Writing diaries on Daily Kos is a lot of fun. You get satisfaction from informing the community about interesting events and issues, people express admiration for your efforts and you learn some new things yourself as you explore a topic in order to write about it intelligently. If you haven’t yet tried your hand at creating a diary, give it a whirl and you might find that you’re quite good at it.
However, there are some pitfalls to avoid if you want your diary to be accurate, informative, and — above all — useful and enjoyed by the community. The items that follow are my personal list of pet peeves, so your mileage may vary if you ignore my suggestions but the community seems to love your work anyway. Also, note that these apply primarily to news diaries; use your own judgement about applying them to personal life stories, or posts about pets and gardening, or clever cartoons.
So, without further ado, here’s what not to do when writing your news diary.
Urgently break your news on DK right now!!!
You were shocked this morning when you read the latest issue of the Journal of Applied Picklology and discovered that the government changed the regulations for nutrition labels on jars of pickles. Naturally, you rushed to your keyboard and typed out a missive with the headline “BREAKING!!! Pickles Under Federal Assault!”
You should have taken a deep breath and asked yourself a few questions before clicking Publish.
- Will this news dramatically affect the lives of many people?
- Does it require readers to urgently do something about it?
- Are readers unlikely to already know about this from other sources?
If you can’t answer yes to all of those questions, tone it down. Save the breathlessness and “BREAKING!!!” for the right time and events. If the dead are rising from their graves and hunting for live human brains or if ICBMs have been launched and we have about 17 minutes left before extinction, surrender to your most hysterical instincts. On second thought, just step away from the keyboard and seek out family and friends, either to share final solaces or to plan your defense strategies for the zombie apocalypse.
Remember that very little news published on DK is truly original. Most of our news stories are compiled from other sources — CNN, WaPo, White House press releases, and so on — so we generally aren’t actually breaking news here. We’re sharing news items that have already broken elsewhere and if they’re important enough they will be on the major news media, seen by many of your readers; if they’re not that important, they don’t merit a screeching alert in your headline.
Trust everything that you read on the internet
No, just no. “Fake news” (carefully crafted propaganda) isn’t the only problem with internet sources; clickbait, satire, unintentional misinformation, and other problematic sources abound online. As I wrote in another diary, if something is too good (or too bad) to be true, be cautious.
We all are sometimes subject to confirmation bias, the desire to believe something because it fits right in with our hopes, fears, prejudices, or attitudes. So, your inner social justice warrior may become incensed when you read an article and thus you scribble off an angry diary about the persecution of Nambian immigrants who are trying to start up a covfefe importing business.
If you stopped and thought it through, you might scan some other articles on the site and realize it’s a satire platform. You might recall that Nambia is a made-up country according to Trump and nobody has any idea what the hell covfefe is.
When possible, try to find multiple independent sources on which to base your diary. If you must rely on a single source — often true when an event has just recently occurred — do your best to ensure that the source is legitimate. Media Bias/Fact Check is a site that can help you evaluate many online sources.
If the source cites other articles or reports, check them out as well. Be sure that you understand what the background sources say. If no background sources are included, do a little googling yourself. You can find background on your own which may help you verify and better understand an article; you can also weave that material into your diary, adding value and context to the principal news item.
Don’t give credit to anyone
Even if you are the Great and Powerful Kos himself, you need to back up your claims. Just because you assert something we don’t need to assume that you know what you’re talking about.
If you write something like “A new report says that blah blah blah” and you do not provide a link to the report or to an article about the report, we may reasonably assume you based your diary on scrambled recollections from your last weekend with magic mushrooms.
Put in links in such a way as to clearly attribute quotations to your source, such as “Krotor writes that,”
All quotations should be properly attributed.
Alternately, you can use enumerated superscript citation marks, like this — “All quotations should be properly attributed.” [1] — and put the link, article name, and author in numbered endnotes at the foot of your diary.
If you don’t include any actual quotations in your diary, you still should put in a link — in the body or in an endnote — to the original article and make it clear that your diary is based on that source. For complex subjects, a couple of links to general background information is a nice bonus for readers.
Good sources, multiple sources, and clear attributions assist your readers in exploring a topic on their own. They also solidify your reputation as a reliable author.
