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Ask HN: What do you think about my first professional article?

7 points by relequestual ↗ HN
Felt the need to write a bit rather than just post the URL. I started blogging as a hobby about 4-5 years ago, and recently decided I'd have a crack at some more professional writing while still at uni. I'd like to ask for you (The readers of HN) for feedback on my article. Bear in mind this article was originally written for Smashing Magazine, however after completing the article, they decided it wasn't exactly what they had in mind. I feel it fits better on tutsplus anyway, so I'm not disappointed really. I've had no comments on the article so far, but see some people have been "liking" it =] Please be honest and constructive, I'm trying to improve my writing ability.

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.

13 comments

[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 64.6 ms ] thread
DanBC
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/

DanBC
...and I know my writing, spelling, punctuation and grammar are all lousy. But I'm not making money off writing.
relequestual
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.
ColinWright 

    > As for the longer senescent, ...
"senescent" is an adjective, and means "growing old." I suspect you mean "sentence," but it's hard to be sure.

    > ... the double is makes no sense, ...
I think you need to learn the use of quotation marks. This reads much more easily if you say:

    > ... the double "is" makes no sense, ...
Again, these are simply careless mistakes, but they disrupt a reading and make the reader wonder how careful you were about everything else.
relequestual
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 =]
relequestual
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?

stfu
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.
relequestual
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. =]
ColinWright 

    > Everyone knows you should proof read your
    > own work, but it can be easy to forget.
Someone else pointed out:

    > ... to show you it’s wears.
This should be:

    > ... to show you its wares.
This:

    > ... Procedures and doing things in the right and
    > expected order, is in my opinion, is paramount ...
should be:

    > ... Procedures and doing things in the right and
    > expected order is, in my opinion, paramount ...
Later you say ...

    > ... so let's move on to the functionality of this one.
Do you mean "that one"? What is "this one"? You really need to avoid using dangling or ambiguous referents.

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.
I nearly stopped reading here - I don't know what EditFlow is or does, and you haven't helped me.

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.
At this point I did stop reading. I'm now lost - I really don't understand where you're going, or why, and I no longer see any point in reading further. The constant typos and grammatical errors really get in the way, and it feels like there's no arc or narrative.

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.

relequestual
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.

ColinWright
I know from your introduction that EditFlow is most likely a plug-in, but what does it do? What is it for?

You say:

    > The early versions of EditFlow were pretty basic,
    > allowing you to add custom post statuses.
I don't understand that at all. What is a "post status"?

    > Since then, it’s grown to have quite a number of
    > new features and is still in active development!
Don't care - what does it do?

    > The idea for EditFlow came from (now closed)
    > not-for-profit company CoPress, ...
Don't care - what does it do?

    > ... who aimed to help the student press write
    > online using WordPress as opposed to paying
    > for a bespoke CMS.
Don't care - what does it do?

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?
Hope that helps - I'm impressed by the positive tone in your responses.

Cheers!

relequestual
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.

ColinWright 

    > 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.
Actually, knowing about what plug-ins are available for WP, what they do, and how easy (or not!) they are to use is the sort of thing I do want to know. Your article potentially has a much wider audience than the one you've assumed. It would only take a sentence to create the scene of what a "post status" is and does. I always have an eye on the next widest audience, and it's always useful to set the scene.

    > 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.
It is always important to know your audience, but one can always write for the slightly wider circle.

    > 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.
I guess that depends on the purpose of what you're writing, and it wasn't clear to me. Stating clearly at the beginning that this is a review rather than an explanation, presentation, whatever, might be useful. Again, you were perhaps expecting a much more specific audience, but even so it's worth setting the scene somewhat. It doesn't take many words, and even if someone doesn't need it, it serves to ease them in gently. Just a thought.

Again, hope that helps. I can see that we were slightly at cross-purposes, but I hope the unexpected viewpoint has been useful.