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How to write a high quality post on DEV

Ella (she/her/elle) on August 20, 2021

Photo by Daniel Thomas Writing your first post on DEV can be as unfussy as clicking on the Create Post button at the top of the screen (which ta...
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Jean-Michel 🕵🏻‍♂️ Fayard

Thanks, I learned some things with your article, especially around accessbility.

I have written my own tips here

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Ella (she/her/elle)

Oh, wow! Really, @jmfayard? Thank you!

That means a lot, because you have an impressive portfolio of great posts. I've enjoyed reading your contributions in the past, and always look forward to a new one!

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GrahamTheDev • Edited

Sorry but I just had to (your post inspired me!) 😜🤣

Oh and this screenshot makes me smile

this post and my post next to each other in the DEV main feed

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Ella (she/her/elle)

I would not have expected anything less from you!

Thanks for expanding on this post with a more in-depth technical guide. Let's hope this trend positively influences content on DEV for the better (and doesn't just spawn a bunch of copycat-titled listicles smh)...

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sid

Thanks for this!😁

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Ella (she/her/elle)

You're welcome, @sidthedev! Hope it comes in handy for you in the future, and please feel free to use a version of this on your own Forem (with attribution to all the original contributors of the material, of course!)

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ortonomy profile image
🅖🅡🅔🅖🅞🅡🅨 🅞🅡🅣🅞🅝 • Edited

Before writing an article,

STOP.

Think aobut why you're writing. Is it to inform? What are you adding to the body of knowledge on dev.to? Are you writing an opinion piece? Are you writing to help guide someone through some difficulty you had? Are you writing to make someone aware of an approach to a problem that you thought was novel, unique, performant or just interesting? Do you need help with a problem?

If the answer to any of these is yes, it's probably a good idea to get writing -- people might be interested in reading what you've got to say!

If you're writing to just promote yourself via click-bait - whethere it's just to be 'visibile', or promote your library... consider why. This isn't a marketing channel, whether you like it or not. And every single content marketing fluff piece you put on here degrades the quality and experience for everyone else. And it take dev.to one step closer to be like Medium, and not like its own, joyful place to talk about software development and engineering.

Just my two cents :P

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Gabriel Guzman
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Mwenda Harun Mbaabu

Worthy reading, thank you for writing this.

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Ella (she/her/elle)

And thank you for reading it! Where would any of us be without readers?

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Suzanne Aitchison

Great write-up!

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Ella (she/her/elle)

Thank you! I can't really claim any of it is particularly original, but I hope I did justice to accessibility here, albeit briefly.

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Lee

Nice post, some great tips here 😎

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Ella (she/her/elle)

Thanks @leewynne ! Feel free to use any of this post for your own Forems (along with attribution to the original sources ofc)!

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João M.C. Teixeira

Hi @ellativity ,

is there a way to change the colors of code syntax highlight? I find the default very darky. Thanks, it is great to be part of the DEV's community.

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Shaiju T

I want to see options like buttons to make bold, add code, heading etc like stackoverflow.com have. Its top feature. And its hard for a beginner to know about markdown etc.