How to get your article ready for publication!

We aim to strike a balance between innovating, informing and philosophizing. We want to hear from you! If you are not a professional writer, consider the following points when preparing your article. We want to publish high quality, professional articles that people want to read.

Is your story a story that needs to be told?

Before you start writing, ask yourself: is this story a story that needs to be told?

If you have read many articles addressing the same issue or explaining the same concept, think twice before writing another one. If you have a radical, new take on an old chestnut, we want to hear from you… but, we need you to persuade us that your article is something special that distinguishes itself from the pack and speaks to our audience.

Conversely, if your article addresses an underserved area or presents a new idea or method, that’s just what we are after!

What is your message?

Let us know what your main message is, right from the start. Give your piece a snappy introduction that tells us:

• What is your novel idea?
• Why should we care?
• How are you going to prove your point?

Once you’ve got that out of the way, you can be as conversational as you like, but keep calling back to the central message and give us a solid conclusion.

Remember though, Towards Data Science is not your personal blog, keep it sharp and on-topic!

On the internet, nobody knows you are a dog

You’ve got a new idea or a new way of doing things, you want to tell the community and start a discussion. Fantastic, that’s what we want too, but we’re not going to take for granted that you know what you are talking about or that we should uncritically believe what you say… you’ve got to persuade us (your audience) that:

• The subject matter is important
• There is a gap that needs to be filled
• You have the answer
• Your solution works
• Your idea is based on a logical progression of ideas and evidence
• If you are giving us a tutorial, tell us why people would need to use this tool and why your way is better than the methods already published.

You can do this by explaining the background, showing examples, providing an experiment or just laying out how data you have extracted from various sources allowed you to synthesise this new idea.

Are there arguments that counter your opinion or your findings? Explain why that interpretation conflicts with your idea and why your idea comes out on top.

Do you have a short title with an insightful subtitle?

If you scroll up to the top of this page, you will see an example of a title and subtitle. Your post needs to have a short title and a longer subtitle that tell readers what your article is about or why they should read it. Your header is useful for attracting potential readers and making your intentions clear. To remain consistent and give readers the best experience possible, we do not allow titles or subtitles written in all-caps. We also ask that you avoid profanity in both your title and subtitle.

When your subtitle is directly under the title and formatted correctly, it will show up in some post previews, which helps with your click-through rate. 

What makes your post valuable to readers?

A successful post has a clearly defined and well-scoped goal, and follows through on its promise. If your title tells us you’re going to unpack a complex algorithm, show the benefits of a new library, or walk us through your own data pipeline, make sure the rest of the post delivers.

Here are a few pointers to help you plan and execute a well-crafted post:

• 1. Decide what your topic is — and what it isn’t
  If you’re not sure what your post is going to be about, there’s very little chance your audience will when they read it. Define the problem or question your article will tackle, and stick to it: anything that doesn’t address the core of your post should stay out.
• 2. Create a clear plan
  With your topic in hand, sketch out a clear structure for your post, and keep in mind the overall structure it’ll follow. Remember that your main goal is to keep your reader engaged and well-oriented, so it’s never too early to think about formatting and how you’ll break down the topic into digestible sections. Consider adding section headings along the way to make your structure visible.
• 3. Use clear, action-driven language
  If you’re still finding your personal voice as a data-science author, a good place to start is keeping things clean, clear, and easy to follow.

If your article is full of neutral, generic verbs (like to be, have, go, become, make, etc.), try to mix in more precise action verbs. When it makes sense, use specific, lively descriptors instead of dull ones (for example, you could replace “easy” with “frictionless,” “accessible,” or “straightforward,” depending on the context).

There are few things editors appreciate more than a clean first draft, so don’t forget to proofread your post a couple of times before sharing it with TDS: look for spelling, punctuation, and grammar issues, and do your best to fix them. What we hope to offer to our readers are clear explanations, a smooth overall flow — pay attention to those transitions! — and a strong sense of what you’re aiming to achieve with your post.

If you’d like to expand your toolkit beyond the basics, the Internet is full of great writing resources. Here are a few ideas to help you get started:

• Writing for an academic journal: 10 tips. The Guardian
• 6 of the Best Pieces of Advice from Successful Writers
• Steven Pinker’s Sense of Style

Are your code and equations well displayed?

TDS readers love to tinker with the ideas and workflows you share with them, which means that including a code implementation and relevant equation(s) in your post is often a great idea.

To make code snippets more accessible and usable, avoid screenshots. Use WordPress’s code blocks & inline code

To share math equations with your readers, Embed.fun is a great option. Alternatively, you can use Unicode characters and upload an image of the resulting equation.

When you include code or an equation within your article, be sure to explain it and add some context around it so readers of all levels can follow along.

To learn more about using these embeds and others in your post, check out this resource.

Check your facts

Whenever you provide a fact, if it’s not self-evident, let us know where you learned it. Tell us who your sources are and where your data originated. If we want to have a conversation we all need to be on the same page. Maybe something you say will spark a discussion, but if we want to be sure we are not at cross purposes, we need to go back to the original and read for ourselves in case we are missing a vital piece of the puzzle that makes everything you say make sense.

Is your conclusion to the point and not promotional?

Please make sure that you include a conclusion at the end of your article. It’s a great way to help your readers review and remember the essential points or ideas you’ve covered. You can also use your conclusion to link an original post or a few relevant articles.

Adding an extra link to your author profile or to a social media account is fine, but please avoid call-to-action (CTA) buttons.

For your references, please respect this format:

[X] N. Name, Title (Year), Source

For example, your first reference should look like this:

[1] A. Pesah, A. Wehenkel and G. Louppe, Recurrent Machines for Likelihood-Free Inference (2018), NeurIPS 2018 Workshop on Meta-Learning

Are your tags precise enough?

The more specific your tags, the easier it is for readers to find your article and for us to classify and recommend your post to the relevant audience.

We may change one or two tags before publication. We would do this only to keep our different sections relevant to our readers. For instance, we would want to avoid tagging a post on linear regression as “Artificial Intelligence”.

Is your content original?

While we do accept content that has already been published (for example, on your personal blog or website), our focus is on promoting and sharing new and original content with our readers. That means that by publishing your article in TDS first (or exclusively), you have a greater chance to be featured on our publication, our social media channels, and in our newsletter.

We love original content because it’s something that our audience hasn’t seen before. We want to give as much exposure to new material as possible and keep TDS fresh and up-to-date.

Originality also means that you (and your coauthors, if any) are the sole creator of each and every element in your post. Any time you rely on someone else’s words, you have to cite and quote them properly, otherwise we consider it an instance of plagiarism.

Did you get any feedback before submitting your post?

Get into the habit of always asking a friend for feedback before publishing your article. Having worked so hard on that article, you wouldn’t want to let a silly mistake push readers away.

Has your Author profile been completed correctly?

Please include your real name, a photo, and a bio. We don’t publish posts from anonymous writers — it’s easier to build trust with readers when they associate your words with an actual person.

Use your profile to introduce yourself, your expertise, your and achievements — optimizing it will help you develop a meaningful relationship with your audience beyond a single post. 

If you are a company and would like to publish with us, please note that we almost exclusively publish articles submitted directly from the author.

Are you getting better?

Take a minute to reflect on the work you have been doing so far, and the current article you wish to publish. What value are you bringing, and to whom? In which ways are this article better or worse than the ones you previously published?