Ask HN: What do you think about my first professional article?
3 comments
This post is brutal. _Sorry_ in advance. Feel free to ignore it. (But I suggest, in a friendly way, that you read the link provided at the end.)
>you it’s wears.
Possessive its has no apostrophe. And that should be "wares", not "wears".
This next sentence is where I stopped reading.
>Procedures and doing things in the right and expected order, is in my opinion, is paramount to making work easier for everyone, so I’ll also be addressing that issue.
Repeated "is" and oddly placed commas meant I couldn't remember what you were trying to say.
I know that these are tiny little things. And maybe I should concentrate on the meaning of your piece. But those errors broke my concentration; they got in the way. Sorry.
The Underground Grammarian expresses it better than I can, in "Trifles" (chapter 6 of "Less Than Words Can Say"). http://www.sourcetext.com/grammarian/less-than-words-can-say...
http://www.sourcetext.com/grammarian/
>you it’s wears.
Possessive its has no apostrophe. And that should be "wares", not "wears".
This next sentence is where I stopped reading.
>Procedures and doing things in the right and expected order, is in my opinion, is paramount to making work easier for everyone, so I’ll also be addressing that issue.
Repeated "is" and oddly placed commas meant I couldn't remember what you were trying to say.
I know that these are tiny little things. And maybe I should concentrate on the meaning of your piece. But those errors broke my concentration; they got in the way. Sorry.
The Underground Grammarian expresses it better than I can, in "Trifles" (chapter 6 of "Less Than Words Can Say"). http://www.sourcetext.com/grammarian/less-than-words-can-say...
http://www.sourcetext.com/grammarian/
Thanks for the links. I've just finished reading "Trifles", and I understand some of the points that were made. The first example clearly makes little sense. The second and third example, I'll admit I didn't see the errors till I read them a few times further. It's only recently I have decided to try my hand more at writing, and for many years I have been developing the skills of scanning to attain information as opposed to reading every word fully.
I read every word, every character closely when I'm programming, checking code for bugs or errors, but when reading an article written by someone else, I scan. This is probably why I didn't notice the errors in the examples. If I can understand something, I don't tend to read it more than once or twice. What are your thoughts?
I read every word, every character closely when I'm programming, checking code for bugs or errors, but when reading an article written by someone else, I scan. This is probably why I didn't notice the errors in the examples. If I can understand something, I don't tend to read it more than once or twice. What are your thoughts?
...and I know my writing, spelling, punctuation and grammar are all lousy. But I'm not making money off writing.
Thanks for the feedback Dan. Thanks for being totally honest with me. First mistake was foolish! Second one, I wasn't quite sure that was correct. I'll try and get those changes made. As for the longer sentence, the double "is" makes no sense, you are right.
> As for the longer senescent, ...
> ... the double is makes no sense, ...
> ... the double "is" makes no sense, ...
I don't generally spend the same amount of time checking my comments before posting as I do my articles, so assumed a type and just auto-corrected. Will correct my errors =]
> Everyone knows you should proof read your
> own work, but it can be easy to forget.
> ... to show you it’s wears.
> ... to show you its wares.
> ... Procedures and doing things in the right and
> expected order, is in my opinion, is paramount ...
> ... Procedures and doing things in the right and
> expected order is, in my opinion, paramount ...
> ... so let's move on to the functionality of this one.
In my opinion, the level of detail about the reminders plug-in is out of place. I don't really want to know the ins and outs of using it - if I'm interested I can look it up (if you give me a link) and if not, you've just lost me for the rest of the article.
You start the section on EditFlow thus:
> The early versions of EditFlow were pretty basic,
> allowing you to add custom post statuses.
Later I came to this:
> One feature I'd like to see, is auto subscribing
> a usergroup when the a post status is changed to
> pending review.
This screen-shots/images are too big and break the flow without really helping the point much, and don't seem to have much relationship with the text.
So in summary, there is no narrative, no thread, excessive detail, and loads of avoidable distractions in the writing. It also feels too long.
All this is my opinion, of course, and I hope most of my criticisms can be turned to constructive suggestions. That's your homework.
Thanks for your feedback Colin. I'm working on sorting out the problems you raised with the article. I agree with most of what you are saying here, however I don't understand what you are saying regarding the start of the section titled EditFlow. I stated in the introductory section that I'd be talking about two plugins. Do you think I needed to give it more an introduction?
As for your final comments, I was trying to be as detailed as possible. Regarding narrative / thread, I may have avoided that as I wanted to review each section in turn. Can you further explain what you mean by that please?
Thanks for taking the time to give me some feedback here, most appreciated.
As for your final comments, I was trying to be as detailed as possible. Regarding narrative / thread, I may have avoided that as I wanted to review each section in turn. Can you further explain what you mean by that please?
