This is an update to my older posts "Explaining Curie's guidelines" with the latest guidelines. As always, you need to keep up with the latest guidelines at #curie in Steemit.chat.
Please note this is just my interpretation of the guidelines. Other reviewers may disagree - some of my submissions are disapproved too - so don't blame me if your posts are disapproved on my recommendations :) This is for Curie's curators.
New and verified authors only, who have been persistent without much success. Brand new authors who have one or two posts without verification do not qualify.
Look out for authors who have made a few good posts, let's say 3 or 4. Those who have engaged with the community actively, making valuable comments on other people's posts etc. Someone new, who is into the community, but hasn't quite been discovered yet.
General guideline for "new author" would be between 27 Reputation and 52 Reputation.
Pretty obvious. Note that you can post by authors up to 52.9 Rep (which still says 52 on Steemit), but not 53.
Posts must be more than 150 minutes old, but less than 24 hours,
Also pretty obvious.
with maximum $1 pending payout.
The pending payout of the post at time of submission must be $1 or less. This is a pretty common mistake, as the submission platform doesn't enforce a hard limit.
A single author may be submitted only once in 7 days.
Look back through the author's profile, if they have a vote by 
Also, try to avoid authors who are writing a series or worse, trying to milk the same topic - Curie is unlikely to vote on all parts from the same series, or a repetitive topic.
Only original content.
Original content, created by the author of the post.
Articles, art, poetry, videos, recipes, etc. that appear first on Steemit. (I.e. no reposts of older work) Please check for plagiarism and reposting before submitting.
Older reposts do not qualify. For example, an author may repost a blog from 2012, or a video from April 2017, etc. Make sure it's something new and fresh made for Steemit, within the last few days.
Content must be exceptional and unique.
This one is subjective of course, but here's my take on it -
Authors that milk the popular topics without adding anything substantially different do not qualify. Fact-based articles must add all citations, and a personal take on the topic. Articles that simply paraphrase other sources, even if cited, do not qualify. Photography and travel posts must be exceptional, the photo-I-took-today-with-my-phone or posting some photos from a vacation years ago don't qualify. Same goes for art and recipes, it can't be a sketch-of-the-day type post; or what-I-cooked-today with mediocre photos. Simplistic self-help / armchair philosophy type rants don't qualify either. Of course, in each of these cases, the distinguished content is welcome. All of it must be great content that'll not look out of place on a "pro" blog with substantial readership. It becomes easy to separate those who are seasoned bloggers creating content because they love to from those that are just trying to milk the community for money.
No Steemit-related, religious, introduceyourself or political posts.
Anything to do with Steemit or Steem, avoid. Religious or political posts, too. Political posts might be OK if they are historical or objective, but no political rants please.
English posts only.
Some posts are bilingual. Be careful about those - they may not be approved unless the post is exceptional and the translation is original.
Finally, quality is subjective, but the curation score lists have proven time and again that this is absolutely a skill that can be learned. Pay attention to the type of posts
These are just guidelines, and exceptional posts are sometimes approved even if they don't meet the guidelines exactly. It depends on how high your CS is. If your submission limit is only 2, it's best to only submit sure-shot posts. If your submission limit is 10, I'd once again be wary. But if you have unlimited submissions, and you're doing really well for the week with 100% approval rate, it might be worth a gamble.
In general though, the path to winning at Curie is fairly simple. Only submit posts that are so good, they will never be disapproved. Give reviewers an offer they cannot refuse. Indeed, you only need to find 1 good post every day to comfortably become a top curator. This is the secret to every long term top curators' success - an absolute commitment to quality over quantity.
