Among the main reasons why many advanced IT people are afraid to write on Habr, the impostor syndrome is most often called (they believe that they are not so cool). Plus, they are corny afraid of being minus, well, they complain about the lack of interesting topics. And given the fact that we all once came here from the "sandbox", I want to throw a couple of good thoughts that will help you find the right approach to yourself.
Under the cut is an example of searching for a topic (with generalizations), adapting it for a technical audience and forming the correct structure of the article. Plus a little about design and readability.
PS and in the comments you can cheer about Russian wine, since we will talk about it, among other things.
The post itself is an updated version of my report from GetIT Conf, the recording of which .
A few words about myself. Former head of the Habr content studio. Prior to that, he worked in various media (3DNews, iXBT, RIA Novosti). Over the past 2,5 years, about four hundred articles have passed through my hands. We were creative a lot, made mistakes, gave out hits. In general, the practice was varied. I will not pretend to be the most talented habrawriter, but, one way or another, I have accumulated rich experience and all sorts of statistics, which I am happy to share.
Why IT people are afraid to write
This is not a complete list. But it is to them that the answer will be given further in the text.
By the way, if you have your own reasons why you don’t write, or you see some similar “sins” behind others (except laziness), write in the comments. Discussing all these stories will surely help many get off the ground.
Why write at all?
I'll just put here a collage that I've assembled from quotes in article.
Well, there are other things like this.
For me, the last point about systematization is important here. When you understand a topic and are ready to transfer some of your knowledge or experience to paper, you will have to answer to the reader for every word, every term, and every choice made in the process of work. It's time for your own fact-checking. For example, why did you choose one or another technology? If you write that “colleagues advised” or “I was sure that she was cooler,” people with numbers will come to you in the comments and begin to defend their point of view. Therefore, you should have figures and facts from the very beginning. And they need to be collected. This process, in turn, is sure to enrich you with additional knowledge or confirm existing attitudes.
The most important thing is the choice of topic
Here are a few examples of what made it to the top over the past year:
The cap suggests that the current and complete list can be viewed . Of all this, we are only interested in the genre. And this is what we get: about a third of the TOP 40 I took is occupied by all kinds of investigations, a quarter by revelations, 15% by cognitive and scientific pop, sore and whining by 12%, well, there are also inclusions of DIY and stories about what works and how.
If you want hype, then these genres are for you.
Of course, choosing a topic is not an easy task. The same journalists have "notebooks" in their smartphones, where they write down everything they stumble upon during the day. Sometimes great thoughts come out of the blue, like while reading someone's comments or arguing with colleagues. At this point, you need to write down the topic, because in a minute you will probably forget it.
Accumulating random topics is just one way. But with its help, most often it is possible to find something hit.
Another way comes from your area of expertise. Here you need to ask yourself, what unique experience did I get? What interesting things can I tell my colleagues from what they have not yet encountered? What part of my experience will help them solve their problems? In the same way, you take a notebook and try to write down ~10 topics that come to your mind in it. Write everything, even if it seems to you that the topic is not very interesting. Perhaps later it will be transformed into something more significant.
After you have accumulated a pack of topics, you need to start selecting. The goal is to choose one of the best. In editorial offices, this process takes place every day at the editorial boards. There, topics are collectively discussed and taken to work. And the opinion of colleagues in this matter is important.
Where to get topics for an IT specialist
There is such a list.
Approximately the same list, but in the interpretation for company blogs, lies here in the Habr help. Take a look at it for more ideas.
If you want to dive deeper into working with topics, I will have a free one-hour seminar at the MegaFon office on November 5th. There will be various statistics and all sorts of tips with examples. Places are still available. Details and registration form can be found .
Topic: "what kind of Russian wine to drink"?
Next, I want to give a small example of how and where you can take a topic and adapt it to the reader. Plus pay attention to things that are important when writing and submitting.
Why is the theme of wine taken as an example?
Firstly, it is, as it were, not IT-oriented, and this can serve as an example of what should be emphasized in the presentation so that it is perceived with interest on Habré.
Secondly, I am not a sommelier or a wine critic. This circumstance puts me in the place of those who believe that they are not such stars as those who occupy the top lines of the Habr rating. However, I can tell quite an interesting story. The only question is to whom and how I address it. About what below.
