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20+ Lessons I've Learned Writing on DEV for 4 Years

Jean-Michel πŸ•΅πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ Fayard on June 29, 2021

1. First, get started 🎬 2. Do not Bury the Lede ⚑️ 3. Brainstorm on Paper πŸ“ 4. Talk it Through With a Friend πŸ—£ 5. Learn Markdown πŸ“š 6. Add a Table ...
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urstrulyvishwak profile image
Kurapati Mahesh • Edited

Superb one. Thanks for sharing your experience for free. It saves lot of my time.

I know my first article is very bad and not the latest article.

First Article: vkglobal.hashnode.dev/js-reduce
Latest article till date: vkglobal.hashnode.dev/explore-es-2...

I don't feel guilty about sharing like this because I never stopped learning and thinking innovative ways in presenting the content.

I have a goal to add new impression like mark down, table of contents, using emojis..etc. for each article I write.

Hence, one day I will surely have all the best practices to present my article in a very beautiful manner.

But your article shown some blunt paths I am currently following.

Many Thanks,
Vishwak

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brandonwallace profile image
brandon_wallace

Nice article. You should also have an introduction to introduce what you will discuss in the article and a conclusion at the end to summarize everything.

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Jean-Michel πŸ•΅πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ Fayard

Good point, I always struggle with conclusions :)

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brandon_wallace

Me too brother.

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Josefine Schfr

Thanks so much for this, I found the tips & all the additional resources super helpful! One thing I learned while writing and I try to improve on is writing inclusively. You never know who reads your article and what their background is - and I think it's important that nobody feel belittled or excluded.

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jmfayard profile image
Jean-Michel πŸ•΅πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ Fayard • Edited

Thanks for your kind words.

Agree, I try to remember that we are all different and avoid at all costs title like 5 reasons why EVERY PROGRAMMER should have a BLOG! because it's so wrong to be prescritiptive like this:

I dislike not the content but the title, which deny that we all have different lives.

You can be a developer, mother of two small twins, therefore have no time for blogging outside of your job, therefore your title is false.

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Junaid Raza

I use to recommend people use blogging but your opnion is really appreciable. It's true that we can't get time for everything in a short day of life.

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mejunaidraza profile image
Junaid Raza

And hope you won't mind it, that a stranger commented on your posts. I am new to these platforms, and I am afraid if people like strangers comments or not.

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jmfayard profile image
Jean-Michel πŸ•΅πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ Fayard

Hello, you are very welcome to comment! My hope when I write an article is to have meaningful conversations with people like you.

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Pavan Belagatti

Thanks for all the pointers shared. This article should be bookmarked and I am doing it!

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Mostafa Said

This is a great article here. I started writing 1 month ago and i truly love it.

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Pedro Carlos MartΓ­nez • Edited

Very good article Jean!!

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jmfayard profile image
Jean-Michel πŸ•΅πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ Fayard

Thanks a lot for your insights @yechielk @pjijin @john_papa @vtrpldn @helenanders26 !

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Peter Mortensen

For "4. Talk it Through With a Friend":

How exactly is that done? Do you summarise it (the friend is unprepared)? Read it aloud as is (the friend is unprepared)? Does the friend get it in advance in writing and then you talk about it? Or something else?

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jmfayard profile image
Jean-Michel πŸ•΅πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ Fayard

Good question. I don't use the draft article, I try to summarize it, and I try to make it interesting enough to keep my friend's attention

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Peter Mortensen

For 3. ("Brainstorm on paper"):

If it is relatively simple text only, I prefer it on the computer (in a simple text editor, not a word processor where you are distracted by formatting).

But I often use a mind map on paper to generate and exhaust thoughts about a subject, including blog posts.

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Jean-Michel πŸ•΅πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ Fayard

Mind maps are also a good thing to have in your toolbox. I use paper when I feel stuck on my computer. If I don't, I don't use it.

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MiguelMJ

Very valid points!

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Thomas KΓΌnneth

Excellent tips, thanks a lot for sharing.

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Jean-Michel πŸ•΅πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ Fayard

Thanks Thomas

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Felipe Vogel

How did you make your table of contents into a dropdown list? Great tips!

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Jean-Michel πŸ•΅πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ Fayard

It's yet another liquid tag: collapsible then endcollapsible.

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Felipe Vogel

Oh, I missed that in DEV's Liquid instructions. Thanks so much!

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Jean-Michel πŸ•΅πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ Fayard

Looking forward to read your articles :)

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empreendedoras7 profile image
Empreendedoras

Good article.

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Margo McCabe

You make some really interesting points! Very helpful. πŸ‘

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Jean-Michel πŸ•΅πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ Fayard

Glad it helped you Margo!

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Jameel Ur Rahman

Nicely written article. Thank you for the helpful tips!

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Kathy Bowing

Awesome, thank you :-)

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Jean-Michel πŸ•΅πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ Fayard

Thanks Kathy :)

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Gracie Gregory (she/her)

Great post, Jean-Michel. Thank you so much for being part of this community! We're so happy you're here.

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Jean-Michel πŸ•΅πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ Fayard

Thankj you so much Gracie, that gives me the motivation to keep going.

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Matt Curcio

Good ideas,
Thank you

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Benoit COUETIL πŸ’«

Thanks for sharing.

Links in your ToC do not work...

Did you try this ?

GitHub logo derlin / bitdowntoc

Online and command-line Markdown TOC generator, with built-in support for BitBucket Server, GitHub, Gitlab, dev.to and more!

BitDownToc

BitDownToc

BitDownToc adds a table of contents (TOC) to your Markdown files, either online or from the command line It supports Gitlab and GitHub styles, and can generate anchors to comply with Bitbucket Server (and its lack of proper markdown support), dev.to and more.

Thanks to small comments (in HTML or liquid tags), it can also detect previously generated TOC so you can run it every time you change your README without worries. In other words, it is idempotent 🀩.

It supports English, French, and most Latin languages, but not Cyrillic or Chinese!


Try it out now!
✨✨ derlin.github.io/bitdowntoc/ ✨✨


TOC (generated by this tool, duh, using the github profile):





I'm very satisfied by this tool.

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jmfayard profile image
Jean-Michel πŸ•΅πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ Fayard

Thanks Benoit, that's a great idea.
I even contributed an issue on Forem to make something like BitDownToc part of Forem

github.com/forem/forem/discussions...

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Gulnur Baimukhambetova

Very helpful for people who are starting with their blogs! One thing that helped me too is to not only write but also read other users' posts, be active, comment and like.

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Alec

Great post - thanks for all the advice!

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capscode profile image
capscode

very helpful article..
definitely its gona help every writers in any of the platform

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jmfayard profile image
Jean-Michel πŸ•΅πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ Fayard

Thank Rahul :)

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petermortensen profile image
Peter Mortensen

For "7. Be Liquid":

It is not clear what "liquid" is or refers to. Perhaps add some link for context?

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jmfayard profile image
Jean-Michel πŸ•΅πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ Fayard

It was a reference to liquid tags, DEV.to addition to standard markdown

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petermortensen profile image
Peter Mortensen • Edited

For "9. Use tags" (cultural faux pas):

Yes, coffee and beer is far better than chlorinated water.