Write for OpenDataScience!

Article Submission for Contributing Writers

1. Who can write blogs?
2. Who is your audience?
3. What types of articles do you accept?
4. How do I get an article approved?
5. What is your style guide?
6. How do I send in my article?
7. Will I get credit?
8. Will you make any changes?

1. Who can write articles?

Anyone can contribute as long as you’re able to produce quality work that fits our audience and subject areas.

2. What is your audience?

Our audience is composed of data scientists of all levels, including entry-level employees, mid-level “in the weeds” scientists, managers and decision-makers, academics, researchers, and more. We do not post fluff and aim to create technical content, largely designed for mid-level data scientists or decision-makers/management.

3. What type of articles do you accept?

We accept articles on many different subjects, but the common thread is that articles must:

• Be informative and engaging;
• Avoid self-promotion;
• And, back up any claims, statistics, quotes, and tool, platform or people references with links to the source material. Make sure that your sources are reliable. It is preferred that you link to .edu, .gov, or .org sites when applicable. Do not link to or use Wikipedia as a source. This all ensures us that the information conveyed in each article is accurate, while also provides readers with the ability to learn more

As for subject matter, we accept articles on any or multiple of the following topics:

• Academic research
• Artificial Intelligence
• Applied Artificial Intelligence (Agriculture, Automotive, Education, Energy, Financial Services, Government, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Media, Retail, Technology, Transportation)
• Career Insights
• Modeling (Data Visualization, Data Wrangling, Deep Learning, Machine Learning, NLP/Text Analytics, Predictive Analytics, Statistics)
• News
• Opinion
• Tech Updates (Announcements, Data Science for Good, Mergers/Acquisitions, Tech News)
• Tools & Languages (DataOps, DS @ Scale, Platforms, Python, R, Workflow)

4. How do I get an article approved?

First, read and search through our website to make sure your idea hasn’t already been written. If something similar has already been created but you want to keep that topic, try to come up with a new angle that we haven’t yet covered. Then, reach out to our blog team (blogs@odsc.com), with as much information as you can provide. This should, at least, include your idea, your background/experience level with the topic, and your expected completion date. From there, we’ll look at your pitch and get back to you in a timely manner if we’re able to move forward.

5. What is your style guide?

• Articles are all in title-case, which means that the first letter of each word is capitalized, except for certain small words, such as articles and short prepositions.
• If a framework/tool/etc technical term is properly written in lowercase — or begins a title — then it will be written as such. Example, scikit-learn is always lowercase, even in the title.
• We use the Oxford — aka serial — comma (something, another thing, and this thing).
• No double spaces after a period.
• Books, magazines, and other publications are italicized. Other media such as movies and TV shows go in “double quotes.”
• It doesn’t matter if you use first-, second-, or third-person, as long as the article is consistent.
• Articles are ideally 700–1000 words, though they can be longer depending on the nature of the piece.
• We do not allow any form of plagiarism. All contributor content on OpenDataScience.com must be original. It’s understandable that some things are difficult or impossible to rewrite (quotes, definitions, etc) but all narrative and explanations must be original. You can check this by using Copyscape and copy/pasting the content into the text box.
• Keep the proper capitalization of frameworks, languages, libraries, etc.
• Terms like “machine learning” and “data science” are not capitalized, aside from titles.
• However, acronyms of these are capitalized (ML, DS, AI, etc)
• Include images at full size
• If you include videos in your article, you must give us the YouTube link so we may embed it in our backend.

6. How do I send in my article?

There are a few different ways that we receive content to post on the site, after your article has been approved to write.

• Google Docs: Generally the most popular/common option. This way, we can make any edits and it’s easily shareable.

1. Make sure to send images as jpgs or pngs since we can’t copy/paste or save them from Google Docs.

• Microsoft Word: Similar format to Google Docs, though it’s hard to leave notes and share.

1. Make sure to send images as jpgs or pngs since we can’t copy/paste or save them from Word Documents

• Bios and Images: When submitting your first article, please be sure to also send your headshot and a brief bio. We also require that you send over any images used in the body of the text as .jpgs or .pngs.

7. Will I get credit?

All authors get credit for their writing with a by-line. If you’re submitting an article for the first time, please include your full name, a headshot, and a short bio (up to 180 characters), so we may create a profile for you. When your article is posted, readers will be able to click on your name, see that information, and read anything else you’ve written for us.

8. Will you make any changes to my writing?

When you submit writing, there are a few edits/additions we may make, however, this will never be extensive and it will never change the meaning of your information. A few ways and reasons we might make edits are:

• For SEO purposes: sometimes, we have to change a sentence or heading in order to accommodate the chosen keyword/keyphrase and get a better SEO rating. This helps create more organic traffic for your writing.
• Format, Grammar, Spelling: we may edit the format of your article (this could include adding headings, formatting lists, italicizing words, etc); we also do a grammar and spelling check with every article, so we may fix any errors. However, please avoid relying on us to catch these mistakes and do your best to send in error-free work.
• Photos: all articles must have a featured image. If you don’t provide us with any images in your article, we may add some in. This helps keep our website consistent and helps with SEO ranking.
• Call to Actions or [Related Article:…]s: every article on the website includes suggested related articles throughout the copy (usually after the first paragraph and before the last). This promotes deeper learning and gives everyone more traffic. We also may insert a call to action, when applicable, telling people about upcoming conferences we’re hosting. These may be in the middle of the article or at the very end.