Using Wordpress
Contents
Introduction
In order to make RedEye look as awesome as it does, staff members are required to complete out a selection of the post features that Wordpress offers. Before hitting publish, in addition to completing and formatting the actual text of the article, the author must 1) write a headline, 2) write an excerpt, 3) choose an original featured image, 4) choose ONE category, and 5) enter a few relevant tags. Each of these features must be high quality.
Headlines
Only capitalize the first word and all proper nouns in a headline (like what you would capitalize in a regular sentence)--e.g. “Manual student crashes car into senior cafeteria” Headlines don’t necessarily need to be sentences, and when they happen to be (like in the example above), do not punctuate them.
Excerpts
Excerpts are the short one to two sentences that show up under the featured image when you click on the article from the homepage. Make sure your excerpt doesn’t resemble your headline or first sentence too closely.
When writing excerpts, pick a fact that is important for the reader to know, but that isn’t central enough to the main point of the article to be included in the headline. For example, if the headline is “Manual students compete in international science competition”, the excerpt could be “Six Manual students brought home top awards at the International Chemistry Olympiad, winning over $100,000 in scholarships.”
Featured Images
Your featured image should be a picture that is relevant to the article. Ideally, it wouldn’t be posed, and you would have taken it at whatever event you’re talking about. If you don’t have any photos from the event (and can’t get permission from someone who does), you can use images off Flickr Creative Commons.
Featured images need to be embedded at the tops of articles at a reasonable size, captioned and attributed. If you took the photo, the caption will be followed by the words “Photo by (your name)”. If someone else took the photo, say “Photo by (their name)”. If the image is from Flickr Creative Commons, say “Photo by [username] via Flickr Creative Commons.” You must include the Flickr user’s name!
Tags
Wordpress automatically generates tags, but you need to add your own. Tag names and organizations discussed in the article, as well as other relevant terms.
Hover Links
RedEye Hover Links (RHL) is a method of presenting media that display/plays the media only when the user's mouse is hovering over a specified group of text. The tutorial on implementing RHL is at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1r1AQt6c-j1C8CKAmos56cvE4M8XwfUMJEDmh5D9TK-8/edit?usp=sharing and the code required is at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ElA-Wt4vI7i-BJNp7oQof8XkQ8af8KwL1nynviKtW4Q/edit?usp=sharing.
Gallery
All Gallery Types should be Tiled Mosaic. To change a Gallery's type, click on "Edit Gallery" icon and select the preferred type under the drop-down box titled "Type."
Wordpress Formatting Quick Checklist
Anyone who is posting an article in Wordpress should go through this checklist BEFORE submitting it for your editor to do a final review. Editors should also go through this checklist briefly BEFORE they publish. For detailed WordPress instructions and troubleshooting guidelines, please see the next section.
Have you…
- written and entered a relevant title?
- pasted your article into Wordpress in plain text format?
- embedded any photos, video, audio or other relevant multimedia?
- added a featured image?
- added appropriate tags?
- selected authors?
- chosen a category?
- previewed your story to make sure the formatting looks okay?
- checked your story on the front page once it has been published?
Even if you forget everything else about Wordpress, remember: all articles need FETCH.
Featured Image
Excerpt
Tags
Category
Headline
Full Wordpress Formatting Manual
Please refer to the section above for a brief description of necessary Wordpress components, and for a comprehensive guide on creating a Wordpress post, please click below:
Formatting in Wordpress
