Calum Andrew Morrell

There are a lot of HowTo guides on the internet. This is not a bad thing. I've written them myself in the past and intend to do so again in the future. Whether you're trying to work out how to integrate GIS into a Django project, fix the handle of a window that won't close or want to improve the quality of the compost you're currently making, it's almost certain you will be able to find any number of guides to help.

Unfortunately the internet at large appears to have watched a YouTube video on how to write a HowTo guide and copied the format relentlessly, whether it benefits the reader or not.

This format appears to go something like this:

• Write a clear title
• Provide an introduction to the article explaining what has already been stated in the title
• Explain what each key term means, one paragraph per term
• Write the actual HowTo guide
• Summarise everything above

This feels very much like everyone involved is writing a paper for their university degree where using such a strict format is necessary to demonstrate they understand the course material they're studying. This format, more often than not, results in articles which are far more lengthy and irrelevant than they would be if some element of brevity had been allowed. When I visit an article, often found via a search engine, I want to know one thing: how do I do the thing I've come here to find out how to do.

I was looking for a thing and your title matched that thing I was looking for, so the introduction is largely irrelevant. There's a reasonable chance that if I know what I'm looking for then I know the key terms involved and if not I can search for them, so each term defining paragraph is largely irrelevant. I've literally just read your HowTo and it probably didn't take more than a few minutes in most cases, so your summary is largely irrelevant.

I actually started writing this article in the formulaic style I've described above in order to mock it, but my brain started to leak out my ears before I had finished defining the second term and I just lost the will to continue.

So please, if you are thinking about writing a HowTo guide, do so. Someone may find it immensely valuable that you took the time to write and publish it. Just consider carefully the format of the guide and ask yourself, for each part, "will a reader benefit from this?". If you can't think of a really strong argument to include it, don't.