I use boldface type for the headings within the article. I do NOT use the h1, h2, h3 heading labels - because those can get mangled in syndication. If you stick to only using boldface and italics (use either the i or em tag in html to get italics), you should be fine. By using as little formatting as possible, neither the editor nor the search engine will be able to ruin your writing very easily.
Here’s a rule of thumb: If your article was converted to plain text with no formatting at all, would it be as readable? If the answer’s yes, you have a good clean style!
Long paragraphs are harder to read than short paragraphs. See if you can break your longer paragraphs into two shorter paragraphs. Each time you’re making a fresh statement (such as this paragraph and the preceding paragraph), it’s probably a good place to start the new paragraph. When your article is posted on the Web, it will be far easier to read that way! (These three paragraphs could have been a single paragraph, but it would have been “heavier going” for you the reader. Picture them all three together as a single paragraph. Do you see what I mean?)
Article Title and Opening Sentence

I’m sure you’ve seen how a newsreader shows you the title of an article and the first few words. It’s up to you to get the subject into a standard form so that google and the other newsfeed search engines can understand how to best categorize your article.
If you’re doing a Reality TV article, you should:

• Include the name of the show in the article title or headline. For example the recap of America’s Top Model titled Cracks are Beginning to Show could be Cracks Are Beginning to Show on America’s Next Top Model.
• The lead sentence (the first text after the title) should also include the title of the show. For example the recap of Survivor could have the opening sentence In this week’s episode of Survivor Panama: Exile Island Terry, Sally, and Austin face discouraging odds.
• When you’re intermixing blow-by-blow recap with your own running commentary, there is no need to distinguish the two with different type face, italics, whatever. The whole recap is your commentary and observation - so the whole thing can be plain text.

Proof Read

If you’re going to write an article that you want other people to read - after all, that’s why you wrote it - proof read it before you post it, and check it again as you post it! Spell check, or whatever works for you.
There is a reason that commercial airline pilots use check lists. We don’t want them to overlook or forget something important! This page is my article checklist. I check here to make sure I have things right. Whenever I get feedback from the editor, I add it to the checklist, so I’ll remember to have it right the next time.
Reality TV Article Check List

My current check list:

1. Is the TV show’s name in the article title? Am I consistently naming the show the same way?
2. Does the lead sentence also include the name of the show?
3. Are section titles in bold (not h2)? Is anything else bold? If so, why? You might need to add that reason to this checklist!
4. Do you use italics for emphasis only? If you use italics for anything else, add that to this style guide.
5. Did you proof read the posted version?
6. Have you adjusted for any editing feedback received on prior articles?

Additional check list items for my Blog edition of the article:

1. Have I marked where to split between the teaser and the rest of the body?
2. Have I marked or appended Technorati keywords?

That’s all! If you have suggestions or questions, please contact me or add a comment below! I’d like this to be applicable to all Reality TV Calendar writers.

by VikingBear, 15 April 2006 OnSurvivor.com

Permalink to this Syndication Style Guide: http://www.onsurvivor.com/syndication-style-guide/

[tags]business blogging, best practices, editing, blogs, blogging, style guide, online style guide, writing, syndication, rss syndication, newsfeeds[/tags]

I edited the style sheet to add class .introduction.

I edited getperson.php to catch and display the event.

I edited personlib.php to add function buildIntroduction, which is a clone of buildGenNotes.

The ‘note’ portion of the Introduction event, when collected inside TNG, is made a list item. I strip off the first four characters to remove the LI tag.

In this case I’m simply including an html page which will be generated by an outside perl script. I miss the ability to generate a table of contents by “ancestral endpoint,” so I’ll be adding that back in. Probably be safest to generate the info from the gedcom sitting in the import directory. I’ll make it 400 permissions rather than 000.

The result is that the original import into the coppermine gallery creates the thumbnail etc., and then all becomes accessible to TNG.

Buffering output

in the wordpress wiki. In my case, I have pages which are basically “table of contents pages” for the subpages. So, I’m enhancing the general page template to collect the list of subpages (if any). And then, if there ARE any (i.e., it’s a non-empty string), I can do my print thing.

