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Writing Your First Article

The following instructions will help you get to grips with writing your first article. Writing is great fun and it can be quite rewarding to help others out by sharing what you know.

Preparing To Write Your Article

Try to write from your own experience where possible and always in your own words. If you’re writing about something you’re unsure on, research your topic if necessary and check your facts. Credit any sources you use and never copy directly from them unless given permission to do so.

Choose an effective title

Sum up the content of your guide in as few words as possible (usually less than 10 words is best). Think of the keywords you would search for if you were searching online for information on your chosen topic. Remember to use complete words rather than abbreviations.

Write an Introduction

The beginning of your article should be used to introduce the topic you’re covering to the reader and sum up what they’ll learn from reading the rest of the article.

Choose A Category

Choose the category which you feel best fits the topic of your guide. If you think a category/subcategory needs to be added, post a category request in the community forums.

Add Tags

After writing your content you can add tags to your Article.
Tags are a way that readers can find your article by a specific subject they are searching for. By looking at a specific Tag page, the reader can narrow down their search. Why not take a look at similar articles to yours for tag ideas.

NOTE: We highly recommend that you try to use Tags that have already been used where possible, as this will cross link your article with existing pages on the same subject, and increase traffic to your article.

Here’s a step by step guide to writing an article :

1. Firstly you need to Login/Register

2. Click on Write a How-To in the menu at the top of any page on the site (see below)

Click Write a How-To

go to your Profile and click on Posts

Click on posts

In the drop down box that appears click Add New

Click Add New

3. Enter your How- To post title and guide text/images

4.Choose a category for your post by clicking a checkbox in the area marked.

5. In the area marked with a red arrow you have the option to save a draft or preview your post. Once you are happy with your post click the Submit button. Your first few submitted articles will be added to a queue for moderation and will usually be published in a few hours.

Adding Images To Your Article

Try to use at least one picture in your article – as the saying goes A picture paints a thousand words!

Always use your own or Creative Commons licensed images where possible, and always provide attribution i.e :

Image by: JohnDoe

You can search for media covered by a Creative Commons license here

Steps

Place your cursor where you would like the image to appear, and click on the Add an Image icon found in the Upload/Insert icon group directly above your editor.

Click on the Select Files button and choose the image file from your computer

docs-select-files

Once the uploading/crunching process has completed, you will be given the option to edit some settings before inserting the image into the post

image-post-settings3

Title - Text displayed as a tooltip (when a mouse is hovered over the image)

Caption - Image caption displayed directly underneath the image (will also serve as the alternate text.)

Description - Text displayed with the image in your dashboard and attachment pages on your blog.

Link URL / Link Image to: – The URL/web address to which the image will be linked. Click the File URL button to link the image to its original, full-size version. Click the Post URL button to have the image linked to its attachment page.

Alignment – The position of the image within your post .

Size – The size of the image.

When finished choosing your image settings, click on the Insert into Post button.

insert

Adding Video And Images From Other Sites

You can embed a video if you have one – ideal for game walkthroughs etc.

Note: You may add video/images that you did not create provided that it has been made publicly available to embed by it’s creator, e.g Youtube videos etc

You should not link directly to images without permission from the sites owner as this is considered as hotlinking - a type of THEFT!

It’s easy to embed videos, images, and other content into your How-To guide.

All you need to do to embed something into your guide is to post the URL to it into your content area. Make sure that the URL is on its own line and not hyperlinked (clickable when viewing the post).

You may find that when you paste the URL it gets converted to a link (see below)

To break the link click on it, then click the “Unlink” button in the toolbar

What Sites Can I Embed From?

You can use all of these:

Promoting your article

Once your article has been published don’t forget to promote it by sharing it with your friends and colleagues through your social networking profiles (there are buttons at the top of each published article for sharing it on all the popular sites Twitter, Facebook, Digg etc). Be proud of what you have written and tell the world!