🐼 📋 🎴 How to write articles for IT magazines and blogs 🛷 🎇 🤫

Recently , Andrey Pismenny, editor-in-chief of Xakep.ru, spoke on our YouTube channel .

Written author of hundreds of articles on technology, science and business. As an editor, he helped authors find their own style, shape ideas into coherent stories.

In this talk, he will share with you the experience and techniques that will come in handy when working with text about technology.

We share the broadcast recording and transcript.

My name is Andrey Pismenny, I work as the editor-in-chief at XAKEP magazine. I don't think anyone needs to be told what XAKEP is. I have been working in the industry for 14 years already, I have managed to work, probably, in all large publishing houses with the IT subject - TechnoMir (aka IgroMir), Computerra.

I joined XAKEP magazine only in 2015, so I know its history well only for the last five years. Those legends that people would probably be interested to hear (and which I was asked about in the comments on Habré) are also legends for me. Today, I’m mainly going to talk about what I know best: tricks to help you write technical articles and make them better. I am also glad to talk about work in XAKEP, but it will rather be in answers to questions.

I started specifically in "Compulent" - this is a news site for the magazine "Computerra": for the first six months I wrote tiny news, 500 characters each. It was the best experience for me. I'm not saying that this is how everyone should start, but the experience of reading articles and news in English and their retelling in ten times (usually - about 5000 characters) is what helps to learn how to write better from scratch, cutting off all unnecessary. Well, I also improved the English language, of course - today it is necessary for everyone who needs to work with sources. It's not like working with Google Translate. I worked in Komuterre for about 10 years in total, for a short time I went to TechnoMir to work on the Mobi magazine. In 2013 I had a freelance experience, just under a year writing for various publications. Among them was XAKEP! We somehow immediately found each other,and I started to write there periodically. In 2015, I worked at Ferra.ru, and I was invited to XAKEP as an editor. Two years ago I became the chief editor.

Of course, I knew about XAKEP for a long time. In the year 2000, I saw the issue for the first time, bought it, read it, dragged myself away from how awkward things, it turns out, can be published on paper. In those days it was shocking, it's over. Now the audience has matured, the reality has also changed. In general, at the moment when I came to the magazine - in 2015 - it was going through a big turning point. I saw the release of the last three paper issues before it was fully translated online. Unfortunately, the decision to close the paper edition did not depend on the editors, but we feel great online. This model is close to me: I like the fact that we publish articles for subscribers and take money from people directly for the opportunity to read the magazine. I am very grateful to our subscribers for making this possible. We are not dependent on advertising, no one dictates what to do,other than our readers - that's cool, I'm really glad it worked. This allows us to pay authors and carefully approach the issues of editing articles.

I'll tell you a secret: hackers write terrifyingly! Working as an editor for XAKEP magazine is a great challenge for me, I have never seen such texts before. I'm not saying this to anyone offensively. The fact is that a hacker is a techie who does not build, but with the help of his intuition understands how complex systems work. He, unlike an engineer, often has wonderful chaos in his head, which helps him find intuitive solutions. Well, he writes accordingly - and we help pull all this to the level where a person can come in and read the text, and it will not be too difficult.

Let's move on to the main part. First, let's talk about why you need to be able to write articles, even if you're a techie. When I was in my humanitarian school, I saw with horror the opposite example: the students in the computer science lesson reacted with phrases like “yes, I don’t need this at all, computers are not needed, I’ll do real things”. I suspect that roughly the same thing happens with those guys who study mainly technical disciplines, in the lessons of the Russian language and literature. They are bored, it seems to them that getting something interesting there is difficult, and that they will no longer have to deal with this subject. But, in fact, when an engineer does something useful - when he grows up, goes to work, promotes and starts doing something worth talking about - he should be able to transfer his knowledge. He must be able to describe what he is doing,promote your ideas at work, in the professional community. In addition, when you write an article, you always learn about the problem yourself better. This is another reason to write articles, besides the transfer of experience and knowledge: you can figure out what you yourself have not fully figured out. In my experience, understanding the nuances and details of a topic before you sat down to write an article and after writing an article is heaven and earth.