Where did this topic come from?
Everything is simple here. After an excursion to one of the Crimean wineries, I wrote about storytelling and marketing. The topic of the wines themselves was not particularly touched, but it was discussed in the comments, and two messages slipped through there:
Under them, only openly questioning to throw them information in a personal, there were almost three dozen. Obviously, the topic is hype! And you can take it in your piggy bank. But another question arises, and who am I to talk about Russian wines?
It is not the gods who burn the pots, and it is not the Schumachers who teach in driving schools. Therefore, experienced amateurs can also tell a lot of interesting things, provided that they double-check and systematize their knowledge. Well, if you touch on the topic of hype, then it's still more interesting. For example, in the hub "» almost all the top articles are written by non-HR people at all.
So, the topic of wine interested me a few years ago. But I try to treat her not like an old alcoholic, but from an exploratory point of view. I have a swollen Vivino on my smartphone, plus several years of experience in making wines from grapes from a dacha near Moscow. By the standards of winemakers, this is not enough. But in my practice (winemaking) there are both successes and not very successful entries, which make me study the Internet for a long time in search of tips from the pros and check them. As a result, I have accumulated a lot of information that I can share with those who simply ask “what kind of wine should I buy?”
What has been done before us
It's time to look at what Runet offers us on this topic. If you take only advice or information for beginners, then I could not find any systemic or system-forming things. There are publications on Lifehacker and the like, there are blogs of distribution companies, there are blogs of various sommeliers. But this is not all. In non-core sources, you will find either general advice that, in fact, will not help you make a choice, or someone's sick fantasies. And in specialized ones ... they usually tell there for those who have been in the subject for a long time.
Here is an example of the advice of a really cool expert, a teacher of sommelier schools (I don’t name his name, because I treat him with respect). The expert enters the store, stands in the wine row, looks around, takes one of the bottles and says that this is a good option. He is from such and such a region of Chile. It has an intense aroma of black fruit, blackcurrant, violet, vanilla and toasted bread. Puts the bottle back, shaves another. A roughly similar set of nouns and adjectives is expressed about her, but in a different order. And as an additive, something about notes of blackberry and a spark of chocolate sounds. Then all this is repeated again 15-20 times, but with other bottles. The composition of nouns and adjectives changes slightly, but I'm sure that beginners got lost even at the first one.
What is the reason? In a non-systemic approach and focus on an advanced audience. If you have already tried at least a quarter of what the expert held on to, you will be able to pick up another bottle for yourself on his advice. In other cases, it will be a finger in the sky.
And I have not yet talked about what is happening on YouTube with their dominance of 18-year-old "sommeliers" who have already been fired from somewhere.
Where does the article start?
After choosing a topic, you need to formulate a working title.
The working title sets the exact direction. It depends on him how much water will then be in the text, and how many times you will shred and rewrite it.
If the working title sounds like “What kind of wine to drink” - this is everything and nothing at the same time. We will drown in this topic. We need specifics. In the heading "What kind of Russian wine to drink" there is a hint that we should talk about how our wines differ from wines from other regions. Already better. And it's time to ask ourselves, what exactly do we want to do and for whom?
Obviously, the hikes we googled earlier were not systemic. I believe that people with a technical mindset are trying to classify and sort everything. It will be difficult for them to train their built-in neural network on the principles that are offered by the same professional sommeliers. The liver will not stand it, and it will also turn out to be unprofitable for the wallet. Therefore, the working title could be: “What kind of Russian wine to buy: a guide for an IT specialist.” With it, we outline our audience and determine for ourselves that the information will be presented in a systematic way. Plus, there will be a buying guide inside, and not just an abstract theory. And Habr will no longer ask why on earth an article about alcohol appeared here.
Knocking out the texture
At this stage, it is important to understand whether we can answer all the questions within the topic. And if we are missing something, the gaps need to be filled before we start writing.
1. The starting point, as Cap suggests, is grapes. We also add the theme of blends here. It is generally endless, but starting from grape varieties, you can imagine what to expect in each case.
