Write an article

You can contribute to the site by writing articles or by adding comments to them. Here we deal with writing articles.

Please first register on the site before continuing unless you have already done so and have had an email back from the site confirming your registration.

Our "Write an article" help text is written for complete beginners. As you feel more comfortable with the site you will be able to make more complex contributions. Look at the examples from other contributors for ideas or look at our additional resources.

If you use Internet Explorer then this page can be printed out for reference by right clicking on it and then selecting the print option. If you use Firefox then select the print option from its File menu. Google Chrome does not print a page satisfactorily - there will be a loss of text from the right hand side and possibly from the bottom.

Here is what you must do to write an article:

Preliminaries

You MUST have registered and have your log in details to hand.

For your first article all you then need is what is in your head, or on text material beside you.

Log in to the contributor area

In the Contribute panel on the bottom left side of the screen type in your user name and password.

Note that you must type both entries exactly as you registered them, including lowercase and uppercase characters.

Then click on Log in.

The main page will come back and this time the Contribute area will say Hi, Firstname!

My details allows you to review your personal details. Have a look at them later.

My Pages allows you to create new pages and also to see those you have already created in draft and to continue to work on them.

Click on My pages.

A page with tabs across the top will appear and you will see a panel called Add a page on the right, its just under:

"Add a page/Start work on a new page"

Click on the Add a page panel.

Give your article a title

You will now be on a page with eight tabs across the top and you will be on the first tab called Add title.

One of the tabs is Help and there is a contextual help panel on the right hand side of the page. Both these online aids are useful - ignoring the fact that in Help you live in a London estate ! - but for now lets just continue with Add Title.

Type something in the Title box. You can edit this text later so anything goes at this stage. How about "a first step" unless you have something specific in mind.

Leave the sub-title empty.

Your name will be in the Author box. This will appear at the head of your published article.

Now click Next.

Write your article

A little word processor window will have appeared partly filling the screen. Move the cursor using the mouse/touchpad and left click anywhere in its white open space to anchor the cursor. You are now ready to enter text.

Just type your paragraphs into the wordprocessor. It works just like those you are familiar with but with some limitations and peculiarities. In particular, it prefers that you use Internet Explorer, but for what we are doing here it will work fine with Google Chrome or Firefox.

You are strongly advised to complete the process set out here with a very small "test" article. When you need to do more, such as importing text and adding images, then click additional resources.

So, for now, continue to add and modify text and, as you develop your article, skip to and fro between the Add words and Preview tabs until you are happy with its look.

Note that the wordprocessor window doesn't really show you how the text will look on the site but the preview window does.

Then either click Next on the Preview tab or click Save.

Save your article

You will be on a Publish page. There you will see the options:

  • Save and continue editing
  • Save draft for later
  • Save and submit

If you Save draft for later you can log off and the next time you come back to the site you can take up where you left off. You will find the draft in your area after you log back on. Continue to edit it by just clicking again on Add words and then carry on where you left off.

Publish your article

When you are happy with your article then click on Save and submit. The page will be sent to our Webmaster for checking and publication. This may take a little time, perhaps a day or two on occasion.

And in your area when you log in you will see three things:

  • Drafts
  • Submitted for publication
  • Already published

Therefore you will always be able to keep tabs on what you have done on the site.

So welcome to the site and happy contributing !

This page was added by Bob Stephen on 05/02/2011.
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