We follow the same steps explained in Part A, Add another syndication feed to your site, part A. Please read that article first, so you understand why we’re doing what we’re doing!

Our basic problem, you will recall, is that we have a bunch of “other” material that has nothing to do with our site’s main purpose. This “other” content is a good thing, to be sure, but during those times when you’re posting more “other” content than “real” content, your “real” content completely disappears from your site’s main page!

In my case, the site OnSurvivor.com is about the Survivor reality TV show. However, as I convert the site over to using WordPress, I’m writing lots of technical notes to make it easier on the next person, and to help me remember what I did. The unfortunate result is that I have, at the moment, pushed the Survivor content off the front page, in favor of the tech stuff.

Let’s follow the steps explained in Part A to solve the problem. Specifically, we need to separate the technical notes from the Survivor notes.

See Figure 1. This graphic shows my list of categories before making any changes. We want to move the categories Blog Tools, Wordpress change log, Feedburner notes, and Plugins off to the side.

Figure 1. Site categories before any changes made

I gave some thought as to the common theme, and the areas in which I am likely to continue writing “other” material. I decided on a general title of Online Tech - tools, tips, tricks, techniques, and tutorials relating to online software. We’ll use that general concept for reorganizing the categories.

In your Wordpress admin area, go to Manage -> Categories -> (add new). See Figure 2. In Figure 2 we are adding the Online Tech as a new category, with no parent category. Fill in the Name, choose the category parent, type in the description, and click Add Category. (These illustrations use the Tiger Admin theme by Steve Smith at www.OrderedList.com.)

Figure 2. Add Online Tech category

Now we use the Manage -> Categories -> Edit button to change each category to become a sub-category of Online Tech. Figure 3 shows the Edit button for the Blog Tools category. (The formatting looks a bit ugly because I narrowed the browser window to fit here in the blog column.)

Figure 3. Preparing to edit Blog Tools category

See Figure 4. For the category Blog Tools, we change the category parent to our new category Online Tech, and click Edit category.

Figure 4. Change parent category of Blog Tools

Note that your Blog Tools category has now disappeared from your list of categories! See Figure 5. This is because I have WordPress set to only display categories with posts. Since the parent category has no posts, the sub-category is not displayed, even though it does have posts.

Figure 5. Blog Tools category disappears

We continue the reorganizing by moving some posts into the Online Tech category, and changing the other categories to also be sub-categories of Online Tech. Our sidebar now looks like Figure 6.

Figure 6. Reorganized categories

In Part C, we “burn” the feed, and update all of our site files to take advantage of the new syndication feed.

Other blogs discussing: tech note, tech notes, technote, tech notes, syndication, rss syndication, rss, feedburner, multiple feeds, news feed, feeds, site design, blog design, blogging tips, best practices, business blogging, search engines, search engine optimization, seo, darren rowse, problogger, problogger.com

This problem applies to more than just tech notes, of course! If you’re writing posts that aren’t really part of your site’s main purpose, but you do want to write them, you might want to take a look at my approach.

The full solution would be to create a complete new site for that “other” material. But… it might not be convenient to come to a full halt and take a day, or a year, to design that new site. And, meanwhile, all those “other” ideas you have will simply get lost. You’re too busy creating that new site for your ideas, to actually get those ideas written down!

My interim solution only slows you down for a few minutes (or hours, if you’re unlucky!) and lays the groundwork for moving that “other” material to the new site when it’s ready, without inconveniencing any of your readers - or annoying the search engines.

Here’s how we’re going to handle your “other” material.

What do you do with the old “other” content? Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.net provides an excellent example. His old “other” content is on www.livingroom.org.au. His new “other” site is www.ProBlogger.net. Check the links in this example from his site:

Blog Tip 11 - Finding Readers (Part A) 5 November, 2003 10:50 PM

[…] So, hits are not everything, but having people read your blog is part of the deal - so how do you get them there….

This post has been moved to Pro Blogger - Finding Readers Part A

Based on Darren’s example, I’d say a good solution is to go back and edit your old “other” content, breaking it off at the “more” point, and link it to the content at your new location. That way the search engines can continue to find your article, and so can your readers.

Continue to Add another syndication feed to your site, part B.