The Official DZone Style Guide

Welcome to DZone! 

This is the content style guide for user contributions on the site. A style guide is a document that lays out rules and guidelines to help maintain the tone and voice of the content across the site.

This guide includes rules for both our contributors and our editorial team. We encourage everyone to read these rules and refer to them if they have questions.

This is not a grammar textbook, however, so there are some facets of the language that are not listed. This guide will, instead, go over the major expectations that must be met for an article to be published. 

We believe that everyone has the expertise that is worth sharing. This guide is here to help you share that knowledge with the DZone readers.

Write Quality Content

Use Correct Grammar

Content written for DZone must be written using correct English grammar and syntax. There is a wide range of free resources on the web to demonstrate correct grammar and syntax. One of the most popular is the Purdue OWL Grammar Resource.

We recognize that English is not the first language for all our contributors. The Education First's English Grammar Guide is a resource for help with that!

American Spelling

We favor the American English spellings of words that may differ between regions. That's not intended as a slight against our European readers and writers — it's as simple as the fact that we're based in America and it's how we spell words. 

Commas

There is a robust discussion around the web regarding the serial/Oxford comma. Articles written for DZone must use it. This means that when writing a list of three or more things, you must use a comma after the penultimate item, before ‘and’ or ‘or.’

Example: Three popular coding languages are Python, JavaScript, and C#.

Be Thorough

We do not expect every article to be a textbook, but valuable resources are thorough. It is important that articles written for DZone include all the information that is relevant to the article topic. 

Consider the Audience

DZone is read by software development professionals all over the world. Our content provides guides, tutorials, recommendations, and commentary across a wide range of disciplines. It is important to remember that your content is going to be read by your peers. This makes professional language particularly important.

Tone

All content needs to be written in a conversational tone. Treat each article you write as though you are giving an explanation to a colleague. 

Jargon 

Articles are read by people with varied experience with English. This makes it important to write clearly and free of jargon whenever possible. 

Example: blue-sky thinking, learnings, and sunset. 

Acronyms/Abbreviations

Acronyms are an inescapable part of professional life; however, they are not often clear. Always write out the first in-text reference to an acronym. Then follow it with the acronym in all capital letters and enclosed in parenthesis.

Example: Application Programming Interface (API), Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Pronoun Usage 

Use gender-neutral pronouns (they, them) whenever possible. Gendered pronouns should only be used when referring to a specific person whose gender is known. 

Write Suitable Content

DZone publishes knowledge resources for developers. These resources can include news, tutorials, guides, or advice on topics related to software development. Articles that do not fall into any of those categories are inappropriate and will not be published. Additionally, any content that is marketing material (such as content from a company's product page), or purely self-promotional, will be considered unsuitable.