Patch Blogging Guidelines, Tips, and FAQ

A reminder: We reserve the right to remove objectionable, inaccurate, or inflammatory material and, if necessary, suspend or revoke blogging privileges. Disallowed material includes propagating conspiracy theories and blogging about behind-the-scenes housekeeping issues that are not of interest to the general public and should instead be dealt with by communicating directly with the Patch editor. In addition, our policy requires factual inaccuracies to be corrected or retracted within 24 hours of being alerted to the error.

Disclosure: In an effort to be as transparent with our readers as possible, we require Patch bloggers to disclose any financial conflicts of interest related to the issue they are writing about. If a blogger receives payment or income from a company, organization, group, or individual with a financial stake in the issue he/she is weighing in on, that information must be disclosed at the bottom of the applicable blog post. 



Corrections and Substantive Edits: If you make a substantive addition, deletion or correction of an error to a blog post after the post has been published, you are required to note this change at the bottom of your post. This guideline applies to all matters of fact, but not to issues of spelling, grammar, style, or minor editorial corrections you make to your post. In the interest of transparency, you should note to readers that in an earlier version of the post there was an error that has since been corrected. 



Credentials: As a Patch blogger, you must acquire an official letter of approval from a Patch editor in order to cover an event for Patch. Without proper editorial approval, you must not identify yourself as a representative of Patch while attending events. To request a letter of approval, please email your Patch editor.

We greatly appreciate the contributions of our community of Patch bloggers and welcome an ongoing dialogue between our editors and our bloggers as we continue to work together.

Style Guidelines 

This is the style guide we'll use when we edit your posts. Please help us get your posts up faster by following this style guide yourself. We hate to be picky, but here goes:


Length: 500 to 800 words

• Our most effective posts fall in the 500 to 800 range; a full op-ed length may be too long to hold a reader's attention.
• If your post is especially long, it may take us longer than 24 hours to get to it.

Title: This Is a Sample Title for Patch From the Editors

• Capitalize the first letter of every word, except for articles and prepositions three letters or less (so "From" is capitalized, but "for" is not; "Is" always gets capitalized)
• Clear, descriptive titles work better than cute or punny ones. What would you enter into Google if you were trying to find this article? That's usually the best way to start your title.
• Please no all-caps, but if you want to emphasize a word, add italics by selecting the important word or phrase and hitting the "I" button above the editing window (or typing Ctrl+I - or on a Mac, Command-I).

Italics vs. Quotes

Technical How-To's

Bold/Italics/Underline Formatting

To apply any of these formatting options to words or segments of text, simply highlight the text you want to format, and click the "B", "I", or "U" buttons above the entry box, which will wrap the proper code around the selected text and make it appear formatted as chosen when the post is published onto the site.

Hyperlinks

Any time you reference an article or a website, readers always appreciate when you hyperlink it (make it clickable to the relevant page). To hyperlink text, follow these steps:

1. Find the URL (web address, i.e. "http://www.webaddresshere.com") you want, and "copy" it so it's stored, as you'll "paste " it in a couple steps
2. In the entry body where you post, highlight the segment of text or word you want to be clickable
3. Click the middle chain-link shaped button (between the U button and the envelope symbol) above the entry box, which will make a small window appear
4. Paste the full web address (http:// and everything) that you copied in step 1 into that window
5. Click "OK"
6. The proper code will wrap around the words you selected and the link will be clickable when the post is published

Tags

If there are any keywords missing from the headline or the first paragraph of the article, you can add that keyword to the Tags field. Separate multiple keywords with commas.

Media

To upload photos, videos, or PDFs to accompany your blog post, select the “Choose Files” button under the Upload Media heading. A pop-up will appear to let you find the file on your computer and post it.

Edit your bio

To make a change to your bio, click on your name at the upper right corner of any page. This will bring you to your profile home. Click on “Edit Profile,” edit your “About Me” information and click “Save.”

Change your profile photo

To change your profile photo, click on your name at the upper right corner of any page. This will bring you to your profile home. Click on “Profile Photos,” edit your “About Me” information and click “Save.”

Publicizing your post

We encourage contributors to promote their pieces and send them around -- many readers arrive at pieces on Patch via links passed on from friends and other sites. Here are a couple ideas:

Email lists: Send a short note with a link to your post to any lists you're on -- whether social organizations, extracurricular groups, or even just your typical family/friends list. Encourage them to comment! Our experience shows that often the more comments a post attracts, the better it does in generating clicks and more comments. Create a community around your post, and help it grow by starting with your own personal community. Encourage your friends to share it as well.

Facebook/Twitter: Share your post via Facebook or Twitter! (You can use the handy social tools provided with your published post.)

Blogs that cover the topic you're writing about: Most blogs will have a 'contact' email for their proprietor. If you've written something you think a specific blog might be interested in, send it their way with a brief, polite note explaining why you thought they might find it interesting (don't send them everything you write, and don't send to multiple blogs simultaneously, i.e., 'spam' them). It also doesn't hurt to reference individual posts that they've written in your posts, by linking to them.

Respond to Comments: Responding to comments on your own post helps the community grow around it.

Troubleshooting

I submitted my post over 24 hrs ago and it still hasn't been published.

First, make sure you didn't accidentally leave your post in "Draft" status. 

Sometimes the volume of posts is especially high. We'll get your post published as soon as possible. When there's a delay, we're aware of it -- no need to send the Blog Team an e-mail or re-post.

I got a message saying my post was published, but I don't see it anywhere. Where is it?

Please keep in mind that not all posts are featured -- after all, we have lots of you and only one Patch. However, your post should be listed in your author archive and at the URL, which you should feel free to send out to your friends or mailing list.

How do I know how many readers my blog got?

Unfortunately we don't keep stats on all of our pages. However, the number of comments a post receives is one possible indication of the traction of one's post, but is not necessarily a direct indication of views.

I see a typo or an error!

Please send an email to your Patch editor, with the subject line, "TYPO" and with a link to the blog post in the body of the email and an explanation of the typo or problem.