Reveal as little as possible and make the reader work
You took the time out of your busy day to read a news article. So when you write a diary, you include as little information as possible because readers should have to put in at least as much effort as you did, right?
Why the heck are you writing diaries if you feel that way? Why should readers believe that your diary topic is important if you won’t take even a few minutes to present a case for its relevance and importance?
There is nothing that says “I’m lazy and this diary is pointless” like a diary that reads like this:
Read this important story, it makes me so mad! LINK
Don’t waste your own time nor that of your readers with cryptic truncated diaries. Write a summary of what the news item is about, add a quote or two, include your opinion about the subject, or whatever floats your boat … but don’t expect us to give a damn if you don’t give one either.
Write Open letters that the intended target will never see
Yes, your opinion is of the utmost importance … to you, your mom, and your pet cat. To the rest of the world? Not so much.
An open letter has traditionally been a personal communication to a prominent individual, either from another prominent individual or an organization. The content has been deemed of sufficient interest and importance to the general public that it is shared in a highly visible manner, such as publishing it in a purchased half-page space in the New York Times. It is expected that the recipient of the actual posted letter is likely to see or hear about its conspicuous publication and possibly issue an explanation or rebuttal.
When I read an open letter here on Daily Kos, I assume several things:
- The author didn’t bother to print out and mail the letter to its addressee
- The author doesn’t have a spare $100 grand for a half-page ad in a national newspaper
- The addressee will never read or hear about the diatribe
- The author is an idiot with delusions of grandeur
Do you seriously believe that leaders of neo-Nazi groups are going to read your open letter on DK? Will the Secretary of [Cabinet department] ruefully ruminate over your outraged screed and promptly and publicly apologize? Do Tea Party voters faithfully peruse this “cesspit of libtardism” in order to read your scribblings and flash-convert to upstanding progressives due to your persuasiveness?
Put down the bong and get a grip.
What you’re actually doing is venting your spleen about an issue that matters to you. Fine. Share it with DK readers as an opinion diary, directed at this community. Explain the issue and your position on it and, if at all possible, offer some suggested actions for us to take. Enjoy the comments, where others can gripe right along with you.
But don’t flatter yourself or insult our intelligence by assuming that the object of your ire will notice or care about what you write here. If you truly want to reach your intended target(s) and supporters, sign up at Redstate or another venue that they patronize and publish it there.
Of course, if you really are someone famous, knock yourself out. Perhaps the targeted person will actually notice what you wrote. In fact, even if you’re a nobody like me, I’ll give you a full exemption from my “no open letters” rule if you actually print it out and snail mail it to the recipient. Any takers on that offer? Nah, I thought not.
Never search because you just know that your diary will be a scoop
This is the junior sibling of the “BREAKING!!!” bad habit mentioned above. You read a very interesting article or saw a news broadcast and you know the DK community will find it fascinating. So, you spend some time writing up a nice diary on the subject and hit Publish.
Nobody pays the slightest bit of attention. Wut???
If you had taken an extra minute or two, you would have seen that 37 other diaries on that topic were published today. Yours is just part of the background white noise on the subject now.
See that box in the menu bar at the top of the page, the one labeled Search, with a magnifying glass icon? Surprisingly enough you can use it to find diaries written about any topic. The results are even sorted by date so you can readily determine if those diaries about “pickles” were published today (and thus probably about the article you just read) or if they are ancient news about the topic.
You can also visit the Diaries List page which displays the titles and authors of recent diaries. Not only can you see if someone else appears to have covered your chosen topic, you can spot some fine and fascinating diaries to read about other topics.
Just because someone else already wrote a diary about the topic it doesn’t mean you can’t add your own. However, you might read the competition and find that they did an excellent job and there’s no reason to spend your time and energy if you have nothing new to contribute. Perhaps, instead, you can visit the comments section of one of the diaries and add a few thoughts.
Make your readers’ eyes glaze over with fatigue
tl;dr
What the heck does that mean? It’s internet shorthand for “Too long, didn’t read.”
Many of us are avid readers of books — tomes with lengthy passages of plain text, only occasionally interrupted by chapter markings. Yet for some reason, which probably only psychologists can explain, we easily get bogged down and bored by unbroken swaths of text online.
Use the many tools and techniques available to you here to divide your text into logical chunks, give the eyes a bit of restful distraction, and anchor your salient points in the reader’s mind.