Another important thing to remember is sugar. Wine yeast is killed when the must contains about 14% alcohol. If by this point (or earlier) the must has run out of sugar, the wine will be dry. If the grapes were sweet, the yeast would not be able to "eat" all the sugar and it would remain. Accordingly, there is a huge field for experimentation, starting from the time of grape harvest (the longer it hangs, the more sugar it gains), and to stopping fermentation in various ways.
2. But if you ask the winemakers, then in the first place in terms of importance they will most likely put not grapes, but terroir.
Terroir, in a simplified sense, is a site that has its own climatic and soil features. On one side of the hill it is warm, on the other side it may already be windy and cool. Plus different soils. Accordingly, the grapes will taste different.
A good example of terroir is the Massandra wine "White Red Stone Muscat". According to their version, this is one of the Muscat varieties, which is harvested on a small plot of 3-4 hectares with stony red soils. The only mystery to me is how 3-4 hectares show their year-round presence on all wine shelves in the country. But that is another story.
The appellation is already a region to which strict wine-making rules apply (the use of varieties, blends and many others). For example, in Bordeaux there are about 40 appellations.
Well, in general, the regional climate is of great importance. And here we come to the Russian theme.
What is the problem with Russian wines
Firstly, as I see it, winemaking is only just emerging in our country. In the last century, it was repeatedly broken by revolutions, wars, perestroika and crises. In almost all places, continuity is broken, which is very critical for winemaking.
The second problem is the climate. It's cold here and the weather is unstable. Grapes need a lot of sun. Without it, the berries will have a lot of acid and little sugar.
This is a clipping from a reference book of Russian wines. It contains annual assessments of climatic conditions for individual regions. If we take a similar for the same Spain, there are practically no bad years there.
As a living example, I will give these small balls in a photo taken at the end of September. This is what should have become grapes in my country house, if not for the cold summer.
So this year I was left without my own Isabella. However, it was replaced by aromatic cider, which at the moment has confidently stepped over 13 revolutions and still does not calm down.
3. You probably learn about winemaking all your life. There are a million nuances that you need to keep in mind and not miss the right moments. It is very easy to screw up wine, but it takes experience to straighten it out. You can talk about it endlessly. Therefore, in my understanding, wine is a junction of art and technology (knowledge, methods, techniques).
How to rate wine
If according to the rules, then you need to rely on a fairly recent GOST number 32051-2013, created by smart people. Everything is spelled out in it to the smallest detail, including tasting processes, including almost the thickness of the glasses.
However, there is a main principle called "there is no arguing about tastes." And if individual indicators of wine quality can be common, then grapes, blends, terroirs are everyone's personal preference.
For example, my wife and I agree on this issue by only 70 percent. And no matter how high marks the next bottle of Saperavi is, for me it, at best, will be like “yes, good wine.” But not mine. And this is the most important principle from which one must build, while the public and sommeliers operate only with adjectives good / bad, recommending everything good in a row.
Ratings and expert opinions also help in the selection process. For example, bottles can be labeled with ratings of this wine from well-known magazines such as Wine Enthusiast or Wine Advocate, made according to Robert Parker's hundred-point system. But this applies to the more expensive segment of wines.
Wine expert Artur Sargsyan does a great job for the Russian segment. Since 2012, under his editorship, the author's guide “Russian Wines” has been published, and this year, together with Roskachestvo, he swung at another project - “". In May, they purchased 320 bottles of domestic wine in the category under 1000 rubles from Moscow retailers, assembled a team of 20 sommeliers, whose work resulted in 87 bottles falling into the recommended category.
Now they are preparing the second round, for which many more samples have been purchased. The report is expected to be released by the end of December.
In addition to the opinion of experts, the "help of the hall" often helps out. With the Vivino app, you scan the label and see how other alcoholics have rated the wine. According to my observations, what is gaining more than 3,8 points can be taken for testing. The only thing is that after scanning, you should always check whether the brand of wine and especially the year are correctly recognized. If not, there you can manually edit the input data and get what you are looking for.
Selection algorithm
For a beginner, it is simple: start from grapes (blends), find your varieties, find your producers. Evaluate how stable the quality of their wines can be in popular lines throughout the year. Look in Vivino and reference books.
Yes, there is such a thing as "mood"! In hot weather, for example, you want something cold and light; in the fall, something denser, tart (tannic) on barbecue. There are a lot of options, and you don’t have to try to cram yourself into patterns like “red for meat, white for fish, champagne for the new year.” This is very rough and general.