While we're on the subject of school, we are, of course, taught to write, but not in the way we should. For example, American students constantly write essays (you may have seen this in literature or in TV shows), and such essays are not equal to essays on literature. They can be in different subjects, and with the help of them people learn to write about different things. We do not have such practice, and in literature they simply teach them to correctly write all the words while repeating what was in the lesson. Here, unfortunately, there is a problem with the ability to write. Problems also arise with the ability to reasonably argue - we do not teach this, although it should be worth it.

The first step in writing an article is finding a topic. Sometimes it is known in advance: that is, you sit down to describe (or you are asked to describe) something that you know. But this is not always the case. New authors are often puzzled over this. A person can do very cool things, but to understand which topic is interesting in this big thing is always non-trivial. I recommend thinking about what cool things you can talk about when talking about your work. Maybe remember what stories I told someone recently. What I really would like to talk about, what you are really burning with at the moment - this is most likely worth writing about: then it will turn out quickly, well, fervently.

A common mistake of new authors is to take a too global topic. There is no need to try to fit into the article what could be written in a three-volume edition - it is necessary to select specific topics, set a framework. In fact, the first few articles are very difficult to formulate, but then you start to see everything through the right frame. It is enough to think: "What do I know that others do not know?"

I also recommend fighting Impostor Syndrome. This is a well-known thing. A person thinks: who am I to write an article on such a cool topic on which serious people do scientific work. But in a magazine format, it happens very cool when a person who came across this topic some time ago and has already managed to figure out something himself, but did not have time to forget what questions newcomers have, tells. At this moment, the person already has enough knowledge to sit down and fix.

I do not recommend taking topics that boil down to the existence of something. It is better to take topics that reveal how a goal is achieved, or why it is better to do one thing over another (for example, choose a certain program over others), and tell it in such a way that it is narrated or compared. At least that's my experience.

Of course, it happens that the development of a topic has reached a dead end, and it is impossible to develop it for some objective reasons. You can always consult with the editor or tell someone you know - maybe at this moment a different approach to this topic will be born, which will save the day and tell about it in a different way. Often you can just go and see (peep) the format somewhere. It can be difficult for new authors to come up with the format of the article and the sequence of the story - but it is not shameful to spy on them. You can talk about another thing in the same format, in the same vein.

I recommend starting writing articles with the title. If you can come up with a good headline, then everything will go fine. You don't have to dwell on making it particularly handsome or witty - just enough to make it understandable. The wit may come later, while writing, or you may not think about it. A good working title outlines the scope for further work, and this is important: with authors we usually discuss the working title that the article will have. I also ask you to write a short "advertisement" for the article: what it will be about, what will it contain. This is the best start to an article you can expect.

I recommend that you have a verb in your title. If it is, it means that the article describes an action. If the article is called, for example, "TCP / IP protocol" - most likely, it is a rather boring article that simply describes some existing thing. In such an article, the author will look at this thing and nothing will happen. But if the article is called "How to use TCP / IP for some purpose," then it is much better outlined and promises to be more fun, because in it we do something, and do not describe something.

Often people are faced with the problem of a blank slate - when you sit down and think about what to write about. For such cases, there is a very effective advice from folk art (remove the children from the screens): start with the words "So, shit, in short!" And then the text starts to go by itself. Then, of course, the "introduction" can be removed. Such a half-joke, but, in fact, the truth: if you start in an informal way, then it will be easier to start talking about any topic.

I often use the "write something in draft" technique, usually for this I use triangular brackets (in my editor, this highlights the text in gray). You can use any technique: write in italics, for example, or write in another editor window. Writing “temporary” text helps to overcome the block when you cannot say something beautifully - or you think you cannot. Then you look at the text and understand: here and there you can correct it, and it will be fine. Sometimes you don't have to rule.

