Submission Guidelines
By: Danny Forest
Tags: collection of expert profiles

I started SkillUp Ed two years ago with one goal in mind: be the home of good stories about skill development and education. For the most part, we’ve succeeded.

We’ve since evolved to be about skills and learning. We are a publication about actionable advice on specific skills and on the topic of learning (within education or not).

What we’re looking for topic-wise

Specifically, we’re looking for articles that explain how to become better at a topic/skill. It should be clear what skill(s) you’re talking about.

Essentially, the article should answer these two questions very clearly for the reader:

What skill(s) is this about?

How can I learn it/them?

We also love a good breakdown analysis of what makes for successful learning. Erik Hamre’s collection of expert profiles is a great example.

Readers come to SkillUp Ed to learn something and put it into practice. We love articles that are as actionable as they can be while captivating the reader through stories based on the writer’s experience or the experience of someone they analyzed.

The quality we’re looking for

Grammar

In 2020–2021, there’s no excuse for articles with bad grammar. Use a spellchecker or something like Grammarly to catch those mistakes. Both George J. Ziogas and I edit the pieces in our own free time.

If a piece has too many grammar or syntax errors, we may reject it.

Paragraph size

Most readers on Medium read on mobile. As such, paragraphs should be of a respectable length to make them readable on smaller screens. As a reference, the average paragraph length of highly successful articles is 34 words. As such, we strongly recommend you stick to that number +/- 7, so 27–41 words.

A few one-liners once in a while is fine to add needed emphasis. Longer paragraphs of up to 60 words are fine once in a while too. If your paragraphs are too long, please break them down before sending your draft over.

If a story has paragraphs that are too big or too small, we may reject it.

Formatting

There is no need to get creative with formatting on Medium. They intentionally limit your formatting options so you can write “clean” articles. Here are a few guidelines:

Don’t overuse bold and italic. In fact, there’s rarely a need to use either of them.

and italic. In fact, there’s rarely a need to use either of them. Use the “quotes” formatting for quotes only.

Use headings to split your text

If you need to use multiple layers of headings, do it in this order: Heading 1 > Heading 2 > Bolded text.

If you are using multiple layers of headings, and only then, consider using the line break (Ctrl + Enter on PC and CMD + Return on Mac).

If you write a long article with many headings, strongly consider including a “table of contents” at the top.

If you don’t follow the about guidelines, we may reject your piece.

Backlinks

Always back up your stats and facts with external links. If you include numbers or percentages in your articles, there needs to be a link showing the source of that number. For things that come from your experience, be explicit about it.

Distribution guidelines

We’re lenient about some of Medium’s distribution guidelines when it comes to topics and calls to action, but you 100% should follow the rest. Not doing so may result in us rejecting the piece.

Originality

We will not accept articles that contains content copied from other sources that aren’t your own previous work. You can quote other sources, but failing to refer back to the source will result in a rejection. We also expect that, even if you quote content from other articles, it accounts for a very small portion of your article.

If you report on a topic you’ve read about and experimented with, lead your article with your experience. It’s okay to report on something you don’t have intensive experience with, but make sure you bring something original and authentic to the topic.

We accept articles that come from your personal blog (note that they have to adhere to the above still), but we’ll work with you to adapt it for maximum success on Medium.