How to Get Your Work Published by Learning Data with Maven Analytics

So you’ve read some of our articles and are now ready to share your own work and insights with our community?

That’s fantastic!

We’re thrilled that you want to contribute to the conversation in our data community. To help make the process as painless as possible, we’ve created this handy step-by-step guide to get your work in front of the expansive Maven Analytics audience (1+ million students and counting!).

So…let’s get started!

Step 1: Set up your Medium Account

If you don’t already have a Medium account, you’ll want to complete this step first! It seems like a no-brainer, right?

Once you’ve signed up for Medium, you can customize your profile. Add your name, profile picture, and a short bio — this will give the community an opportunity to learn more about you!

(You can also customize your Medium handle in your settings, which is why you need to do this before moving on to Step 2…)

Step 2: Apply to write for Learning Data

You can search for Learning Data at the top of your home page on Medium.

Now that you have a developed Medium profile, it’s time to put your name in front of the Learning Data Editors!

(This is also a great time to subscribe to the publication if you aren’t already!)

Navigate to our publication’s “About” tab and click the link to “Submit” your work to Learning Data — also linked here.

This will take you to a Typeform where you can submit your name, Medium handle, and a few topic ideas to the Editors:

Once you’ve done that, you can work on your article draft and wait — you’ll soon be added as a Learning Data writer!

Step 3: Write Your Article

You can find your “write” tool on the top right corner of your Medium toolbar.

Now for the fun part: writing your article!

Medium makes it easy to draft and format your piece with a great tutorial to help you get started. The rich-text toolbar is a breeze to access (highlight your text and you’ll find it!), and you can easily add images, videos, embedded files, and even code blocks at your paragraph breaks.

Step 4: Submit Your Article to Learning Data

Once the Learning Data Editors have added you as a writer to the publication, you’re ready to submit your first article!

In your article draft, you’ll want to navigate to the three dots next to “Publish”, which will open this menu:

Once you select “Add to publication”, you’ll be shown a list of publications that you have been added to as a writer. You’ll want to choose “Learning Data” from that list:

Before finalizing your submission, this is a great time to go back and review your draft. Read through your article one more time, make sure that you’re happy with the piece (maybe use Grammarly one last time), and then…click submit!

Now you’ve reached the last step in the submission process: you’ll get one more chance to see the article preview that will be visible to publication readers and make any last updates.

You can also add topic tags to help your article get in front of the right audience!

Once you’ve submitted your article:

CONGRATULATIONS!

You’ve taken the big step to get your work in front of thousands of people!

Now sit back, relax, and enjoy — Medium will notify you if the Editors require edits or when your article is approved or denied for publication.

Remember: if we suggest edits, it’s not because we don’t like you or your article. Quite the opposite! It’s that we want your article to be successful on Medium, just like you!

Getting Started: Learning Data Submission Guidelines

The Learning Data publication is a way for the Maven Analytics data community to share knowledge, stay up to date on the latest industry news, and provide another opportunity for project feedback.

Since 2014 we’ve helped students and teams across 150+ countries develop the most sought-after analytics and business intelligence skills, through on-demand courses, personalized skills assessments, curated learning paths, and enterprise training.

It’s only natural that we’d want anything published by Learning Data to be an extension of that mission!

Here are some basic guidelines to help you get started:

What we talk about at Maven Analytics

• We’re data geeks! We love news, new tech, and new developments in the data community.
• We love hearing success stories! You’ve landed a new job, got promoted, started a gig of your own — tell us about it.
• We cherish unsuccessful stories, too — they’re just stepping stones to success! — let us know what you would do differently.
• Tools (Maven’s stack and any other tools you’re using in the data world!)
• Industry best practices and examples of their application.

Writing Tips

• Check grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Grammarly is a free tool — we highly recommend using it!
• Include clear heading tags. Medium has two easy heading styles to access on your toolbar. The big T is your H2: use this for your section headings. And the little T is an H3: use this for sub-titles (like this “writing tips” section!).
• Make your article “skimmable.” Paragraphs should only be 2–3 sentences for online writing. Use bullets and numbered lists where applicable.
• Use hyperlinks instead of adding citations at the bottom of your piece.
• Generic terms that are not proper nouns (e.g. data science, machine learning, artificial intelligence, data literacy) don’t need to be capitalized.

Blogging Basics

• Plagiarism will not be tolerated. Any piece submitted needs to be YOUR original work — remember to credit your sources where needed and let us hear YOUR unique offering to the conversation. Plagiarized work or content produced entirely by AI will result in immediate disqualification from our publication.
• Anything submitted should be original, unique content. Please do not send pieces submitted to us to other publications.
• Quality is key. Your content should have direct value to our audience. Clickbait and misleading titles/introductions will not be accepted.
• Focus on clarity. Use clear and simple language, use screenshots to support your content, and avoid unnecessary technical jargon.
• Links need to be relevant. Any links included should be from top-tier source material and add value to the piece.
• Include a featured image. Having an image at the top of your article is a great blogging practice and helps break up the text of your article. (Medium makes this easy; they have an integration with the Unsplash library!)

Learning Data Best Practices

• Think about the Maven audience. What new information or perspectives can you offer them?
• Develop your voice. What makes you different from others in your industry? Let that shine.
• Structure your piece. Grab your reader’s attention with a hook. Be sure you have a distinct introduction and conclusion, with supporting content.
• Remember that any word or image included in your piece should offer value. If it’s filler and not a transition, it probably doesn’t need to be there.
• Support any claim you make with evidence. Use quality sources, and link to them! (See link requirements above.)
• Your content should be informative, not self-promotional. Maven reserves the right to remove or reject any text, link, or image intended to sell an outside product or service.
• Get an extra pair of eyes on your piece before you submit it to the Learning Data Editors. Medium allows you to share a link to your draft, so you can have a friend or peer read through your article before you send it over to catch any errors you or Grammarly may have missed!

We can’t wait to see what you have to share with the community.

Happy writing!