What you shouldn't do is write a lengthy introduction. If an article begins with the typical "technologies are becoming more and more densely in our lives", then the editor will throw it out of the text. I even have an example from a recent one: "In recent years, people have increasingly used mobile phones as a means of communication with other people." You do not tell anyone anything new with such passages. If it helps to go further, you can write and then erase (or the editor will erase it), but you don't need to sit and specially invent the approach at such a “non-trivial” angle. Just start with a deed, not a preface or introduction. You can, after finishing the text, go back and add the concise content of the article as the first paragraph - from it the reader will be able to understand why he needs to read this article. In editing, I do the same: I read an article,and then I go back to the beginning and write "lead" - the first paragraph. Sometimes it is designed somehow in a special way in magazines. The best leads communicate why a person should read this article - this makes it easy to navigate. I have already said that at XAKEP we usually ask you to write a short description of the article, one paragraph. Most often, it goes great as a lead and allows you to advertise an article, for example, in social networks.

Naturally, the big problem is how to write. It's best to explain here to someone who has already tried it, who has practice, but some advice can be given. The main problem of a new person who sits down and wants to write something is trying to sound more authoritative. Every inexperienced author tries to imitate some style that he finds authoritative - for example, the style of "police protocol" or "scientific article". Because of this desire to sound weighty, crazy pearls sometimes appear. For example, "a method of increasing the efficiency of using malicious sites to de-anonymize dark web users" is from real text. It is not perceived by ear at all, it seems to me. In the form of text - I, in principle, understand that the author wants to convey in this stringing of eight nouns one on top of another. In general, you must definitely think abouthow a person will read the text, and not try to sound smarter than it would be reasonable to sound. In this case, one could simply write "How to avoid deanon", for example.

People also love to copy the style of "old beautiful writing" and toss out words like "until", "if", "for" and so on to make the text more beautiful. In fact, it doesn't get any more beautiful. Mixed with technical jargon and attempts at scientific style, it looks like hell, you have to throw everything away. It is better to write straight away in simple, clean Russian. I recommend learning to write in the usual sterile language used in news articles before attempting to achieve a “unique writing style”. It is better to first learn to use short, straightforward sentences without trying to imitate a scientific text - after that you can already think about a unique author's approach.

A simple rule: you need to write everything that is needed, and then throw out everything that is not needed. In practice, of course, this is more difficult to do. In general, there are two important principles to follow: keep it shorter and make it more honest. That is, it is necessary to throw out all unnecessary words that do not help to convey the meaning, and also - we must try to convey the meaning instead of somehow cheating. If it suddenly turns out that you are trying to hide the absence of some fact in the text, this is, firstly, difficult (sometimes much more difficult than finding an answer), and, secondly, it is not necessary. You need to communicate honestly with the reader. Instead of writing "recently, many people in large companies ...", it is better to simply find exactly when, who exactly and in which companies. That is, you need to deal with the moments that create inaccuracy. This will make the text better, more informative and understandable.If in your head, when you write, a question is spinning - you need to catch it, pull it out and answer it. You have to be honest with yourself. If you try to do this, if the lack of clarity is formulated in the form of a question, then it will become clear whether it can be answered. And, if it can be answered, then the article should have an answer. And if it is impossible to answer, you need to write directly about it: “a question may arise here, but, unfortunately, I have no answer”. Then the reader will have this question. First, perhaps he himself will know the answer. Secondly, he will not try to look for an answer in a vague text, and he will not doubt himself and think “have I missed the answer to this important question, without which further understanding is impossible,” when the author himself does not know the answer. Of course, you won't always be able to do this, but if you try,then the texts will be simpler and clearer.

Well, and, of course, you need to remove all words that do not carry a direct meaning: "enough", "relatively", "enough." They need to be thrown out as they are found. If without such a word it turns out "untrue" (for example, it was "rather urgent", but it became "urgent", although in fact it is not quite urgent), then the whole phrase was originally used with a distorted meaning, and you need to replace it with a more appropriate one. The text feels more powerful when there are no words in it that approximate the meaning of other words. By the way, most often "by the way" is inappropriate, and after this word people usually report a completely extraneous thing.

