Markdown is the popular and widespread formatting tool for programmers and power-user bloggers. For noobs here on Steemit never exposed to Markdown before, getting used to it might be a bit of a hurdle. (For some sort of a Markdown 101 please refer to the Steemit help text, it's not part of this post.)
What's noteworthy though is using Markdown to your advantage when posting on (or rather to) Steemit in order to give your Steemit posts the best-possible look and your readers the best-possible content to read.
First rule: don't simply forget using Markdown and don't write just plain text
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Second rule: observe overall grammar and spelling
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Third rule: think of what your text will look like once published to Steemit
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Extra tip: do not use Markup in the the first line
The first line of your Steemit blog post or image (video) description text will be clipped and shown in the Steemit content preview in post listings or Steemit (asksteem and similar) search results. In preview, Steemit is not properly rendering Markdown which may break your first line of text or may make it appear unclean. Using Markdown in any first line might result in the preview text appearing broken with ugly extra blanks inserted where there used to be asterisks for italics or bold markings. (It's why I used quotes instead of one-asterisk settings for italics for "How to use Markdown" in the first line of this post.) To beautify the preview of your text, you might want to avoid using these markings within the first line of your Steemit content.