I love curating.

I love it almost as much as I love writing posts, and that's something I love like crazy.
I'm even thinking that my job description here is " Blockhain social media curator".
This has a nice, futuristic ring to it!

One of the things that I love about curating is that - call me loony - I FEEL that I'm really helping folks.
A small upvote here, a small upvote there, and maybe, just maybe, it will be encouraging needed to push ahead and post new material and eventually hit the jackpot they do deserve.
That's one of the reasons I'd like to get more SP, so I can upvote more and maybe, eventually, really be able to make someone's day.

That's my motivation.

BUT!
I do need a reason to upvote your post. The problem is that the idea or the quality of the content is not the single criterion.

I come across so many posts that are ok at most but could be GREAT with a little editing.

I don't pretend to be an expert at editing but I've learned a lot and I read probably more posts than most per day and I've seen a lot of common problems. I try to help as much as I can, with various results so maybe this post will bring a bit of clarity.

I want to make clear that this post is written primarely for myself so I can c/p this link in the comments where I think it could really help out someone. There are maybe enough "how tos" and "improve your articles" posts on steemit already so I can understand if you feel that this is redundant!
I just didn't find one to cover exactly what I want so I wrote my own.

That being said, please read bacchist's post. It makes a lot of good points and it will give you the perspective of a curator.
Kind of what I try too here.

In no specific order these are some of my pet peeves, things that could be improves easily and really make it easy for me to upvote.

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Bad titles

Take a moment to think about your title. Than take a minute. Write your post and then re-think your title. Is it really a good title?
What makes a good title, you might wonder.
This depends on your content but generally, a good title should be catchy, interesting, tell me a bit of the story and make me curious to read more.

If you are Seinfeld, don't start your post with " I am a middle-aged jewish stand up comedian living in NY". Sell it a bit or just go for the golden title.
"I am Seinfeld and I'm joining steemit!" <--- 10000000$ post right here.

If you write about "overcoming inferiority complex", tell me this in the title.
"Everyone is winner" is a bad title. What does this even mean?
" I thought I was a loser and I was right" <--- better but not quite there
" How I faked my way to real confidence" <--- not bad either but maybe too generic
" Overcoming my inferiority complex- an ongoing battle..." <-- that is really good, in my opinion, it is easy to relate and I want to read more. Who hasn't felt that?!

Take a look at these examples and think about which one will YOU click on. That's a great question to ask before you post: " Would I click that?! "

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Poorly chosen images for the post

You should know by now that some photos on the internet are copyrighted and if you can, use some that aren't and/or make your own. OR use gifs! Cool.

I am not even going to discuss not using a photo at all. If you do that you'd better have GREAT content. Even for fiction, I still use a photo. It just helps SO MUCH.

That being said, you must realize is that the FIRST photo you use in your post is the one you'll have in your thumbnail in the lists. A good photo can make the difference between "this looks interesting" and "bleah".
Don't use a meme, don't use a generic photos, put a bit of creativity into it, add something to it, make it yours!
Again, ask yourself: Would you click on that image?!

Congratulations, if you made it this fair, I'm reading your post, you are closer than EVER to get an upvote. I'm so happy already for you and hope to see something great there and then...

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Images are not centered.

It bothers me and I think it affects the balance of your post. It also affects how the post is perceived: sloppy!
The thing is that if you spend even 10 minutes reading any trending post you'll notice that all the images and or gifs are centered. You know why? Because it just looks f&*king great!
It's very very easy to do it too.
Here's how:

• before your image link write " < center > " and at the end " < / center > ". [ of course, no spaces between ]

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Extremely long paragraphs, no logical breaks

You have a lot to say and you forget to push enter, that's great. I do that a lot when I write my posts but after I'm done I go over it and see where should a paragraph end? People tend to pause at the end of the paragraph, if you give me long, convulsed blocks of text, It just ruins the readability of your post.

Note that I'm not saying you should treat your audience like they can't read but make it easier for us to read it all. A subtle difference.

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Huge grammar oversight and repeating spelling mistakes

I am not anal about perfect spelling and grammar, mistakes are bound to happen, they tend to slip by you so easily but if I see glaring mistakes they kind of put me off. I do undersand that english might not be your mother lanaugage and I sure try to encourage people from all over the world but you need to make an effort. Maybe get a friend to help you?

If you speak good English though, there's no reason to have big mistakes then.

One advice is to take a break after you write the post and re-read it FRESH.
It happens that if you know what you're about to read you don't notice the mistakes, as your mind kind of fills in with what SHOULD be there. That's why you can read this:

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No bold, italics or any other styling used

I think writing in plain text is just boring. My eyes run over a calm sea of text, nothing stand out. Is that what you want or you just don't know how to {use Markdown]. Click here

Feel free to be BOLD! and emphasize important parts of your post and even quote yourself

This post is useful, Razvanel said

Please read the guide linked above to learn the basics of just google another guide.

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Too impersonal

I don't like reading stuff that looks written for Wikipedia. Maybe it's just me but In most subjects, going personal or adding a bit of personality is ALWAYS a good thing.
Put a bit of yourself out there, it won't hurt!
I really want to get a feel where you're coming from, what kind of person you are and why do you even write about this stuff anyway?
Trust me, I'll like it 10x more like that and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

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I'll stop here because I feel that anything more will just be seen as good ol' hatin'.
I must admit this: even if your posts checks all these pet peeves of mine, I sometime still upvote because I like the idea or the potential that one person has. I think we need encouraging even when we're not at our best and I, god knows, got more than my fair share.
I usually comment and try to be helpful, sometimes it works, sometimes I'm being called an asshole :)

The idea here is that these rules are not set in stone, are just my personal views as a curator who actually curates A LOT on steemit. A friend of mine from steemit said:

" My home on steemit is not in "trending", it's in "new" ".

I feel the same and I will continue to do my thing and hopefully read more and more great posts. It's really something great when you hit on a gem.

I hope this helps and if you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments!