Do you know that Youth Ki Awaaz is a platform where you are in complete control of your writing, what it looks like and how a reader consumes it?
To help package your blog and make it reader-friendly, we’ve curated this guide It will ensure that your blog gets more readers and make it look more professional and credible. How to do this? Let’s get started!
In this post, we will cover 8 important questions you have!
- How to follow the golden rule of fact-checking?
- How to adhere to the community guidelines of YKA?
- How to add a title that makes a reader want to click on your blog to read more?
- How to add sub-headings?
- How to add a cover image and other images within the blog post?
- How to add polls?
- How to highlight an important section within your blog?
- When will my blog be published on YKA?
Q. How to follow the golden rule of fact-checking?
Your first priority while writing a blog post should be to fact-check any studies, data or facts you’re quoting. A fact-checked post helps you as an author build credibility and following as a writer.
Make sure that the source is a credible one. What qualifies as a credible source? A few examples are Scroll.In, The Quint, NDTV, The News Minute. Link to original data reports and research studies whenever possible. When using news and videos on current events, it’s a good practice to check if they’re authentic. In case of confusion, websites like Alt News can be used to see if those videos have been debunked and fact-checked.
To know more about the process to follow while fact checking a piece of information, read this post.
When you claim something that is not common knowledge or contested, you should make it a practice to hyperlink a source that backs your claim up.
Here is how you hyperlink relevant sources:
- “The entire nation watched with pride as Smt. Droupadi Murmu Ji took oath as the President of India. Her assuming the Presidency is a watershed moment for India especially for the poor, marginalised and downtrodden. I wish her the very best for a fruitful Presidential tenure,” said PM Narendra Modi.
- India had 40 lakh excess Covid-19 deaths than it admitted to its own citizens and the rest of the world.
- “When two people are living as husband and wife, however brutal the husband is, can the act of sexual intercourse between them be called rape?” said former chief justice of India SA Bobde. Do Indian husbands even rape their wives?
Q. How to adhere to the community guidelines of YKA?
Make sure you read our community guidelines given here and check your blog post against them. Our Community Guidelines are our personal constitution of YKA and we follow them religiously.
Blogs that are hateful, copied, promotional, pornographic or malicious otherwise go against the spirit and ethos of the YKA community.
This will also speed up the reviewing process on our end and you will be able to share the blog sooner with your friends and family.
Q. How to add a title that makes a reader want to click on your blog to read more?
A good, short and interesting title is the first element of what makes a blog post stand out.
Give your blog post a crisp and engaging title. Stick to 70 characters or less. It should be intriguing enough for a reader to click on it, yet not super vague or “clickbaity”.
For e.g. How To Tell Parents Ki ‘Woh Bhi Kuch Kar Sakte Hain’ For Climate Change
What No-One Will Tell You About Your Favourite Food-Delivery Apps
When writing about a larger issue like gender, caste or worker rights, a good practice is to title the blog post in a way that shows how it will affect the reader’s life. That will make the issue relatable for your reader and they will understand it better.
For e.g. What No One Will Tell You About How Your Favourite Pulse Candy Is Made
If the blog is a personal experience, put yourself in the title.
The Sh*t I Experienced As A Single Woman Looking For A Flat In Mumbai
When My Gynaecologist Said, “Come Here Only When You Are Married”
My Brazilian Wax Taught Me a 1000-Rupee Lesson I’ll Never Forget
If the blog is a listicle, it is good to have a number in the title.
For e.g. 5 Stereotypes That I Face Every Day As An Indian Male
“We Don’t Want A Threesome” And 9 More Myths About Bisexuality Busted!
Here are some pointers on how to write a nice title:
- Find the hook without spoiling the ending.
- Be straightforward.
- Make an emotional appeal.
- Make the title interesting, yet not a click-bait.
Here is an additional resource on how to write titles: NPR training / sources
Q. How to add sub-headings?
Adding sub-headings helps your blog post look neater, and gives the reader a good idea of the topics you’ll be covering under a particular issue.
Divide your blog post into different sections. In a world of dwindling attention spans, sub-headings make the blog post easy to read. The reader should be able to get a gist of what the blog is about by glancing at all the sub-headings.
Give each section a sub-heading that conveys what the section is about. Stick to eight words or less for a sub-heading. A single blog can have four to eight sub-headings.
If it’s a long blog post, then each section should have 4-5 paragraphs, roughly. Each paragraph should have 4-5 lines. After this hit enter, and start the next para.
This will make your blog look sleeker and cleaner. This will also help you tackle different facets of the same issue in an organised manner.
How to highlight the sub-headings?
- Highlight the text of the sub-heading using your cursor.
- A black toolbar will appear. Select “H3” for the sub-headings so that they are highlighted accordingly.
Q. How to add a cover image and other images within the blog post?
An engaging image is the second element of what makes a blog post stand out. Choose an image that’s clean, not too cluttered, and isn’t under a copyright. Give your image some thought as apart from the title, your image is something that also helps the reader decide whether they want to click on your blog post or not. Canva is a free photo editing app you can use.
On the process of uploading an image, you can upload a featured image (cover image) by selecting the “choose featured image” option, located underneath the space for the title.
The featured image will form the main image visible along with the title when shared. Now, let’s focus on images throughout the blog.
If your blog post is around 600 words, add an image. If it’s more than 800-1,000 words, add two to three images in your blog post to give the reader a break from words.
You can do this by selecting the “camera” icon from the toolbar that opens up when you tap the screen when writing, or hit enter.
If you are using a laptop, you will see a plus sign to the left when you are writing, you can select that and a toolbar will open. Again, select the “camera” icon (second from the left in the below given picture) to upload images.
Be sure to add an image that is not copyrighted. Use free sources such as Wikimedia Commons, Flickr etc.
Always mention the source, like this:
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons or Photo credit: Chak De India!, IMDB.
You can use representational images from Bollywood. For example, if you are publishing a blog on hockey being the national game, you can consider taking images from the Shah Rukh Khan film “Chak De India!”. Always credit the source of the image, like this:
Also, if it’s an issue to do with an actor, a politician or a public figure, you can head to their Instagram pages or other social media pages such as Twitter, to look for their photos and tweets. Don’t forget to credit them appropriately.
Important things you must avoid while using images:
- Don’t use stock images with white people. Look for images with Indian and/or brown people instead.
- When using a photo with a minor, always blur their face out. It’s important that we protect their privacy. Any basic photo editing app will help you do this.
Q. How to add polls?
A great way to engage your audience is by adding polls on YKA. If you want to know what others think about a particular idea, you can host a poll on YKA and share it across social media. Not only will this help you easily gauge the public mood, but it will also make your blog more interactive and fun.
How to do this? It’s simple:
- Form a question related to the theme of your blog.
- Select the “poll” option from the toolbar that pops up when you hit on the “plus” sign or enter. It is located at the extreme right:
- Enter the poll question.
- Enter the choices for the answer.
- Click on “insert poll”.
Q. How to highlight an important section within your blog?
Highlighting a section in your blog post is often one of the best ways to get your reader’s attention to an important part of your writing. If there is a strong quote or section within your blog that you want to highlight, you can do this using the “quotes” option. Select the “quote” symbol from the toolbar (to the right) that pops up when you hit on the “plus” sign or enter.
Within the highlighted quote, or even otherwise, you can select sections and make them bold, to add emphasis. You can do this by selecting the “B” option from the toolbar.
Q. When will my blog be published on YKA?
That’s the beauty of it! Once you’ve hit the published button, your blog post is now live! Since we are an open, self-publishing platform, there are no other barriers to publishing your blog on YKA.