A submission to the class blog should contain the following elements:
- Substantive title
Titles matter. A substantive, well-written title will invite the reader to click through and read more. You’d be surprised by how often we are asked to post an untitled item to our class blogs, which is akin to asking us to send a message to the All Student Listserv without providing a subject line.
- Copy-edited description
Don’t just send an email message telling us that you’re holding a workshop on Sunday and ask us to spread the word. It is important that you also provide a concise blurb (a brief paragraph is plenty), written for a general audience, describing your event . Please don’t expect this to be written for you.
- Contact information
Make sure that you identify yourself and your office in your submission and provide the reader with contact information. If your office or the event you are promoting has a webpage, provide the URL.
- Links
Useful links invite the reader to explore further and provide opportunities to bring traffic to your office website or to other sources of information at Wesleyan or on the web.
- An image
While an image is not required, it can make your submission more attractive. It is also possible embed YouTube videos, audio files, Google maps, and PowerPoint slideshows into a post.If you submit an image, do not simply cut-and-paste it into the body of an email message or Word doc. This requires us to extract the image from your document and then convert it into “blog friendly” format. Please spare us from this tedious process. Instead, send your image as a separate file with a distinct name (i.e. “workshop.jpg” not “IMG_2386.JPG”). Also, be aware that blog images should be no wider than 300 pixels, so make sure your image will still be recognizable when shrunk down to this size.
Dos and Don’ts:
- Keep it simple
Send us your submission in plain text without fancy formatting. The use of boldface is acceptable, but do not use italics, do not use ALL CAPs, do not use fancy font faces, do not use multiple font sizes, do not use colored text and do not use underlined text. These typographical conventions may work on paper but they do not work on a blog and should be avoided entirely.
- Do not submit a .pdf or .jpeg of a poster
The fancy poster you had designed by the Communications Office may look great on an 11×14 inch sheet of paper, but it will look awful on a blog. Not only will the text become illegible when your poster is shrunk down to fit in the blog, but because the information is represented through a picture rather than through text, your poster (i.e. your event) will become invisible to search engines. Instead, use your word processor to type up the information contained in your poster and send the document to us as a text file. Please don’t expect it to be typed up for you.
- Avoid excessive use of abbreviations and acronyms
National Black Law Students Association Representatives at the Career Resource Center on Sunday
not
NBLSA Rep. at CRC on Sun.
- Do not send your submission at the last minute
For all the obvious reasons, this is not an effective way to communicate. Keep in mind, however, that if you send your submission to us early, we can “postdate” the entry so that it gets published at a later date.
- Consider starting up your own blog
If you find yourself sending us a lot of submissions, consider taking the middleman out of the communication process and creating your own blog. A blog is much easier to update a conventional website and more fun to maintain. The class deans would be happy to promote your blog on our blogs.
