HOW TO CONTRIBUTE CONTENT AT MODEL RAILWAY TECHNIQUES.COM
Thank you for your interest in becoming a Contributing Content Member for Model Railway Techniques.com. There two different ways to contribute to our site as outlined below. For purposes of this document, {you, your, yours, yourself, your own} refers to yourself and any materials submitted by you, and is identified as YOU, an individual. {ADMIN} refers to the owner of this site, Model Railway Techniques.com, and is identified as James McGown. Please read carefully before submitting contributions, as approval of those contributions by Model Railway Techniques.com binds you to an agreement that may be enforceable in a court of law, if necessary.
PHOTO CONTRIBUTION:
General:
You may submit photos for consideration of adding to the site. Photos must be of your own Model Railroad, or Prototype photos of your own taking. Upon approval by the Admin, you agree that the use of these photos and their placement throughout the site is at the sole discretion of the Admin. (Exception: Photos provided by you as part of a content contribution, see below.) The Admin reserves the right to redistribute these photos throughout the site as deemed necessary. This may include adding to the photo gallery, including in posts and articles to help with illustrating a point, use as an example, or provide general site content appeal. The Admin also reserves the right to limit the use of number of photos submitted by you. If used within a post or article, photo credit will be given as: Contributing Member. The Admin agrees to not use your photos as part of a specific, descriptive how to article authored by the Admin.
Suitable Image Sizes:
All images should be approximately 1280 pixels X 720 pixels. This is a typical 16:9 Ratio Aspect. File type should be .JPEG or .JPG Individual image file size should be limited to around 500 KB or less to facilitate fast upload times. Many newer smart phones offer resizing options within their photo gallery, and most mobile email uploads will ask if you want to re-size photo attachments.
To submit photos for consideration please email them to: james@test-modelrailwaytechniques.siterubix.com Maximum email attachment size is 30GB you may attach via zip files if necessary. If you have any questions regarding the use of your photos, or photos that you submit that may be subject to copyright laws, please visit our copyright notice page or email us at the address above.
CONTENT CONTRIBUTION (HOW-TO ARTICLES)
How to content contribution is highly regarded and valued. In an effort to provide the most detailed and quality content possible, Model Railway Techniques has come up with some basic content guidelines below. All content submissions must be your own original work and must include photo content follow-alongs to illustrate your work. Please see above for suitable image requirements and also important copyright information. We do not accept content of a biased nature, our website is designed to appeal to all Model Railroaders regardless of their own personal preferences, age, or skill level.
1. Your content must be laid out in an orderly and organized manner so it can easily be read and understood by everyone.
2. Your content should follow the basic principles of writing a paragraph, and at a minimum should include the following parameters: Title, a Heading, followed by several paragraphs of Main Content, and a Summary or Conclusion. Other things to consider:
You may add several headings if you feel it will help the content matter make more sense.
You may want to consider including a list of materials and tools needed.
You may want to consider informing the reader of approximately how long it will take to complete this project or technique.
3. You should try your best to not be redundant or repeat several key aspects of your content, so that you keep the readers engaged and interested. In this way they will continue to read the material through to the end.
4. Your sentence structure should be well developed, and easy to understand. Avoid using run-on sentences that can confuse the reader. You should avoid using very short simple sentences such as ‘do this’ ‘do that’ type of structure. Instead, combine them into compound sentences, creating breaks where your reader either needs to reference a visual or give some thought. This is where the placement of visual aids in the form of photos comes into play, as you naturally give the reader a break from words and a chance to see what you are talking about. The photo content should be evenly distributed within your main content so the reader can see exactly what you are talking about and be able to follow along.
5. Your content should utilize visual aids in the form of tables, graphs, etc. if appropriate. Those should be included within the body content immediately below or above your point of emphasis similar to photos per above. Again, this will ensure that the readers can understand what you are talking about as you make your key points.
6. And finally, you should include a short overview of your article and techniques, emphasizing key points your readers should remember to not skip or forget.
To summarize a few key points:
Your content must be clear and concise.
You should utilize the use of visual aids and photos throughout your article.
You should use basic spelling, grammar and sentence structure skills We highly recommend the use of spell check before submitting any content.
You should include a short review of your article to drive home some key points.
There are many writing and insertion tools available here on the site that greatly speed the process of writing and inserting key elements such as visual aids or pictures, and we will utilize those to structure your content accordingly as long as you provide us with a good, comprehensible draft and tell us exactly where you need the visual aid inserted. For example, you can write some sentences, then on your text document you provide us (word works well) you can put a line like this: <insert pic 1 here> <insert pic 2 here> etcetera. Also be clear if you want your pictures to be aligned horizontally along a row, maximum 3 for ease of visibility, or inserted as a spacer between sentences or groups of sentences. See brief example below. The goal is to keep the pictures or visual aid close to view of your readers. Please be sure to rename your pictures or images when submitting them in numerological order beginning with number 1. We rely on visual aids very heavily in order to keep our readers engaged and interested in the article, as well as be able to duplicate your techniques. It is our opinion that a well written informative article is easier to understand and remember as opposed to watching a video repeatedly, pausing, rewinding to catch ‘wait what, how did they do that?’ Increasing knowledge and providing the skills and techniques to achieve fun and success is the main goal of our site.
THIS SECTION GIVES YOU THE OUTLINE OF ADDING PHOTO IMAGES OR OTHER VISUAL AIDS TO YOUR CONTENT PER ABOVE. CLICK HERE FOR IMAGE REQUIREMENTS. BELOW IS THE SINGLE IMAGE EXAMPLE.
THIS WOULD BE THE THREE IMAGE EXAMPLE.
ALL THE IMAGES ABOVE CAN ALSO BE OPENED FULL SIZE IN A NEW TAB, HOVER ON THE THIRD ONE TO SEE AN EXAMPLE
Writing does not have to be intimidating, and writing about content you are knowledgeable and passionate about will definitely help it come more easily. We encourage you to submit your drafts and give it a try. If you’re interested then contact us below and we will then get some further insight on how you feel you can contribute, or simply send us your draft copy of your proposed content for our review. We will then inform you if we decide to accept it as is or send back a copy with suggestions of slight alterations if we think it will benefit the readers.
Regards, James. james@modelrailwaytechnique.com
