A Data Driven Story

Curation Success on ILLUMINATION

The Power of Our Curation Stars: A Data-Driven Review

We receive many questions about the curation process used by Medium, and while there are plenty of articles listing best tips and practices for our curious writers, we thought we would compile the curation data we have accumulated straight from our own publication. In fact, here is the ILLUMINATION article from which I have gleaned this sought after data.

I am expecting that you will use this article in conjunction with the one you are now reading as resources for curation knowledge.

There will always be a lag time between the article and the freshest curation data available. ILLUMINATION stories and poems get curated nearly every day. Also, the data I will share with you is only data from the stories published on ILLUMINATION. It is highly likely that our writers have been curated from other publications in addition to our own, however, my access is limited to the stories published here. I thank you for taking the time to read this article. Please prepare yourselves.

Take note that our publication was started on March 18th, 2020.

In 106 days, 219 of our writers have had 417 stories curated to 80 different topics on Medium, 694 times.

Yes. There is a lot of overlap with many stories being curated to multiple topics. In fact, three of our writers had their individual stories curated to five different topics each. Congratulations to these three writers. I am posting their articles here for you.

Brian E. Wish, PhD curated to PHILOSOPHY, ECONOMY, POLITICS, CORONAVIRUS and HEALTH.

Rosennab curated to SPIRITUALITY, RELIGION, SELF, WOMEN and EQUALITY.

Roxanna Azimy curated to SOCIETY, RACE, WORLD, HISTORY and EQUALITY.

I am posting these articles here, so that you may read and learn from them, not just for the content, but for the writing style, the title, the aesthetic of their layout, and lastly the passion and commitment you will find present in their work. If you would like to have your articles curated in the future, these articles are a great place to begin studying.

Now, let’s look at another set of ILLUMINATION writers who seem to have their finger on the curation button.

You can see in the top spot here is George J. Ziogas with 13 individual stories curated to 17 topics. Following closely behind George is Kevin Buddaeus with 12 stories curated to 23 topics. And third, Tree Langdon ♾️ with 11 stories curated to 15 topics. You guys rock!

This list of writers is another resource to begin your study of curation. Another list, you ask? You didn’t think it was going to be easy, did you? I will emphasize to you again, passion and commitment.

Some of our writers are specialists, while others are not. Curation is not something that will be elusive to either group, just so long as you put in the work. Here is another screenshot of how diverse and successful our writers can be.

Some of these writers are becoming more and more familiar to you by now. Do you see the number of different topics these writers have been curated in? You don’t just have to stick to your niche here on ILLUMINATION. You are more than welcome to try something outside of your specialty, and you will still be able to publish with us. Who knows? You might even get curated in a topic in which you haven’t written. And you might find you enjoy spreading your wings and exploring other topics.

Here is another screenshot of gathered data that may highlight some opportunities for you in your quest for curation.

Take a close look here. We have had 113 stories curated to the topic of SELF. And we have had 39 poems curated to the topic of POETRY. This tells us that we have a lot of experience in these topics. That translates to a lot of writers from which to learn.

On the other hand, we have only 6 stories each curated to the topics of EDUCATION, OUTDOORS, SPIRITUALITY and TECHNOLOGY. This could mean that there is an audience being starved of these topics, and you could very well be the one to come to the rescue.

Here is a list of some of our more popular topics with some of our top writers tagged for your convenience. This is not a complete list, but it is enough to get you started.

SELF Julia E Hubbel, Christopher D. Connors, George J. Ziogas, Aurora Eliam, CMP, Dew Langrial, Helen Cassidy Page, Kevin Buddaeus, Kimi Ceridon, Ryan Frawley.

POETRY Tree Langdon ♾️, J.D. Harms, Kevin Buddaeus, Paroma Sen, Caitlin Ju

EQUALITY Rosennab, Roxanna Azimy, Sharon Hurley Hall, Julia E Hubbel, Andrew Jazprose Hill

WRITING Tina Morlock, Timothy Key, Toni Koraza

RACE Andrew Jazprose Hill, Roxanna Azimy, Sharon Hurley Hall

MENTAL HEALTH George J. Ziogas, Michelle Marie Warner, Rebecca Romanelli, Pamela J. Nikodem, MS

WORK George J. Ziogas, Paul Myers MBA, Sharon Hurley Hall

HEALTH @Marina T Alamanou PhD, Dr Jeff Livingston, JJ Lim, BSc (Hons)

RELATIONSHIPS Erin King, George J. Ziogas, Rosennab

LIFESTYLE Emily Kingsley, Pete Ross, Amy Cottreau

SOCIETY Roxanna Azimy, Brian E. Wish, PhD, Stacey Christiansen

PRODUCTIVITY Christopher D. Connors, Jake Daghe, Dew Langrial, Rob Rando

PARENTING Dipti Pande, Emily Kingsley, Erin King, Kathy Lum

POLITICS Brian E. Wish, PhD, Daniella Mini, Thomas Dylan Daniel

CREATIVITY Ryan Frawley, Mythili the dreamer, India Snow

FAMILY Kathy Lum, Jennifer Geer, Joe Luca

PHILOSOPHY Ryan Frawley, Tyler Piteo-Tarpy, Robert Locke

FOOD Erin King, Jean Anne Feldeisen, Carmen Fong, MD

MINDFULNESS helenaknows, Kim McKinney, Megan Houston Sager

HISTORY Devanshee Dave, Kenneth Johnson, Noah Simonich

PSYCHOLOGY Rosennab, Nadine Clay, M.Ed., Yasmine Ghattas (@yasmineghattas)

LEADERSHIP Paul Myers MBA, Kathryn A. LeRoy, Ph.D., Timothy Key

SCIENCE @Marina T Alamanou PhD, Eashan Reddy Kotha, JJ Lim, BSc (Hons), Nita Jain

WOMEN Rosennab, Fatima Sultan, Julia E Hubbel, Rebecca Boese, Audrey Himantono

SOCIAL MEDIA Kevin Buddaeus, Ming Qian, Omar Sharaki, John Teehan

TRAVEL Dr. David Martin, Julia E Hubbel, Larisa Andras, Rebecca Romanelli

EDUCATION Eric Sangerma, Allison Hilton, Nadine Clay, M.Ed., Kathy Lum

OUTDOORS Evan Wolfson, KP Hartman, Mike Alexander, Tim Ebl

SPIRITUALITY Alvin Ang, George J. Ziogas, Joshua Davis, MaryRose Denton

TECHNOLOGY hustlelead Howard Sezz, Alamiin S.I, Merlijn Vekeman, Natalie Carroll, Lost Star

Thank you for taking the time to read this article. I believe we have only tapped the possibilities of curation from this data, but there is still more to explore. If you need information on other topics, let me know in the comments.