Introduction
Portuguese version: Minha experiência escrevendo artigos: motivação e benefícios
Normally, the articles I write focus on technical content related to React, but in this one I intend to do something different.
The idea is to share my experience with writing articles, covering motivation, benefits and when to write them.
Motivation
Many times while developing code, I came across new features and technologies that required me to study documentation and look up how to use them. Development articles were a great source of information in this context.
As I went deeper into different topics and libraries, I realized that just as I had searched for content that helped me, I could also contribute with what I learned, not keeping the knowledge only to myself, but sharing it with others.
Benefits of writing articles
Sharing knowledge with others:
Just as articles helped me during code development, the idea of writing articles also comes from wanting to contribute to other people’s learning and search for information.
Expanding your network with other developers:
Once you start contributing to others, you begin to create a new network of connections with people who were in some way impacted by what you wrote.
Improving communication:
There’s a difference between knowing something and being able to share it with others. As I kept writing articles, I gradually improved over time and also received suggestions that added value to my writing.
For example, one suggestion was to make the code snippets in the articles look better visually. Another was that, since I write in two languages (Portuguese and English), I should include a link in each article pointing to its version in the other language.
Personal learning:
This was something I didn’t initially expect to be a big benefit, but it turned out to be one of the most valuable aspects of writing technical content.
For instance, in many setup-related articles, I came across situations where I knew which libraries to add and how to configure the files, but not deeply why each of those steps was necessary. Writing a setup article pushed me to study the reasoning behind each config file and library, which not only helped me produce a more complete article but also expanded my own understanding.
Another specific example was when I planned to write an updated article on code standardization with eslint. While researching the differences from one version to another, I came across a new library called typescript-eslint. Since the article was about code standardization in React with Typescript, I decided to learn this new library using a personal project and only then write the article about it. In this way, the initial idea of writing an article led me to learn an new library.
When to write articles
In my opinion, there isn’t a "perfect" moment to start writing.
I’ve often heard phrases like, "I don’t have full mastery of the subject", but in a way, no one truly does. What you might consider "a small thing" to write about could be completely new or more specific for many people, who may not have had prior knowledge of it in a language or library.
Another common thought is, "I know the subject, but I don’t know how to explain it". Writing articles helps improve that skill. When I look back at my first articles, there are several points I would change today, but it was all part of the process, starting to write with less experience in order to produce better articles in the future and continue honing that ability.
This article is my first one with a less technical focus, and I might feel the same way in the future about things I could have written better here.
Conclusion
My main goal was to explain what my experience writing articles has been like, the motivation behind producing them, the associated benefits, and to share my opinion that there isn’t a "perfect" moment to start.
At first, there may be some hesitation in beginning to write articles, but over time you adapt and start enjoying the many benefits that come from writing, both for yourself and for the people who read your work.
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