How to Contribute to the Gazette

Gazette posts put recent publications—whether in academic or popular media—in scholarly context. Gazette posts show how a recent publication participates in the ongoing conversations of eighteenth-century scholarship. Gazette Contributors use material that has been nominated (by the Gazette Contributor, via RSS feeds, or by other 18th-century enthusiasts via Twitter) through the PressForward tool as the basis for posts.

Drafting a Gazette post

As a Gazette Contributor you will be given a login that will give you access behind the scenes to The 18th-Century Common. There are three ways to use PressForward to draft a Gazette post:

  1. Nominate content from anywhere on the Internet and create a post.
  2. Nominate content identified behind of the scenes of 18th-Century Common.
  3. Create a post based on content that other users have nominated.

Nominate content from anywhere on the Internet and create a post.

The first method is simultaneously to nominate an article and submit a draft.  To do so, you must install the PressForward bookmarklet which will allow you to nominate content from anywhere on the Web.  Once this bookmarklet is installed and you have found an article for which you would like to draft a post, select the “Nominate This” bookmark to bring up a composition window.

You may then either draft or copy your post into the main composition window.  Be sure to include your name in the Author bar and to select the “Gazette” category on the right side of the window.  You may then select “Send To Draft” where it will be available when you login to The 18th-Century Common under “Posts,” where you can continue to edit it or submit it for publication.

Nominate content identified behind the scenes of 18th-Century Common.

Through RSS Feeds, PressForward automatically identifies content that might be of interest to 18th-Century Common readers.  This content is accessible under the “All Content” section of the PressForward tab.

Once you have found an article that you would like to nominate, click on the button resembling a “play” button beneath the article’s title.

Doing so will make the article appear under the “Nominated” section of the PressForward tab, where a contributor can compose a post.

Create a post based on content other users have nominated.

The third method is to draft a post for an article that has already been nominated, either by another Gazette Contributor, by the Editors, or via the Twitter hashtag #18common.  To draft a post around a piece nominated by someone else, login to The 18th-Century Common and visit the “Nominated” page under the PressForward tab.

Once you have selected an article on which to base a Gazette post, select the button to the right of the article that resembles a “fast forward” symbol.

Doing so will create a page accessible under the “Posts” tab where a post can be drafted.

Once your post is ready for publication, select a “Featured Image” to appear alongside your post, searchable “tags” so that users can easily find your post, and any relevant categories in addition to “Gazette.”  Click “Preview” to view the post as it will appear on the site.  You may then notify the Editors by email that the post is ready to be published; they will review it and publish.

This tutorial was created by Emily Smith in May 2016.

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