One more thing - I call such cases the word “broadcasting”. It is often announced in oral speech or on the radio that something is about to happen. This is normal, but the entire text is already in front of the reader in the article. He himself perfectly sees what will happen next and what happened before - there is no need to announce anything. The authors are still very fond of the words “as mentioned above”, “remind”, “explain” - after them they either repeat what has already been said, or confirm that it has already been said. People don't need these reminders at all. If you really need to mention a fact again, then you can simply mention it again without discussing it, or mention it in some other way in a new context. I often throw out the words "remind" and "explain" - instead of them, you can simply remind and explain. In English textbooks this rule is called "show, don't tell" - "do not tell, but show."There is no need to announce that you are about to do something, you just need to do it. Everyone will understand.

About broadcasting: people often confuse an article and a radio program. For some reason it stuck in XAKEP, and I very often see texts that begin with the word "Hello!" and ends with "Goodbye," "Stay tuned," and so on. Maybe this is some kind of author's trick, and it's cool for someone, but for me it's strange. Kind of like a person is trying to portray a DJ with text. We usually remove such things.

Often too complex texts are found. Perhaps it is Leo Tolstoy's injury to people from school, and they are trying to endlessly lengthen sentences. We should strive to work according to a simple scheme: subject-predicate-object, nothing else is needed. If it turns out to be long, it is better to break it up into several sentences. You can almost always get rid of the parentheses. If there are brackets, then you can split into two sentences without problems.

There is a lot of passive voice - this is when the subject does not perform the action, but is subjected to it. You also need to get rid of this. It is best to have a valid voice everywhere - “someone is doing something”. In the same way, you can remove gerunds, divide long sentences, get rid of the reverse word order. All these things impair the perception of the text, and it is better to remove them. Editors get rid of them first.

It's good practice to write a paragraph, re-read it, and think if it could be easier to say the same thing. Of course, this is painstaking work, but often people do it without even realizing it. Sometimes a person wrote something, and then writes in different words, describing the same thing, but in a simpler way. In such cases, you can delete everything before "other words", and leave only a simpler explanation. Maybe rearrange something from the first into the second as specifying factors. Two approaches are, of course, work, but this work will then help the reader to wade through a complex technical article.

There are also various problems - for example, tautology, but this is understandable: this is taught at school.

A common mistake in unedited texts is "the company takes action." This is a more subtle thing, and, in principle, the first time you can ignore it and write how it goes. The editor will do. The bottom line is that a company is people. Only people do actions, not companies. Sometimes the company is called in the plural. "Microsoft decided," "Facebook did." Instead, you can specify whether to write "Microsoft engineers" or "Facebook management" - it will sound much smarter.

Finishing the conversation about style: a general recommendation is to catch yourself thinking "this will do." The head is an unreliable thing. Here it is the same as when editing the code: the linter error flies out, but it doesn’t linger in my head, because you think “okay, this will work anyway, everyone will understand what I mean”. The most terrible mistakes in relation to the Russian language and style are made precisely at such moments. If you catch yourself, think over again those decisions for which you give yourself permission, then you will catch both inconsistencies and incorrectly constructed sentences - all stylistic mistakes.

Style tips, of course, can be continued as long as you like - there are whole books on them. I think that aspiring authors need to know at least this. Of course, starting to write or writing a little is not all, the main thing is to complete the article. All work will go to waste if the article is not completed. Very often, the authors disappear, come up with amazing excuses, tell them that everything burned out and so on. In fact, this usually means that the person either was not able to concentrate and get together on his task, or he could not clearly imagine the task itself. It is very important to understand whether you understand well what you are going to write about. As soon as you start asking yourself leading questions, all sorts of problems can open up: “I don’t know”, “I would like to get acquainted with this first”, “I would like to ask or discuss”. It is very important.Often you can't move because you don't know what exactly you don't know. This is perhaps the biggest problem. Forcing myself to work is a much smaller problem, I myself really like to be distracted by everything.

Messengers, Twitter, YouTube subscriptions, someone writes letters all the time - especially if you work remotely. I highly recommend the pomodoro timers ("tomato method") - this is a common kitchen timer. You can use one of the millions of timer programs on the Internet. Many who talk about productivity recommend a simple algorithm: 15-25 minutes of hard work, 5-10 minutes of rest. It is customizable according to personal preferences and tasks. For example, writing is quite difficult, and I usually set myself only 15 minutes, and then 5 rest. The main thing is not to be distracted by anything until these 15 minutes have passed. Rarely are there messages in the telegram that will not wait 15 minutes.

