Difference between revisions of "Performing arts review submission"

Revision as of 23:51, 4 February 2014

Overview

KDHX.org website seeks to present theatre, film and music reviews in a beautiful manner that is also friendly to readers.

- Film reviews are located here: http://kdhx.org/film/film-reviews

- Theatre reviews are located here: http://kdhx.org/arts/theater-reviews

- Music reviews are located here: http://kdhx.org/music/reviews

Preparation

We are striving for clean, consistent text and formatting.

To achieve this, we are using AP style as much as possible.

Please review the KDHX AP Style Guide for proper capitalization and other conventions.
You should do your best to prep your text according to these conventions.

Logging in to KDHX.org

For best results, we recommend using Firefox or Chrome as your browser.

If you do not know your username or password, contact roy at kdhx dot org.

1. Log in using the My Account button along the top right side of the homepage, just under the "Donate Now" button.

2. Look at the top Main Menu on the site. Click on the section that your review will be going in -- either Film (for movies) or Arts (for theatre or music).

3. Beneath the image slider, click Add a new item to this category. The Page editor will then pop up.

4. Select your category; make sure to select either Film Review or Theatre Arts Review or Music - Reviews not just the general category.

5. You are now ready to begin adding content to the editor.

These 2 short tutorials which will walk you through the submission process.

1. Tutorial #1
2. Tutorial #2
   

Getting started

Enter a good headline in the Title field

The KDHX website tries to use AP style headlines whenever possible.

Your headline should be approximately 6-12 words. If you can write a clever headline in less than 6 words, that's fine, but try not to go over 12 words.

Examples:

- See it at the Rep, but 'You Can't Take It With You'

- Dozens of plays, freshly drawn and quartered

- Surprising testimony from Theatre Guild's 'Witness for the Prosecution'

- Contrived script sinks Flood Stage's 'Coupla White Chicks'

- 'Young Frankenstein' stalks and stumbles at the Fox

- Masters of puppets: Avenue Q entertains at the Fox Theatre

- St. Louis Shakespeare sails through 'The Tempest'

A good headline will be unique to the review itself. It should be snappy and clever, witty and intriguing. Ideally it should hint at a positive or negative review. Puns are good, so long as they aren't groan inducing.

- Strong verbs make for excellent headlines.

- Compose your headline before you begin the submission process. That way you can just copy and paste it in to the Title field.

Use standard AP style for headlines. Only capitalize the first word, unless the word is part of the title to the film or play or piece of music you are reviewing, or is part of a proper noun.

For instance: See it at the Rep, but 'You Can't Take It With You'

- "Rep" is capitalized because it is a proper noun (the name of the theatre).

- "You Can't Take It With You" is capitalized as such because it is the title of the play.

Note: In headlines, composition titles, like play titles, go in single quotation marks ('). However, in text, composition titles go in double quotation marks (").

Title Alias

Leave this field blank. K2 will auto-generate the alias once the item is saved.

Tags

Add a few tags (keywords). Title of the play/film/music piece, name of the theatre company, name of the director, genre, playwright, lead actor, etc. 4-6 tags are adequate.

Be careful to spell your tags correctly. Use the drop down suggestions whenever possible.

Category

Make sure you choose the correct category (i.e., Film Reviews, Theatre Review, etc.) from the drop down list.

Featured

Leave "Featured" defaulted to No.

Published

Click No for "Published."

Pasting your text into the Editor windows

A few notes before we get started on this step.

Online publishing is tricky. If it were as simple as cutting and pasting from a formatted Word document, all of our lives would be easier. However, it quite simply is not that simple.

People have different browsers, different versions of Word, different operating systems, etc., all of which impact the way text behaves on the Web.

So, we have simplified the process as much as possible. Following these steps carefully will result in cleaner and more consistent copy in all articles, fewer headaches for you and far fewer headaches for your tireless editors.

The steps are not difficult, but it is vital that you do your best to follow them.

Tip: Format your Word document as single space text without indented paragraphs. Instead, just enter an extra return between paragraphs. If possible, turn off "curly quotes" or "smart quotes" in Word. Search your Word help for how to do this. There is no need to add italics to your Word document. Remember: Composition titles, like play titles, go in double quotation marks in text. Do not italicize such titles.

