Last updated August 2022

Write for Learning SQL

Share your experiences and knowledge about SQL

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels

Why was Learning SQL created?

I have been a part of Medium since 2017 and have been waiting for a publication to focus solely on SQL. It hasn’t happened yet and so I thought that I would create one! SQL is the unsung hero of data analytics and data science. There’s so much to talk about just in regards to this one language that it deserves its own publication. And not only is understanding how to code in SQL important, but there are many data engineering concepts that all relate back to SQL that are important to discuss as well. With all of the options and ways to set up your data infrastructure, SQL is paramount to any organization’s success that has a data strategy (unless they use a NoSQL alternative). Check out these line graphs from stack overflow showing how since 2008 the interest in SQL has pretty much stayed steady. It’s not going anywhere. NoSQL is also a popular alternative that we would love to feature in this publication as well, however, SQL and relational databases are still the predominant choice for creating data infrastructure.

What do I hope to accomplish with this publication?

Learning SQL is a new publication that is focused on helping improve your SQL coding skills. I hope this publication will serve as a resource for helping data professionals and aspiring data professionals quickly understand and implement new concepts to improve or start their careers.

What kind of articles are we looking for?

We are looking for articles discussing the following topics:

• SQL/NoSQL
• Data Engineering
• Database Architecture
• Tools related to Data Engineering/Data Architecture
• Table Metadata/Data Modeling

If you have other topic ideas that you feel are related, we would love to take a look! We are looking for articles from people of all skill levels. Our target audience is anyone learning SQL, whether you just started or are a skilled professional.

What will help my article be accepted?

Avoid the following:

• Repeating the documentation. The article should add to existing official documentation and provide further clarity. If the article simply repeats existing information without adding any additional insight, the article will likely not be accepted.
• Grammatical issues. This refers to both word spelling and how sentences are structured.
• Not including any references — good articles will likely be borrowing and modifying ideas from other high-quality sources.

Do the following:

• Write about personal experiences and provide examples that add context to existing documentation. Check other articles that already exist and consider how your article will be different. Consider linking articles in the references section at the bottom of your article.
• Be clear about the dialect of SQL you are referring to, especially if what you are writing about is specific to a dialect
• Your articles are clear, concise, free from grammatical issues, and have a good flow between sections and paragraphs
• If you’re going to write about topics that have been written about a lot, make sure your article either: does a better job explaining than previous articles or shares a unique perspective that hasn’t been shared
• Submit only one article at a time to ensure each submission receives adequate attention and feedback

What are the submission guidelines?

Thanks for your interest in contributing to Learning SQL! We follow the Medium distribution standards. Please take a minute to read over the rules if you’re not already familiar.

Please note you are responsible for the work you create according to Medium’s terms of service.

Some tips for creating an article with a higher chance of being accepted in the published and curated by Medium:

• Include a header image and subtitle (a brief summary detailing the article’s content)
• Attribute all images with a caption to the source (if it’s by you please put ‘Image by author’
• Add a ‘Reference’ section for supporting links that were included in the article
• Double-check your grammar before submitting
• Use relevant tags such as ‘SQL’, ‘Data Engineering’, etc…
• When relevant, add code blocks (Markdown and Gists preferred over images)
• Avoid using affiliate links or other inappropriate ‘calls to action’. Appropriate ‘calls to action’ would be your referral link, link to social media, newsletter, or links to prior articles
• Please avoid excessive references to your own previous articles for self-promotional purposes. Your article should not contain more than 3 self-promotional stories. A long list of articles in your reference section is fine and encouraged to ensure you share your sources. Your references section doesn’t have a limit on the number of articles that can be referenced as long as they’re relevant and not simply for self-promotion.

Note: Per Medium’s rules, first-party promotion is permitted, allowing authors to discuss their businesses, products, or services. However, third-party advertising and sponsorships are strictly prohibited.

In situations that involve first-party promotion, where the author is discussing their company, product, or service, it’s essential to maintain transparency and trust with our readers. To ensure transparent communication, a clear and distinguishable disclaimer is necessary. Here is how such a disclaimer should be structured and included as a footer:

Disclaimer: The article’s author is employed by [Company Name] and discusses their product or service in this content. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and are intended to provide informative insights while promoting [Product/Service Name]. Please consider the author’s association with [Company Name] when evaluating the content.

To comply with Medium’s third-party rule, we ask that you please avoid submitting articles that involve advertising or receiving sponsorship for external products, services, or brands.

While we enjoy discovering and experimenting with new tools, we do our best to write about them objectively and ask that you do the same.

Finally, your post should be relevant to the topics we mentioned in the section above. If you’re not sure if your article will fit in with those topics, please send it to us. We would love to take a look and get back to you.

How do I submit my article?

Please fill out this form to submit your article. If we accept your article, we will add you as a writer to our publication and you won’t have to fill out the form again. After we have added you as a writer, we will either email you or leave a private note to let you know that you can add your article to submit to our publication. To add your story to our publication after being added as a writer, you can follow these instructions.

Article drafts submissions are preferred, but we will accept articles previously self-published by the author up to 7 days after it has been published.

We will try and get back to you if we accepted your article or not, but if we don’t get back to you in 3 days, please assume we passed on your article submission.

If you are rejected based off of your article resubmission, you can edit and resubmit once per article. Otherwise, please feel free to submit another article in the future to be considered to become a writer for Learning SQL.

Questions?

Please send me a message via LinkedIn with any questions.

Also, feel free to follow the Learning SQL LinkedIn page as well to stay up to date on everything happening with the publication.

If you want to help this publication succeed even more as an editor, please message me via LinkedIn. I am looking for data professionals that are preferably coding in SQL at least weekly.

I look forward to hearing from you soon!

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