Another trick: when you write something, thoughts often pop into your head about what else you can write in this article. These thoughts are very valuable. They signal that the head is working at full capacity, and they cannot be swept away to finish writing. We need to find a balance: to finish writing to a certain point so as not to forget what you wrote about, but then go and develop or at least keep the thought. I usually make a fad at the end of the text, in which I enter the thought that has come, in order to understand for myself what it is about. There are thoughts that you need to look at something, or correct something in the text, or mention something. All this must be saved and then, in a free moment, processed. It is impossible to write continuously: the head starts to bake, you start to stop, you do not know what to write next. Maybe it's because part of the thought process is doing the subconscious,and he, too, should be given time to work. While this is happening, you can go to fix the formatting or just re-read your notes at the end of the text.

If I get tired of writing, and the timer is still ticking, then I usually re-read either the previous paragraph, or from the beginning of the chapter. If you are not far away, you can reread from the beginning of the text. This helps to correct, reformulate what is written. When I return to where I left off, the block sometimes dissolves by itself.

In general, it is very important to always look for the cause of the stupor. If you suddenly stopped at something and do not know how to proceed, you can reread, reflect, understand what is missing.

My productivity has always been tough. I am constantly distracted, I want to do something wrong, I am fond of completely side tasks. Naturally, you have to - especially when you are doing something burning, like managing the editorial office - to invent a bunch of all sorts of life hacks that help to do so that tasks are not lost, and generally not disappear. I think a lot of those interested in productivity have read Getting Things Done — but unfortunately it doesn't take into account electronic workflow and electronic communication. Knowing how it works is useful, but it can be applied with limitations and adjustments for life.

Another thing I love is the clean inbox. It is very useful. I know that people have an abandoned trash heap with 700 unread messages in their mail, but inbox is not only email. These are cases that can accumulate in different places. I try to rake everything up, make sure that neither the mail client nor other places are clogged. You just have to decide quickly whether or not you will do something. If you need to answer someone urgently, you can do it in the style of big bosses, in two words - often it is better to get two words from you than not to get anything. This is important in order to write: it is always better to have a clear head, without a list of overhanging tasks. By Getting Things Done, all these things need to be written out and returned to them when there is time, opportunity or context to do them.

As a telecommuter and former freelancer, I recommend having hours of rest and hours of work. It is important. Some even dress up during working hours as if they were going to work, and always sit down at the table (sometimes even in the office), but this is already out of the realm of dreams. But you must, at least, be able to work from some time to some time and try to finish your tasks by the set time. And be able to give up all these tasks and go about your personal affairs, not abandon them.

What else can you do to improve your writing skills? You have to read. Moreover, to read not only social media like Habr, where texts of different quality, but also professional ones - some Kommersant, Vedomosti, Esquire. Although Esquire is more of a literary material, it is not necessary to equal it in technical texts. Of course, reading alone will not help you learn to write - you still need to write for that. At least somehow. Do not be shy: it will be better next time. There is no way without practice. As an editor, I certainly recommend working with an editor, if possible. I myself am very grateful to both the chief and literary editors: let them swear, laugh, sometimes offend, in some cases rule in silence. You should always look at why something was fixed. If you understand why this was fixed,then there is a high probability that you will not make a mistake next time.

I am always very happy when people come to XAKEP and offer technical articles - especially those related to security. We are ready to help edit, discuss topics. We always try to tell why something is corrected in the article, if a person is interested.

From what you can read, everyone recommends Ilyakhov's "Write, shorten". Nice book. I didn’t read the whole thing, but I looked, and with everything I saw, I agreed. Glad someone else is writing about this too. There is also the book "Internet Journalism" by Amzin - this is the former editor of the "Technologies" section of Lenta.ru. Many people like the book "The Word Living and the Dead" by Nora Gal, although I treat it with caution - the language there is not quite relevant. You can, of course, read about the approaches.

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