer it. So if someone asks you, "Are we releasing this week? Or was it next week?", don't reflexively answer "yes" or "no".

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chiefalchemist 8y ago

Perhaps one of the more helpful / useful things I've read in the last few weeks. My personal rule of thumb, which arcs over a number of the finer points, is: "It's not what you say, it's what they hear." So when it comes to humor, pronouns, self-deprecation, etc. you have to step back and crank up the empathy. Will they hear what you intended, or might you be misinterpreted / misunderstood?

ncmncm 8y ago

He should have said about the thesaurus: it's only for reminders -- don't use a word from it you would not have used; your readers probably won't know it either. And, "Elements of Style" is a manual on how to lose confidence in your writing. Read Geoff Pullum's essay on what he calls "the nasty book": "The land of the free and The Elements of Style", http://ling.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/LandOfTheFree.pdf http://ling.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/LandOfTheFree.pdf

derefr 8y ago
The best use of a thesaurus, is to replace a ten-dollar word you remember, with a one-dollar word you just can't seem to.
combatentropy 8y ago
Let me just add my take here. You don't have to agree with it. But it seems unrepresentative for this to be the only remark about the Elements of Style. I started to read the PDF you link to, "The Land of the Free." I found myself disagreeing with sentence after sentence. It doesn't help that he uses Strunk's first edition, which is very, very different from the famous second and third editions (my favorite). The edition he looks at is just Strunk. There is no White. - Strunk and White did not write it together. Strunk was one of White's professors. Strunk had a homemade textbook. Strunk died. Decades later, White's publisher asked White to take Strunk's old handbook and rewrite and add some stuff. White did. The second edition. I can't remember if I have read this edition. I own the third edition and have read it over and over. - When I look at the first edition online, it is much less inspiring. It has a lot more tedious tidbits and completely lacks the second half that White added. - Even the third edition has stuff that I'm not sure is that important. But for me the overall gist was groundbreaking. Things like shorter is better. Don't try to be fancy and draw attention to yourself. Basically, writing is not some competition for fanciness. Many people think it is, but if you are trying to write for the sake of the reader --- instead of just to make yourself look good --- you will try to write efficiently and clearly. - To me this was groundbreaking, because in not a single English class was this book ever mentioned, the overall teaching of all my classes was totally different, and the output by most of the world (blogs, textbooks, emails, whatever) seems to indicate that they have never read Strunk and White at all. "The Land of the Free" seems to say the opposite, that the Elements of Style is oppressing everyone, that most people are following it. Maybe in his neck of the woods, but not anywhere I have been.

burnt_toast 8y ago

Thanks for the post. I really like point 2: "If you’re wondering whether you should write a piece at all, you probably should" If the topic is something you've just learned, it can be helpful to write about it right then versus a week down the road. The topic will feel more meaningful, and your less likely to downplay your own accomplishments.

kapilkaisare 8y ago

> 20. Alternatively you can also alternate between "he" and "she" and toss a coin to see who goes first. Please, don't. Pick a single pronoun and stick to it. The alternating between he and she has left me confused for a minute on more than one occasion. If you must be politically correct, why not use 'they' instead?