DZone's Article Submission Guidelines

Due to an extremely high volume of submissions, current review times are approximately 30 business days. We appreciate your patience, enthusiasm, and interest in contributing to DZone!

Do you work in software development and have knowledge, experience, or lessons worth sharing with your peers? We’d love to hear from you.

DZone publishes content from software developers, architects, engineers, technical leaders, and other practitioners who want to share what they’ve learned with a global community of software development professionals. Before you hit “Submit to Moderation,” review the guidelines below. Following these recommendations will help our editorial team review your submission efficiently and give your article the best opportunity to be published. 

• Before you submit: Save a copy of your article on your personal device. If your submission is rejected or you lose access to your account, DZone cannot recover the draft for you.

What Makes a Strong DZone Article?

DZone readers come to our community for practical knowledge from people working with technology firsthand. The strongest submissions give readers something they can apply to their own work. We especially value articles that:

• Share firsthand technical experience
• Explain the reasoning behind engineering decisions
• Include practical examples, code, architectures, or workflows where appropriate
• Discuss tradeoffs, limitations, mistakes, unexpected challenges, or lessons learned
• Go beyond introductory explanations readily available elsewhere
• Give developers clear takeaways they can apply to their own projects

For example, rather than stating what a technology does, tell readers how you used it, why you chose a particular approach, what alternatives you considered, and what you learned. You don't need to know everything about a topic to contribute. What matters is that you have something useful, original, and experience-based to share.

Before You Submit

Make Sure Your Profile Is Complete

DZone is a community of real people sharing their expertise. Before submitting:

• Your profile must use your real name and include a valid email address, job title, and other relevant information.
• Your profile may not represent a company or organization.
• Do not use a company logo as your profile image.
• If you are submitting an article on behalf of another person, that person must also have a DZone account and be appropriately credited.

Make Sure Your Topic Is Right for DZone

Submissions must be related to software development and written for professionals working in or closely with software development. Articles should primarily help developers, engineers, architects, DevOps professionals, data professionals, or other technical practitioners solve problems, understand technologies, or make better technical decisions.

We do not accept articles written primarily for marketing, sales, finance, healthcare, or other non-technical business audiences. Your article should also educate the reader rather than advertise a product, service, or company.

Make Sure Your Article Is Original

Your content should present original ideas, experiences, insights, or practical applications. Do not submit articles that only summarize well-known concepts, documentation, or existing tutorials without adding your own perspective or technical value.

Plagiarism will result in account action and may result in suspension. Any external materials, research, quotations, or ideas that are not your own must be appropriately cited.

Meet Our Article Requirements

Articles must:

• Be written in English.
• Contain at least 800 words.
• Be properly formatted according to DZone's formatting guidelines.
• Include correctly formatted code blocks or snippets where applicable.
• Provide enough depth to adequately address the topic.

The 800-word requirement is a baseline, not a guarantee of publication. Articles may still be rejected if they don't provide sufficient depth, originality, or value to DZone readers. Submissions accompanying podcasts, YouTube videos, or presentations can include ~800 words of written content, based on the topic.

Prepare Your Images

If your article includes images:

• You must own the images or have permission from the copyright owner to use them.
• Compress images to approximately 100–200 KB when possible. JPEG/JPG is recommended.
• Keep the article's total image file size under 5 MB.
• Include appropriate alt text.

AI-Generated Content

All content published on DZone should reflect the original thoughts, expertise, and experiences of a real person. AI tools such as ChatGPT can be helpful during the planning process, for example, to brainstorm ideas, organize your thoughts, or build an article outline. However, the final article should be written in your own words and reflect your own perspective, knowledge, and firsthand experience.

We do not accept articles that have been partially or fully generated by AI. Submissions that rely on AI to write the final content may be rejected, and repeated violations could result in account suspension.

Using AI as a Tool, Not the Author

There’s a difference between using AI to support your writing process and asking it to do the writing for you. Using AI to help structure an outline, organize ideas, or identify areas you may want to explore is okay. The substance of the article (your explanations, technical insights, examples, opinions, and conclusions) should come from you. DZone's editorial team will help polish your submitted article for grammar, formatting, clarity, and readability while preserving your unique voice and perspective.

AI-generated writing can introduce inaccuracies and often lacks the firsthand experience and technical context that make an article genuinely useful to developers. Your expertise is what gives your article value. Tell readers what you built, what decisions you made, what worked, what didn't, and what you learned along the way. Use AI to help organize your ideas when needed, but when it comes time to write, make the article yours.

