The progress reports have 5 major sections:
1. Introduction
2. Statistics
3. Major improvements
4. Games
5. Other improvements

Introduction simply has a short summary of changes made in the month and any other interesting information that needs to be shared upfront.

Statistics contains the month-on-month improvement from our compatibility list. The compatibility list GitHub statistics are provided by Ani. It's an important metric to quickly gauge the progress of the month. We generally take 1 or 2 paragraphs to interpret the results and provide any valuable insights for the changes.

Major improvements is by far the most important section of the report. For this section, we select a few key Pull Requests of the month and write a detailed exposition on what it improves. We try to talk to the developers to understand the technical aspects of the improvement and convey that in a form that is neither too detailed to overwhelm our readers nor too watered down to turn out bland. Contributing to this section requires some minimum level of knowledge relating to RPCS3 and emulation. This section is the one that generally takes the most time and requires the most effort to get right.

For the Games section, once the compatibility list is closed, there is a tracker page for all IDs that changed status this month (https://rpcs3.net/compatibility?h). From that, we do a little sanity check to exclude duplicate entries that were already part of a category or games that are on PC. This is generally done by Hula and the list of acceptable games is posted at the bottom of the draft report. Once the list of games is finalised, we need to find screenshots, videos and if possible which specific developer improved that game. Screenshots from our forums may be used or fresh screenshots can also be taken. We generally look for videos on YouTube as well to see if there are an quality gameplay videos that we can showcase. It's important to note that only screenshots/videos taken using builds in that relevant month may be considered to ensure authenticity of our report.

Finally, for the other improvements section, we have a script from Nicba1010 that will scrape all Pull Requests that were merged in a month. Then we write short descriptions for each Pull Request by reading the Pull Request's description or talking to the developer to find out what exactly was done. Some developers like to help out by adding descriptions for their own Pull Requests. In such cases, you'll be expected to format their contributions and ensure it is grammatically correct. Being able to understand C++ is also a huge advantage for this section.

While you are expected to contribute independently, other regular writers will definitely be available to answer any queries that you may have. From the explanation above, it's easy to see that,
- Introduction and Statistics sections are the easiest and require minimum effort.
- Games section requires you to search our forums, YouTube and if necessary the #media channel on our Discord. Also might involve taking some fresh screenshots as well. Other improvements section requires reading of GitHub threads and talking to developers. Both these sections requires you to have time to search for the right material and involves moderate amount of effort.
- Major improvements section involves more time and effort to complete. You will generally pick one Pull Request and try to complete the write-up + Images on your own. Once you're done, other writers will review and suggest edits to it. This way about 3-4 writers will each handle one topic and review the work done in the other topics.

This is the basic gist of what is expected of a writer. Sadly, we've had a lot of writers apply then only end up contributing a paragraph or two and then disappearing into the void. RPCS3 is looking for writers who will be able to contribute to the monthly reports on a regular basis. So to better understand yourself, below are a few questions that you can answer.

The purpose of these questions isn't solely to test your knowledge, but also your enthusiasm for contributing to the Progress Reports. It's important to check if you found answering these questions something you would be willing to do on a semi-regular basis. If you're not enjoying the writing process but still wanting to contribute to RPCS3 then there is a wide range of other tasks you could take on. This includes retesting games for the compatibility list, testing new Pull Requests for developers and contributing to RPCS3's codebase on GitHub. If you are willing to put in the time however, then we'd be more than happy to have you on-board and teach you the ropes should you have any issues.

Thanks for reading!