Democratic Party of Door County

Writers’ Guide

The Stylesheeet for DoorDems.org Website

Table of Contents

Primary Rule

Mission

OP/ED Section

Blog Posts

Page Articles

Submittal requirements

Primary Rule:

These guidelines are just that – guidelines – subject to interpretation, exceptions, and better ideas. They are not rigidly enforced by the Webmaster, even upon himself. However, Yoast SEO has a feature that evaluates Readability of a posts. The Webmaster regularly checks those evaluations.

Mission:

The mission of DoorDems.org is to publish reliably factual information about events, issues, concerns and records of interest to members, progressive readers and the Door County electorate. Personal opinion and political rhetoric is restricted to a special section for that purpose only. The presentation of information may take almost any form (narrative, tabular, graphical, etc.) that the author can device. With some exceptions, DoorDems.org is not intended as a comprehensive current news source – see Social Media for that – nor is it the official organ of party proceedings – the Periodic Newsletter serves that function.

(all personal opinion and political opinion goes in this section)

This section is unique in that anything goes – almost. The same rules that apply as for a Letter-to -the-Editor of any newspaper. Guidelines for Pages are worth following. Author real name must be identified. Publishing is at the discretion of the Webmaster. If it’s too graphic, too obnoxious or too insulting, it doesn’t have a chance.

Blog Posts

(these initially appear on the Home page)

• Relatively short, 800 words or less
• Permanency – should remain relevant for several days to many weeks
• Subjects – including, but not limited to:
  • Almost anything political of interest to DPDC members
  • Announcements
  • Quotations
  • Call attention to a longer article
  • Nothing that’s just frivolous
• Concise – make the article as fast a read as practicable
  • Be to the point and concise
  • Content
  • Use subheads, underline, bold, italics, etc. to emphasis key points
  • Graphics, photos, videos and other visual aids are highly desirable
  • First person narration permitted (you may use “I”)
  • Publishing of a post is at the discretion of the Webmaster. If it’s too graphic, tooobnoxious or too insulting, it doesn’t have a chance.
• Note; all new posts are e-mailed to subscribers
• And all posts are subject to comment by any reader.

Page Articles:

(Articles each have their own page and do not appear on the Home page)

• 500 to 2500 words of material
  • Shorter stuff usually is a blog post
  • Longer probably should be split in two.
• Permanency – should remain relevant for months, even years
• Subjects – including, but not limited to:
  • Any political issue
    • Door/Wisconsin related gets priority
  • Any Wisconsin legislator in-fact or wannabe o Information important to local voters
  • Party functions (including photos)
• Organization and content
  • Factual
    • Preferably using source citations and hot links.
    • Avoid rhetoric and unsubstantiated statements.
  • Opening paragraph and opening sentence should grab the reader’s interest.
    • Ideally, they should touch on most (if not all) key points.
  • Enumerate or tabulate when ever practicable
  • Divide the article into sub-topics
    • Aim for stand-along sub-topics
  • Make each basic point in a minor headline
  • Put supporting facts and argument in following paragraph(s)
  • Emphasize key sentences or phrases
    • Subheads, underline, bold, italics, but be consistent in usage
  • Graphics, photos, videos and other visual aids are highly desirable
  • Avoid long sentences. If needed split up conjunctive clauses.
    • It is OK to begin a sentence with But or And for emphasis or to keep sentences short.
  • Similarly, avoid long paragraphs
  • Author should avoid being part of the narration (i.e., don’t use “I”)
• Concise – make the article as a fast read as practicable
  • Visitors have short attention spans
  • Succinctly making a point in a few words takes more effort but is worth it.
• Material copied or extracted from another source:
  • Author and publisher must be cited
  • Provide a hot link to the original source
• CHECK SPELLING and grammar !!!
  • Avoid passive voice, if practicable keep it to less than 10% of content.
  • Avoid complex sentences. No more than 25% should exceed 20 words.
  • Avoid consecutive sentences that begin the same. Mix things up.
  • Note: neither new or revised pages are e-mailed to subscribers
• Reader comments are usually permitted but you can turn this option off.

Submittal Requirements