Topics We Generally Don't Accept

DZone focuses on content that helps software development professionals solve technical problems and improve their work. We generally do not publish articles primarily focused on the following topics unless they are directly connected to a relevant software development problem or technical implementation:

• SEO and search marketing
• UI/UX design principles
• General business strategies or topics
• Web design concepts or aesthetics
• E-commerce strategies or tools
• Cryptocurrency or NFTs-related content
• Game development

We may also reject articles that substantially duplicate topics already covered on DZone without introducing a new perspective, implementation, use case, or technical insight.Before submitting, search DZone to see what's already been published about your topic and consider what your article adds to the conversation.

Advertorial/Promotional Content 

DZone does not accept contributor articles created with advertising or promotional intent. Your article should help the reader understand or solve a technical problem, not convince them to purchase or adopt a product. You may discuss specific technologies or tools when they're necessary to explain a technical solution. However, the article should remain educational, technically useful, and unbiased.

Submissions should be free of:

• Marketing language or press releases
• Excessive backlinks or UTM tracking links
• Links to paid tools, products, or services
• Product feature lists or summaries
• Gated content or links to gated content
• Content created solely to promote a product, service, or company
• Blurbs or incomplete articles that link off-site for the full content

If you are interested in advertising your product on DZone, you can learn about our advertising programs here. 

Original vs. Syndicated Content

Original articles that have not been published elsewhere receive priority during moderation. Syndicated articles are accepted but may take longer to review and publish.

Why an Article May Be Rejected

Meeting the minimum submission requirements does not guarantee publication. An article may be rejected if it:

• Is unrelated to software development
• Is written primarily for a non-technical audience
• Does not provide sufficient technical depth or reader value
• Duplicates commonly available information without adding an original perspective
• Contains AI-generated writing
• Contains plagiarized material
• Is primarily promotional or advertorial
• Contains excessive or inappropriate backlinks
• Is incomplete or poorly formatted
• Does not meet DZone's editorial or community standards

DZone accounts may be suspended for serious or repeated violations of our contributor and community guidelines. Violations that may result in suspension include:

• Plagiarism
• Repeated submission of AI-generated content
• Spam submissions
• Fake, duplicate, or company profiles
• Bullying or harassment
• Hate speech in articles or comments
• Spam comments
• Using comments to promote or link to products or services

Moderation and Support Process

All articles submitted to DZone must go through moderation and editorial review before publication. Once your article has been published or rejected, you'll receive an automated email from DZone. Review times vary depending on:

• Submission volume
• Article quality and completeness
• Whether the article is original or syndicated
• The amount of editorial work required

Please refer to the notice at the top of this page for our current estimated review time.

Frequently Asked Questions

I submitted my article a while ago, and it still hasn't been published. What's taking so long?

DZone receives a large number of contributor submissions, and our moderation queue can sometimes contain hundreds of articles.We generally prioritize the oldest original submissions and work through the queue in order. Original articles from members of the DZone Core Program receive priority. For the most accurate estimate, refer to the current review-time notice at the top of this page.

Why was my article rejected, and what do I do now?

If your article was rejected, please check your email for an automated email from us. It gives a list of reasons why your article may have been rejected, and you might even have a note from the editor who deleted it giving further explanation. However, the guidelines in this article give a very detailed explanation of what we can and cannot accept on DZone. It might be worth it to review them again! We encourage you to either revise your article and try submitting it again or create a new article that meets our requirements. Don't hesitate to reach out to us for help!

What if I want to collaborate with another person on an article?

We love collaborative articles! All you need to do is make sure every person who worked on the article has a DZone account and is listed as an author. 

Why is my account not popping up when I type my name into the author field?

We recommend listing yourself as an author before typing your article. If your account still doesn't pop up, please reach out to us so we can help!

What if my article exceeds the 5MB cumulative image size limit?

If your article exceeds the limit, it will cause issues with the article, and you might not be able to save your work. You should compress your images or remove non-essential visuals to meet the file size requirement.

I created my article using Markdown, but I'm encountering issues with the DZone version. How can I fix this?

DZone doesn't support Markdown, so we highly recommend using the DZone editor to create your articles. If you still wish to use Markdown, you can convert your article to HTML, click the "Code View" button in the DZone editor, and paste the HTML. Click the "Code View" button again, and your article should be there! If you create your article in a Word document and copy/paste from there, click "Clean formatting" when asked. Reach out to us if you need assistance!

Can I post my DZone article to another platform?

Yes, but we ask that you wait at least one week before doing so and include a canonical tag pointing to the DZone article as the original source. Including a canonical tag ensures you get proper credit and boosts your visibility. It helps direct traffic to the original article, builds your reputation, and avoids issues with duplicate content on search engines. In other words, you’re not competing with your own content!

With that, thank you for contributing to DZone! If you have any other questions about articles, content, or submission rules, please email us at [email protected].

Additional Resources

How to Submit a Post to DZone

What Is Plagiarism? How to Avoid It and Cite Sources

DZone's Article Types

How to Format Articles for DZone