Experiment with the various functions in the editor’s icon bars; click the Down arrow on the right side to display the second row, if necessary. With those options and some judicious editing of your text, you can
- Include images, both to add an informative visual as well as to break up the page a bit
- Insert quotations in a way that highlights what they are
- Group paragraphs of related material together and highlight the common theme using section header formatting and/or horizontal lines.
- If suitable, format certain parts in ways that show their commonality and break up textual monotony: tables, bulleted lists, numbered lists, etc.
- Keep your paragraphs short — 3 or 4 sentences that compactly address a single point
These practices will improve comprehension by your readers and make it more likely that they will finish your diary instead of moving on to the next. Even a very long and complex diary can be absorbed in smaller doses (“I will read the next section, down to that image, then come back to this after lunch”).
Write your diary for the only reader who matters: yourself
Look, I know that historically we have used the term diary on Daily Kos, rather than article, story, or post. And, sure, a diary is filled with private thoughts where the author and the reader are one and the same. Let’s not take that to heart as a style choice for what we write on DK.
Your readers are not you. They don’t have the same background and knowledge that you have. If you want them to understand and appreciate your masterpieces, you need to write for them, not for yourself.
After you have finished writing your diary, read the entire thing again before you click Publish. Imagine that you are someone who is only vaguely familiar with the topic. Will he or she have any idea what you are talking about?
Try this:
Smith says it is obvious that Jones is wrong about the PPI and should request the BLS to correct it.
Well, that’s clear as mud. Now try it this way:
State legislator Jane Smith (R-MyTown) says it is obvious that MyState Industrial Production Board member John Jones is wrong about the Producers Price Index (PPI) and should request that the Bureau of Labor & Statistics (BLS) correct it.
Now we’re cooking with gas. People, places, organizations, and acronyms which are familiar to you will often be absolute mysteries to other readers. You need to introduce them to each other.
Give your readers a heads-up as to whom you are talking about or where something is occurring. The Simpsons famously uses the town name of Springfield because supposedly just about every state in the Union has a town of that name; if your readers have to guess which city, town, county, or other geographical area you mean, your brilliant analysis is about as informative as a cartoon.
If an organization isn’t so common that everyone knows its acronym (FBI or CIA, for example), write it out and then use the acronym for further references to it.
Don’t treat your readers as children but don’t make too many assumptions about what they do or do not know.
Your work is done, forget it and move on to the next project
After you click Publish, read your diary again, from top to bottom. Yes, you already read it to ensure clarity and comprehension by readers and even checked for typos. Read it again anyway.
You may be surprised to find that you still missed a typo or that a certain phrase is ungainly. You still have a chance to correct things before more than a handful of readers visit your diary.
If you publish your diary and then put it behind you, you’ll be missing out on much of the reward for your hard work: reading the comments left by others and interacting with them.
Some of the comments may be appreciative or flattering; others may challenge your facts or conclusions; still others may request clarification or additional information. If the topic of your diary was important enough to you that you spent time writing it, why not spend some time engaged with readers about it in the comments?
If readers spot legitimate errors of fact, better for you to see that early and fix your diary than to leave it permanently lowering your reputation to purveyor of false information. If someone has a keen insight in the comments, you can edit or update your diary with it (and give credit to the reader, of course).
Readers appreciate knowing that an author has seen their comments. You can reply with a simple “Thank you” or click the Recommend button as an acknowledgement. If the reader has left an interesting point, or reminded you of some related matter, you can engage as you wish. It’s not necessary to reply to or acknowledge every comment on your diary but a little interaction will let your readers know that you value the community and their participation.
You don’t have to babysit the diary every minute for the following 24 hours. But, you should periodically check the comments for at least the first two or three hours, the time period when a diary is most likely to be read and comments shared. Be an active and responsive author, not a “hit-and-run” writer with no interest in your readers.
Okay, now that I’ve been warning and scolding and taking all the fun out of your idea of becoming a popular author on Daily Kos, let me make something clear: writing a diary is enjoyable and you will get a lot of satisfaction from doing so. My personal rules are really mostly about simple courtesy: treat your readers with respect for their intelligence and they in turn will respect you for your valuable contributions to the DK community.
Have fun and start writing!