How to write a news story
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- Details
- Category: Site Admin Help Notices Only
- Published on Wednesday, 23 April 2008 01:00
- Written by Administrator
- Hits: 2491
Writing a news story is simple, quick and easy to do.
First, please bear in mind that you are publishing information direct to the public, therefore all material is subject to our terms and conditions. Please ensure you read the terms and conditions before publishing. Any failure to publish correctly may result in a ban in using this website or other sites we operate.
- You must be over 16 years of age to contribute content (if you are under16, you will need to enlist the help of a responsible adult to publish the material for you).
- Be polite and respectful to all other people
- Always submit news stories in the "third person"
- Honour and respect other peoples right of opinion
- Do not slander any other entity - person, product, business, groups etc.
- Acknowledge that all opinions and views expressed do not represent the view of the hosting provider nor the web design company.
- Accept full responsibility for all articles you submit to the site, in full legal redress.
- You consent full copyright licences to ITPP Ltd and Alfreton Fellowship to publish the material you submit.
- Only publish material which you create yourself and do not publish copyright materials of any kind.
- Acknowledge that in using this site you agree to our rules, terms and conditions.
Step 1 - Getting started
First begin by logging into the site (You need to Register - if you have not already done so). when you log in, on the right hand side, a "User Menu" will appear - click on the menu item called "Submit a News Story" to begin publishing.
The News Editor window will open up. the News Editor is divided into three distinct sections - Editor (for writing your story) Publishing (For determining how and when your article will appear) and MetaData (to get your article indexed with major search engines).
The Editor Screen
The News Editor screen is just like a standard wordprocessor. You can format text, add pictures, smilies, add layers, embed video and audio, create hyperlinks, format tables, justify text, write bullet points etc etc. Experiment with the tool bar options to get the hang of the options available to you before you write your story.
Step 2 - Write your story
Enter a title for your news story in the "Title" field.
Write your news story in the "Third Person" - do not use "we", "us", "I" etc and instead write "they" and "their" etc.
On the first line, write a catchy introduction which is slightly different to the title, highlight all the text and then click on the "Paragraph" drop down item from the News Editor tool bar and select "Heading 2".
Now write your news story in full, checking for spelling and grammar as you go.
Fonts and Formatting
We wish to preserve the professional look of the site and therefore we request that you follow these formatting guidelines very carefully.
Please accept the default font family for your body text and the default size setting too.
To give emphasis to sections of text, use colour, bold, italics, bullet points. Do not change the font or the font size as we will not accept news stories formatted outside of the guidelines we specify.
For subheadings, use the "Heading 4" selection.
Step 3 - Publishing options
The Publishing options window is straight forward.
In the "Section" field select "Alfreton News".
In the "Category" field select an appropriate category.
Do NOT change the default radio button options for "Published" and "Show on front page".
If you wish to show a different author name, other than the one you used to register do so, in the "Author Alias" field.
You can then select a date for when you article should appear on the site (i.e. You can write your article in advance and have it publish on the day of your choice) and you can select the article to be archived after a particular day. If you leave both fields empty, it will appear straight away and will remain published on the site - we recommend this option, as your article will always be indexed. You can always come back and change it in the future.
The Publishing and Metadata Sections
Adding an image to your news story
Adding an image is simple. First click on the Image button at the bottom of the Story Editor window. A new screen (shown above) appears. Under the section called "Upload" - click on the browse button to find a picture on your PC, select the file (if you wish to upload several images to save time, hold down the control (Ctrl) key on your keybaord and select the images you wish to upload) - then click the button called "Start upload".
When the files are all uploaded, you can add them to your news story, but placing your cursor at the desired insertion point, selecting the appropriate image and clicking on the button called "Insert". When you add an image, be sure to enter an image description (i.e. This is a picture of xyz) and an image caption too - this helps your image file to be indexed by search engines.
MetaData
Metadata is an important part of your article, so please don't skip this section.
The metadata section is spilt into two sections - Description and keywords.
Meta Description - A description should be written in a way that you would like someone to find your article. For instance, if you have just launched a new bakery business in Alfreton, a description like "New Bakery in Alfreton called Mr Bakers opens" would help people find the information in a search engine. Descriptions should not be more than 10 words and should be precise, factual and to the point.
Meta Keywords - Meta keywords allow the search engines to tag the information in your news story and index them so that others can find them. Keywords have to be seperated by comma's. For the example above of Mr Baker appropriate keywords might be as follows.....
alfreton, alfreton baker, new alfreton bakers, Mr Baker, Mr Baker the Bakers, Alfreton shop, Alfreton retail, Alfreton Businesses, bread, cakes, Alfreton Bakery, Bakery, etc,
We recommend that you use no more than twenty keyword phrases - that is, twenty words or phrases separated by commas.
LASTLY!!!
When you have completed your article - do not forget to click the save button!