Foodie Mama is not a staid old print medium, written only by people who
have a degree in journalism. That's part of what makes it wonderful! So
writers do not need to agonize over every capitalized letter or term.
Editors also should edit with a light hand: look just for formatting
errors where the article looks bad, for typos, for grammatical errors,
and for anything that doesn't fit the very basic style guidelines
below.
Headers/Titles
Headers and titles should not be cute or clever, as fun as that may
be. They should get to the point. Ask yourself: "What would someone
type into Google who wanted to read THIS article." They should also not
use any punctuation if at all possible. Avoid ! , ? ; : - ... and so
on.
All proper nouns and verbs should be capitalized, such as:
Editorial Guidelines and Style Book
NOT:
Editorial guidelines and style book
or:
EDITORIAL GUIDELINES AND STYLE BOOK
or:
Editorial Guidelines And Style Book
Intro Paragraph
The intro paragraph is your first graph. You only state it once. It
shouldn't really be longer than this paragraph you are reading now.
Once you've gotten about three sentences in, you should start a new
paragraph in the next box, the body.
DO NOT repeat the intro paragraph in the body. Your intro graph
should be compelling, as this is what visitors will read on the home
page and the topic page as a teaser to click to read your full article.
The intro paragraph should repeat the terms you've used in the title.
That tells Google that the article really is about what you said it was
about in the title.
An image here is wonderful! That will appear on the home and topic
pages as well. Your image should be aligned to the left, and it should
be no larger than 150 pixels on the long side. See How to Add a Picture for more details.
The Article Body
Web readers are much less inclined to read a large block of copy than
print readers are. That doesn't mean they shouldn't read your whole
article, though! There are some tricks to make it easier to read on a
computer screen.
Look for opportunities to add subheaders. This not only breaks things
up for the eyes, but it also is a chance to reinforce your title. For
example, if I used "Style Guide" in each of my headers here, I would
show up higher in Google results for that search.
You can add a header simply by writing your subhead (with the same
titling rules above), hitting enter, then highlighting the subhead.
Choose the pulldown menu that says "paragraph," and then select Header
3.
You should also use bullets (numbered or not numbered) to break things up when possible.
Stick to shorter paragraphs than you might for print, too. You should typically have 2-3 concise sentences in one paragraph.
You should also consider adding 1-2 photos (no wider than 300
pixels) into the body, which makes for a more pleasant reading
experience.
Attribution
If you use anything from anyone else that you didn't entirely
conjure up in your own brain, you need to clearly state the source and
link to the source, if possible. Your articles should also not contain
more than a quote here and there from another source, and that
information should be in quotes (you can use the blockquote icon if you
would like, which is the quotation icon) and should cite the source's
name and any other pertinent details.
Do not even paraphrase an article you found online or in print in its
entirety. This has happened on a Type-A Mom network site before, and all such articles will
be deleted and the user will be banned (and all their articles removed
as suspect). I don't mean to sound harsh, but this is not only stealing
but also can result in Foodie Mama getting sued and, well, I don't want
to be sued, thank you very much. Plus, I'm a writer and I don't take
kindly to people using other people's written work without permission.
If you want to publish an entire recipe from a source, contact the site first and get written permission, and then attribute the source with a link.
Linking
Linking is allowed and, in fact, encouraged at Foodie Mama. If you are
linking to useful information for readers, or to a mom or dad owned
site, all the better! It is, however, not a user-friendly experience to
simply state a site or to paste the entire URL in. In fact, pasting the
whole URL can cause the design to crack on the page. You also should
avoid using links in the intro, simply because it is better to
encourage people to read your article (where your ads appear) first.
Instead you should use these steps:
- Write the name of the site you are linking to. For example,
to link to Foodie Mama you would type out Foodie Mama, foodiemama.com.
- Highlight the words Foodie Mama.
- Click the chain icon, and paste the URL ( http://foodiemama.com ) there. Click OK.
Formatting Your Articles
This is a real issue, simply because I know many writers like to write
in another program, such as Word, and then paste into the site. I
hesitate to warn you completely against it, because this is much safer
in case you need a backup (and in case your internet, for example,
blinks out just before you click save and all is lost).
The problem is that programs like Word tend to add an awful lot of junk
copy. If you wonder if yours does, click the HTML icon and see if you
see a lot of junk, such as < p style="this and that" blah blah blah
>. You should really only see html code like < p > < i >
and so on.
Since editors' articles now auto publish, it is very important for
you to see your article live on the page and be sure it doesn't look
strange, such as shifting over too much or having a font that doesn't
match the site. If this happens, feel free to contact me and I can fix it.
Another way to avoid this altogether is to type directly into the Web site, and paste it into Word from there. Just be sure you backup as you write!
Here are the steps I use:
- Write title, intro graph and copy and paste this into a new Word (or other program's) file, then save
- Then click "Save as Draft."
- Write some of the body, then copy into Word and Save in Word.
- Complete the article, copy into Word and Save in Word.
- Then Save the article at Foodie Mama.
This might sound difficult, but it really is speedy if you have both
your browser and Word open. And if you've ever lost an article, you
know it is well worth the trouble.
Length
I am pretty flexible on length, but I do know what tends to work
well. Anything shorter than 350 words is really, in my opinion, not
quite an article. Anything longer than 700 words probably could, or
should, be broken up into two more focused articles.
That said, if you truly feel you must go longer, I just urge you to
see the Article Body header and reread it closely for the tips on
making it more web readable.
Your Bio and Related Articles
Some of the editors and writers use bios at the bottom of their
articles, and I absolutely encourage this. I would like to have them
all be consistent, and you can do this by simply writing your bio in
the third person, after all content, and in italics. Like this:
Kelby Carr is the coolest web publisher ever. She runs a whole bunch
of parenting sites because she is a total spastic type-A mom.
OK, that might be a little obnoxious. But you get the gist.
You also might consider adding a related articles list at the bottom of
your articles so you can handpick some articles you think the reader
might also want to see. To do that, state "More on XXXXXX" as a Header
3 (fill in XXXX with the subject of the article or your topic area),
followed by a bulleted and linked list. For example:
More on Writing for Foodie Mama
|
Editorial Guidelines and Style Book
