Introduction: Why write articles? What is a good technical article? How to write a good technical article? If you are a science student who doesn't like Chinese, doesn't like reading, and rarely passes the composition, if you want to write a technical article, please read it down.
For a science student who didn't like Chinese, didn't like reading, and rarely passed his composition since childhood, he never dreamed that one day I would write an article to teach people how to write an article:)
1. Why write an article
Understand, you may not be able to say it, and you may not be able to write it. This is the biggest benefit of writing articles, the official term is "Feynman's Teaching Method". Writing an essay is a process of forcing yourself to understand the problem in depth, think clearly about the problem, organize your thoughts, and express it clearly. Its essence is the best method for self-learning, self-improvement, and building a knowledge system.
In addition, there is another by-product of writing articles—helping us expand our influence. Take me as an example. About 4 years ago, I started to build my own knowledge system in a planned way, including reading, taking notes, writing articles, and sharing.
During this period, I won the best author of the year for three consecutive years, and there were many headline articles. In addition, the Alibaba technical public account has also published about 10 articles of mine, of which 2 were selected as the best articles of the founding publication, and many articles have a good performance of 30,000+ reading.
Based on these conclusions, I published a book "The Road to Code Improvement: From Code Farmer to Craftsman" in People's Posts and Telecommunications Publishing House. I myself also won the best author of the year in the IT category of People's Post with this book.
2. What is a good technical article
Regarding the criteria for high-quality articles, there is a judgment for good articles: "The article frame is complete, the thinking is in-depth and clear, and the text is at least 80% original technology dry goods." This has caused a lot of controversy.
Controversy is normal, but it is strange if there is no controversy. Good technical articles, like good technical performance, are too subjective...it is difficult to have an objective standard.
If you insist on quantifying the quality of the article, some indicators may be helpful. Such as article views, likes, comments, favorites and other indicators. It's useful, but it's just a reference. In the end, it needs human judgment.
So regardless of these factors, I think a good technical article should meet at least two conditions:
- One is to convey valuable information.
- The other is to have a clear structure and logic, with a certain degree of readability and comprehensibility.
On this basis, it would be better if you could be literary and funny.
Three how to write a good technical article
Useful content
A good article, a good book, the most important thing is to give the reader a sense of gain, to be useful to the reader, and to be meaningful.
The "thing" here can be big or small, and it doesn't have to be a big proposition. On the contrary, an article is limited in length, and it is good to be able to explain a "small thing" clearly.
I once published an article-"Ali Abbreviations and Professional Terminology Encyclopedia", what I did was very simple, that is, I compiled all the abbreviations I encountered in Ali into a book. Just such a "small article" has become my most popular article, with nearly 100K reading and 3K likes.
Why do people pay so much attention to this article without "technical content"? It's very simple. Many people are curious. Everyone wants to know the full name and origin behind the abbreviation. This is the value of this article.
Similarly, articles such as the introduction of cloud native technology, the complete front-end technology system, the entry manual for newcomers, and "General Ma's Speech Collection" are all articles of this kind of information integration.
In addition, articles that have their own technical insights and thoughts, and dare to speak the truth, will also be welcomed by everyone.
For example, I think that many technical teams should not have the position of architect, so I wrote "Everyone is an Architect: Architecture is an ability, not a title!" ". I think that a lot of software complexity comes from the chaos of engineers, such as the abuse of process engines. The fundamentals of governance complexity are abstract thinking and structured thinking, so I wrote "An article teaches you how to write complex business code".
These articles are popular because they resonated with many students and are helpful to them.
Clear structure
With good content, pay attention to the structure of the article. Just like a dish, you must pay attention to the color, fragrance and taste. Even if you have the best ingredients, but the appearance is messy, it will affect your appetite, and it is not a good dish.
Regarding structure, I recommend you to read a book-"Pyramid Principles". I myself have written many articles on structured thinking. The pyramid principle teaches us to build a clear structure when writing and expressing.
For an article, the apex of the pyramid is the central argument—usually the title of the article. Around this central argument, we can use multiple points of view to support the central argument. If there are many expressions, the views can be further subdivided. Form a pyramid structure of "the above, the lower, the logic is progressive".
Articles written in this form will appear logically clear and compact.
For technical articles, we can consider using the 3W2H model to help us build the structure. For example, if I want to write an article about abstract ability, I can say it from the following perspectives:
- What: What is abstraction;
- Why: Why is abstraction important;
- How: how to abstract;
- Where: Where can abstraction be used;
- How much: how abstract is it;
Similarly, this article I am writing now, I also build the structure in this way:
Deliberate practice
As I said at the beginning, I didn't have the habit of writing before, and I often failed in Chinese composition when I was young. Later, I published my own book, explaining that writing as a skill can be acquired and improved through practice.
Because the more you write and the more you practice, your level will naturally improve. However, the so-called "Deliberate Practice" (also a book) is not a simple repetition, but to set higher goals for yourself in stages, so that you can continue to make progress.
For example, now that I can write relatively fluently, I will pursue how to write articles more fascinating. There is an article mentioned in "Style Feeling: A Guide to Writing in the 21st Century". The beginning of it reads: "We will all die, we are lucky...", like this sense of conflict and suspense, it will be very Naturally attract readers to continue reading.
I also borrowed the same technique in this article :)
Iterative optimization
There are many similarities between writing articles and writing code. I often compare writing articles with writing code. For example, both the article and the code need to be clearly structured. Another example is that a good system is not designed, but iterated. The same is true for good articles, which require constant polishing and revision. Many of my articles have undergone multiple revisions, rearranging the structure, adding and deleting information, and adjusting the wording until I feel satisfied.
Take this article as an example. Several editions have been revised. The first time the content was scattered, the structure was not clear, and it was a bit tangled. I didn’t know how to write it down. Later, I thought of a "Lead by Example" method. This article itself should be used as a sample to introduce how to write articles. With this idea, after several iterations, it gradually became a decent article.
Therefore, the important thing is to dare to "write", don't worry about the carelessness at the beginning, everything is difficult at the beginning, write...write...you will feel it.
Original link: https://developer.aliyun.com/article/782775?
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