How to Write an Article

by GillB

We very much welcome articles written by forumers, whether historical, strategic or about castles. Hopefully you will find a few hints and a bit of advice here which will help.

1. Before you do anything at all, check that nobody is already writing a similar article. You don’t want to spend a long time on research and writing only to find that someone else has already written about the same thing. Probably, for simplicity, you should mail your idea to me and I can check with the right person.

2. It helps if you can write in clear and correct English. However, if English isn’t your first language, don’t let this put you off. I am happy to edit/proof read/anglicise what you have written.

3. Look at previous articles on the site to see the sort of thing we like. Historical articles need to be factual, but not too dry. Strategy/design articles need to be accurate. Both need to be about something not already covered on the site.

4. Your article needs to be original. You will need to do a lot of research on the web and/or in books. Of course you can use the information you find, but it will need to be rewritten in your own words. If you are using the internet for your research, try to find at least two sites confirming the information as there are some very inaccurate websites out there – we don’t want to be one of them.

5. If at all possible you will need illustrations for your article.
a) If they are your own photos, drawings or screenshots, that’s great.
b) If you need an image of a unit, commodity or building from the game, there’s a good chance we will already have an image uploaded somewhere.
c)If you want to use an image from another website, you will have to write and ask permission. Do this politely; explain about the article you are writing, tell them that there will be a link to their site and send them a link to Stronghold Heaven so that they can see where their images will be used. If you are lucky, they will reply straight away giving you permission. More likely they will not reply at all, in which case you will need to look elsewhere. Please note that, for these purposes, HeavenGames is considered a commercial site (because we make a little money on the adverts, not a lot, but it’s the idea that counts). This means a lot of pics that are in ‘public’ domain, will not be available to us, as they are for non-commerical use only. Permission to use external images is mandatory and we may need to see it before your article can be uploaded. We do have blanket permission to use images from some Castle Sites as long as they are credited, which might help you in your search.

6. The final bit.
a) When you have written your article and are happy with it, send it to Lady Arcola, preferably as a .txt file (though a .doc file is OK), together with any images you want to use. If the images are external, let us have the url where they can be found. Indicate in the article where you want each image to be.
b) One of the staff will edit it and query with you anything we don’t understand, then we will code and upload the article and you will be sent the url so you can have a look and see if you are happy with it.
c) If not, we’ll work on getting it how you want it; if so, it will be newsed and linked in to its appropriate place.

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