I’d like to welcome you to the team here at InsideF2, we are excited to have you on board.
As mentioned during the interviews, we are on a journey to lead the FIA Formula 2 space online. Each of us will be playing a massive role to ensure we achieve this goal.
Not only will you contribute to the growth of this platform with your contributions, but you will also join our family here at InsideF2.com. We hope these relationships will become lasting friendships and networking opportunities for you.
For now, we will work through the onboarding process to establish and learn what you need to begin contributing to your specific role.
Again, welcome to the team. If you have questions let me know directly and I would be more than happy to assist. We look forward to having you come on board.
Regards,
James Porter
James@InsideF2.com
Throughout the induction and the welcome section of this training, we will discover the basics of both navigation and process for contributors here at insideF2.com.
Throughout the induction and the welcome section of this training, we will discover the basics of both navigation and process for contributors here at insideF2.com.
We use Discord for both our insideF2 community and internally as staff. If you have never used Discord before, the below video should get you familiar with what it is and how we will use it.
What is a Style Guide?
A style guide contains a set of standards for writing and composing content. It helps maintain a consistent style, voice, and tone across your documentation, whether you’re a lone writer or part of a huge docs team.
Before we look at how to find our own style guide for insideF2.com we need to consider a few things.
Aside from the wording outlined in the document it is important that we represent the brand and image in your own writing. This does not mean you can not show your flair and personality, however, there are a few key things all writers and contributors in general need to follow.
Our goal is to be “The only place a user needs to go to find out everything they need to know about FIA Formula 2”.
Firstly to achieve this we not only need to be consistent in our publishing of work but also consistent in the tone. It’s important to concentrate on four elements – facts, context, impact, and emotion.
Here are some basic tips:
All of the above, like the style guide, need to be understood and considered before you even begin typing. The below video will outline what the style guide is and how we use it.
However, it is your responsibility to ensure you absorb and understand exactly what is expected before you submit work to an editor.
You should now be familiar with our brand style guide and understand the basics of what we are looking for.
The below video will explain how exactly you go about writing and submitting content for review with an editor.
Our basic guide to great submissions.
You’ve gathered the information, sourced the facts, observations, quotes. You may have some external copy as reference, some material from other media. The first thing to do is stop and think.
**IMPORTANT NOTE: We have intentionally left these sections in here even if you are not a writer, because, through spoken media many if not all of the following still apply when communicating and delivering content.
Do not start writing until you have a plan. Read through all your notes, marking the most important pieces of information and the quotes you want to use. The information you have gathered needs to be in order. You need to decide what is more important, what is less important, to establish a hierarchy of pieces of information. And this is where you must think about your audience. Not necessarily what interests you most, but what will interest them. It may not be the same thing, and this is where knowing, having a feeling for, understanding your audience is so important.
We covered some key points in our style guide presentation. However, here is a little bit more to work with.
Consider your audience and the media it is consumed through.
As we are an online media platform the we have to accept that the vast majority of our readers will be scanning our copy with the attention span of a goldfish. Therefore, we must really hit the following points and also consider the way we present the information. On a mobile phone paragraphs need to be short and often broken up into sentences. We need to be prompt with our delivery and keep the word count no more than a few scroll of the screen, in most cases for news.
Tell the whole story in the first paragraph
The opening paragraph should be concise and explain the full story in as few words as possible. Even if someone reads no further, they should know what has happened. The intro is crucial because it sets the tone for what follows. A poorly written intro might confuse, mislead or simply bore the reader – a well-written intro will encourage the reader to stay with you on the strength of the information and angle you have started with.
For us in the example of a race report: Start off with a short summary of the race at the top with the winner, podium finishers and one or two key moments. Think of it as the Youtube highlights of your article. If the reader wants the extended highlights they can read on.
Articles are written so the information is given in order of importance with each preceding paragraph including more detail. This style of writing is called The Inverted Pyramid where the most important information is in the lead paragraph. If reports end up being too long, they should always be able to be cut from the bottom.
Make sure that the report answers the five W’s
Have they answered WHAT happened? WHEN did it happen? WHY did it happen? WHERE did it happen? WHO did it happen to? HOW did it happen?
Positive even if it is negative
Not: “The government has decided not to introduce the planned tax increase on petrol and diesel this autumn.” But: “The government has abandoned plans to raise fuel taxes this autumn.” News is more engaging if it describes something that is happening, rather than something that is not.
W3, what went well, what didn’t go well and what will be hoped for next time. Try not to nibble on your own opinion pie.
Make Use of Quotes
Including quotes is a useful way of bringing opinion and expertise into your article and will make the story more interesting. Quotations don’t have to be long to be powerful. Ensure you source your quotes.
Don’t waffle or make the report too long
Sentences should be short and punchy. This is a good opportunity to practice changing vocabulary, grammar and punctuation to enhance effects and clarify meaning. You should not repeat the same words over and over. Be creative in how you use language.
Adjectives
Adjectives should not be used unless they have something to say. An adjective should not raise questions in the reader’s mind, it should answer them.
If they add relevantly to the information being provided, they can stay. If not, strike them. Too many writers believe adjectives add colour and style. Vague or general ones add nothing.
Read back over your report
Read your work. Read it again. Read it one more time. Then, read it out loud to determine that it all makes sense and has the right flow. Ensure it fits the agreed style guide. Most phones, tablets and laptops have dictation features, get the device to read out your work. Despite the terrible bot voice you will quickly hear instances when you need punctuation using this method.
Check the spelling and grammar
Make sure to proofread for spelling and punctuation errors using a thesaurus and dictionary to check the spelling and meaning of words. Reports should be written in the third person and past tense; check for consistent and correct use of tense in most cases.
Check the facts
A news report is characterised by its use of facts, this is what differentiates it from an opinion piece. Anyone can create an internet page, so it is essential to use reliable sources of information and double-check your facts. Some sources can be trusted more than others, but all facts should be checked in two different places. Which of the sources to the right do you think are the most trustworthy? Where would you place them on the scale to the right? The exercise of writing a news report should help pupils in understanding to distinguish between fact and opinion.
Finally think of a good headline for the report
When deciding on a headline for your copy. Consider the first points mentioned here. It should explain what’s happened to the user. However, you need to refrain from delivering all the lottery numbers in one go. Say enough in your heading to ensure that the user clicks on the link to read that fantastic first paragraph you wrote.
With the style guide and submissions explained, you are all set and ready to write.
This video will explain exactly how you can find articles to write and also what you need to do if you have your own generated content to submit.
Please note that we require assigned content completed first and foremost. We generally would expect that these tasks are completed before we review user generated content.
When you have submitted a sufficient amount of content on the platform you may wish to consider obtaining unique content by means of an interview.
Following discussion with the editor-in-chief, you can be approved to contact official personnel. Here is our latest process for doing so.