Thanks for taking the time to give me some feedback here, most appreciated.
I know from your introduction that EditFlow is most likely a plug-in, but what does it do? What is it for?
You say:
With regards the level of detail, you need some sort of hierarchy so if I get to the point of not caring about the level you've got to I can skip ahead to your next major point. Newspaper articles are written so they gradually increase in detail. In that way no matter where you stop, all you're missing is more detail.
If you want to tell two stories you need a way of skipping ahead. I'd much rather see a brief overview with links to pages giving more detail. Your click-through rate will then tell you how engaging you've been in the story you tell.
With regards narrative, it feels like you're giving an unmotivated list of "stuff." I, the reader, need to do the work of deciding what's relevant and what's not. You could consider presenting the problems being solved, rather than the features present. As with most technology people, you're focussing on the technology and what it does, rather than concentrating on my problems, and how the plug-in will solve them.
Finally, you writing remains littered with small typos. I know that you - as most - don't spend as much care on quick comments, but personally, I feel that you should work to remove them from all your writings. Making it a habit will mean that you won't need to work as hard when it actually matters. Example in point:
Cheers!
You say:
> The early versions of EditFlow were pretty basic,
> allowing you to add custom post statuses.
> Since then, it’s grown to have quite a number of
> new features and is still in active development!
> The idea for EditFlow came from (now closed)
> not-for-profit company CoPress, ...
> ... who aimed to help the student press write
> online using WordPress as opposed to paying
> for a bespoke CMS.
With regards the level of detail, you need some sort of hierarchy so if I get to the point of not caring about the level you've got to I can skip ahead to your next major point. Newspaper articles are written so they gradually increase in detail. In that way no matter where you stop, all you're missing is more detail.
If you want to tell two stories you need a way of skipping ahead. I'd much rather see a brief overview with links to pages giving more detail. Your click-through rate will then tell you how engaging you've been in the story you tell.
With regards narrative, it feels like you're giving an unmotivated list of "stuff." I, the reader, need to do the work of deciding what's relevant and what's not. You could consider presenting the problems being solved, rather than the features present. As with most technology people, you're focussing on the technology and what it does, rather than concentrating on my problems, and how the plug-in will solve them.
Finally, you writing remains littered with small typos. I know that you - as most - don't spend as much care on quick comments, but personally, I feel that you should work to remove them from all your writings. Making it a habit will mean that you won't need to work as hard when it actually matters. Example in point:
> Do you think I needed to give
> it more an introduction?
Cheers!
If you don't know what a "post status" is, you probably are not the sort of person who would be interested in this article. The sub section of the site the article is featured on is all about Wordpress, a CMS designed to publish content. If you worked with Wordpress and didn't know what a post status is, I wouldn't expect you to be very good. Still I see where you are coming from; I may have been better to give an overview of the plugin before a history.
Re level of detail. Thanks, I will take this on board for future articles.
Re narrative. I guess I was drawing on my previous work of reviewing software, trying to give something more than just a problem and how it's solved, more opinion, thoughts, history.
Would, "Do you think I should have given the plugin more of an introduction?" be better? Spelling and grammar have always been a weakness of mine, so I need to improve if I plan on doing more writing.
Thanks for replying.
Re level of detail. Thanks, I will take this on board for future articles.
Re narrative. I guess I was drawing on my previous work of reviewing software, trying to give something more than just a problem and how it's solved, more opinion, thoughts, history.
Would, "Do you think I should have given the plugin more of an introduction?" be better? Spelling and grammar have always been a weakness of mine, so I need to improve if I plan on doing more writing.
Thanks for replying.
> If you don't know what a "post status" is,
> you probably are not the sort of person who
> would be interested in this article.
> The sub section of the site the article is
> featured on is all about Wordpress ... Still
> I see where you are coming from; I may have
> been better to give an overview of the plugin
> before a history.
> Re narrative. I guess I was drawing on my
> previous work of reviewing software, trying
> to give something more than just a problem
> and how it's solved, more opinion, thoughts,
> history.
Again, hope that helps. I can see that we were slightly at cross-purposes, but I hope the unexpected viewpoint has been useful.
I was the other day looking around for ways to improve me writing as well. All I could find were some professional writing coaches targeting book authors. Maybe there would be a place for an affordable service that helps/coaches blog authors who aspire to become columnists/getting in magazines published.
Interesting idea. Thing is it would sound like one of those scams. Hope you know what I'm talking about as I'm too tired to explain any further. =]
http://wp.tutsplus.com/articles/how-to-change-your-wordpress-workflow-for-the-better/
Thanks in advance. (I feel the feedback would be more valuable if you include your profession.)
Edit: Regarding the error with "Procedures and doing things in the right and expected order, is in my opinion, is paramount", this was not in the article submission I made, and possibly an editorial error. Thanks all the same.