As a result, we get the following scheme: current mood → varieties (blends) → region → manufacturer → Vivino → bottle. But this is not a dogma. Try new things, because interesting and unexpected discoveries often happen.
So, if the invoice is collected, and within the framework of the topic you are ready to answer all possible questions, you need to move on to the structure. If gaps are found, they must be filled before writing, otherwise, while working on the text, you will catch the virus of uncertainty and get sick with procrastination.
Article structure
It obeys the chosen format. An encyclopedic post will have one, a review will have another.
But in general, there is a good rule - all the most interesting should be as close to the beginning as possible.
The reader opens the article, scrolls a little, and if he does not see anything interesting, he leaves. In general, talking about structure is a topic for a separate story.
In our case, it will be like this:
- Since the article is for Habr, we must immediately explain what wines will do on this IT platform. Here we raise the main problem that information on this topic in most sources is only suitable for training neural networks and, in fact, is big data. And we need a systematic approach.
- The second place will be taken by the holivar “domestic vs imported”. It will serve as the first highlight for the reader.
- Against the background of holivar, you can already tell how wines differ in general.
- Evaluation criteria and labeling can be given in large boxes.
- Purchase algorithm, where we start from the mood, grapes (blend) and end with the "help of the hall".
- The insert about slag is the cherry on our cake. The so-called “second ending” technique, when you have already covered the whole topic and sort of put an end to it, but then give another portion of useful information.
For the reader to read
The text has the concept of usability. So that the reader does not get overwhelmed halfway, you need to follow one rule: do not leave a whole screen of bare text. And the first thing to take into service is the subheadings.
Overall, the topic of usability is also huge. There are a lot of questions like “why did the reader leave such and such a part”, “why did he scroll and close” and most importantly - “why did he go no further than the second screen”. Quite often, minor oversights become the cause, which can be corrected in half a minute. For example, the header mismatch problem. I wrote more about her .
In the dry residue
- don't be afraid to share your real experience
- address it to those who do not have it (newcomers are the most grateful audience)
- topics need to be saved, this process is not fast
- start writing with a specific working title (no abstractions or generalizations)
- in the structure, pull all the most interesting to the top (if the format allows)
- Yu - usable
And most importantly, writing skills are developed, and practice is needed here.
Yes, there was an understatement in the topic of wine, on the example of which we dismantled the kitchen for preparing the post. In order not to clutter up the post, I'll put it under the spoiler.
If interested, click here.
It is difficult to recommend specific domestic manufacturers. Usually budget lines prevail in their assortment, with which all the counters are stuffed, and something more worthwhile quickly appears and quickly disappears. This is logical, since there are small circulations. If the line of wine is one step higher than the base one, the word Reserve may appear on the label, which can be used as an additional guide.
On the slide above, I wrote several brands and factories that you can pay attention to on occasion.
Grapes are easier. The most popular in the world are Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. With them, you can fully appreciate the significance of such concepts as region, terroir, as well as the magic of winemakers. In total, there are more than eight thousand grape varieties. And in Russia there are autochthons, for example, the Tsimlyansky black, the red-stop, the Siberian. The first two can be easily found in various chain stores and I would recommend giving them a try.
If we talk about specific wines in the budget segment, take a closer look at these options:
The first two are from the top of the Sargsyan rating. The Alma Valley Red 2016 blend is a really interesting wine and worth a try. The pink in the center is from the Zweigelt grape. Not a masterpiece, but it will help to get an idea of Russian rosé wines, which are very few on the market.
On the right is a classic blend for wines from Bordeaux - Cabernet and Merlot, harvest 2016. The guys from the "New Russian Wine" go around various wineries, choose what is better and buy large quantities. But that's in theory. In practice, it is difficult to maintain quality in large volumes even at one plant. Therefore, you need to be prepared for the fact that today you bought one drink, and a month later there may be another one in a similar bottle on the store shelf. Of course, this is a problem with all big-batch wines, and old alcoholics have a rule that if you buy a wine and you like it, you have to go back to the same store and get a spare. Because in the next batch it may already be from another "barrel".
Have fun!
Source: habr.com