Another tip: The easiest and cleanest way to make a dash is to type the word, then a space, then two hyphens, then a space, then the next word. That will give you a nice clean dash.

AP style reminders:

• Only 1 space between sentences.
• Commas and periods ALWAYS go inside quotation marks.
• Do not use the serial (Oxford) comma unless to avoid ambiguity. That's the final comma before the "and" in a series of items: "Hamlet," "Macbeth" and "The Tempest" are my three favorite plays.

Editor Content

First Window

The first window is the intro paragraph or lede. The lede should be a snappy, engaging teaser to the rest of the article. It should make the reader want to read more. The lede should be short: under 30 words if possible.

Make sure you can see the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) toolbar above the editor windows.

Do not paste text directly into these windows. Do not paste text using the W (Word) button.

• Copy the lede paragraph from your document.
  
• Click on the Paste as plain text button in the toolbar.

• A window will pop up and you can paste in your lede paragraph. Click OK.
  

Second Window

Go down to the second window.

• Copy the rest of your review and again click the Paste as plain text button.
• Paste your text into the pop up window and click OK.

Note: The reason that you are pasting text in this way is to strip out all unnecessary code or artifacts from your text.

You should now see your text cleanly formatted.

• If there are any extra line breaks between paragraphs, just delete them.
• Do not add bold, italic or any other character formatting.

Adding Links

You can now add links to words or phrases within the text found in either of the Editor Content windows.

• Highlight the linked word or phrase
• Click on the link icon (example below) in the toolbar.

The Link window will display:

Add / paste the URL into the field labeled URL.

Important Information:

• for External links make sure that the Protocol field contains "http://". If it does not, use the droplist to change it.
• for Internal links (i.e., links leading back to KDHX.org,) please use the Reverse URL Lookup. Once you have pasted the Reverse URL into the URL field of the Link window, make sure that the Protocol field contains "<other>."

No other formatting is required of the Editor Content text.

Extra Fields

Click on the Extra Fields tab above the Editor Content window.

1. Add the name of the theatre in the Venue field. If it is a movie, and is playing at several theatres in the St. Louis region, use "Various."
2. Add the URL for the theatre whenever possible. Always use "http://" with the URL.
3. If showing in several theatres;
   • Click this link for Google's Showtimes for St. Louis page.
   • Type the title of the film into Search Movies, and click the search icon or hit enter.
   • Use the URL to Google's response from your menu bar as the URL for "Various" theatres. This will take the viewer to a list of all showtimes in the area.)
     
     

Popular St. Louis movie theatre websites

- Tivoli: http://www.landmarktheatres.com/market/st.louis/tivolitheatre.htm

- Plaza Frontenac: http://www.landmarktheatres.com/market/St.Louis/PlazaFrontenacCinema.htm

- Webster Film Series: http://www.webster.edu/filmseries

4. The Open in field should remain set at Same Window.

5. Add the Director name, always double check for the correct spelling.

6. For Dates, follow these conventions to indicate the opening and closing dates, whenever possible.

- Theatre reviews - represent the opening and closing dates like this Oct. 1-10, 2010, or if overlapping months Oct. 28-Nov. 7, 2014.

- Film reviews - if only the opening date is known, use this format: Opens Sept. 15, 2010.

If the closing date is also known, use the format: Oct. 1-10, 2010, or if overlapping months Oct. 28-Nov. 7, 2014.

If the performance or screening only takes place over one day, use this format: Sept. 15, 2010.

Metadata Information

On the right of the K2 Add Item window, click the blue arrow by Metadata Information to reveal it.

• Copy your lede paragraph and paste it into the Description window.

- Remove any quotation marks.

• For the Keywords field, type in the same words that you included in Tags, perhaps also adding "theatre review" or "film review."

- Separate keywords by commas.

• Leave the Robots and Author fields empty.

Review your article

Click on the Content tab above the Content Editor windows and take some time to double check and proofread your article.

If it all looks good, you may click Save at the top.

Your editor will review the article, add an image to it and publish it on KDHX.org.

Important:

- email chuck at kdhx dot org that you have submitted a review; he will then review and publish.

- if you run into any problems whatsoever with submitting your review, please contact roy at kdhx dot org and he will help you out.

You're done! You may now log out.