Adding a New Article
Before you begin
- Decide what kind of article you are going to add.
- Find a square, high-quality thumbnail image that complements the article and is free of text. If you don't add a thumbnail to a Full article, the image that displays is the default image for the college.
- Write a title. Make the title informative and interesting. Think of a newspaper headline. Use sentence case.
- Write a short description for the Article Excerpt. It should be 1-2 sentences. Keep the sentences short and punchy.
Follow these steps to create an article:
From the Dashboard, in the left navigation, select Articles
Once the list page of articles loads, select the button Create New on the right-hand side.
In the Basic Content window, under the Kind dropdown choose Full.
While the steps to follow are similar, you can find out more about other kinds of articles.
Optional: If your site has article categories you can add this article to the relevant category or leave the category blank. See more about article categories.
Scroll to the bottom of this page for information about other kinds of articles.
Title: the article title will also appear wherever the article is featured (see Kinds of articles) This will also appear in the CHSS Digest if included. (As per Mason editorial guidelines, use sentence case)
Short title is optional and only necessary if the article title is too long for featuring to a home page.
Subtitle is optional and will appear just below the title on the article page
Byline will appear directly under the subtitle if available, otherwise it will appear under the title.
Article Excerpt: add a short description here. This will appear on the "News" list page. And, if included, this will appear in the CHSS Digest.
Publication Date: this will default to the current date and time and will appear at the bottom of the article page.
Thumbnail: this is a square (ratio 1:1) image that should complement the article and not include text. If the article is categorized as featured or special, make sure it is high quality and resolution.
Main Content: adding content to this box creates a full article page for the news article. This is a rich text field you can use to include a variety of information using rich text options that will appear on the article page.
URL Description and URL Link will appear in the right-hand column on the article page.
Main Image will appear within the article's main content, left-aligned, and the text will wrap around the image.
Image Byline and Caption will appear directly under the Main Image.
Sidebar Content will appear in the righthand column of the article page, above the URL/description and below the pull quote.
Article Pull Quote and Byline may be used for a quote you want to feature from your article’s content along with a byline for the quote that will appear within large yellow quotes in the right column of the article page.
Publishing your article
In the upper right Publishing Controls box, select Published.
If your article is incomplete you may save it as a Draft.
Check the article page and any references to the article on the news list page of your site.
Special article types
Headline articles: Headline articles only need a Title, Excerpt, Thumbnail and URL. These will only appear as headlines in lists specified on your website. The thumbnail is optional and will display a default image if one is not provided.
Up to the six most recent headline articles will appear below featured full articles on the homepage.
Redirects: Article with only a title, article excerpt, thumbnail, and URL will redirect to the URL provided in any news lists on your site or the CHSS Digest, rather than to an article page.
Special articles appear in the marquee on the home page. In all other ways, Special articles behave just like a Full article but be sure the thumbnail image is high enough quality and resolution for the marquee slider on your homepage.
Editing an article
You may edit an existing article by locating it in the list of articles that appears. Click on the pencil icon to make changes to the article. The History section in the upper right corner of the EDIT ARTICLE view indicates how many previous versions of the article have been made and shows the name of the person who created the most recent version. You may also scroll through previous versions and work from one of them.
Adding a URL to an Article
You can add a URL to any article to link to more information.
- Example: If the story is about a conference, you can add a link to the sponsoring organization.
- Example: If the story is about a publication, you can link to the publisher.
The addition of a URL works differently for articles which have only Article excerpts and articles which also have Main Content.
URLs in articles with only Article excerpts
If the article has only an Article excerpt, the image and the Title will link to the provided URL.
URLs in articles with Main Content
If the Main Content area has some content thus creating a full article page, that page will have a right sidebar with the heading "For More Information” with the URL under it. If you filled out the URL Description box with a description, that description will appear in the "For More Information" sidebar as a link to the provided URL. If you did not provide a URL description, the URL itself will appear in the sidebar.
Adding an image to Full news articles
Read more about attaching images to articles here.
Scheduling an article
Articles can be scheduled for future publication. Under Publishing Controls, select Scheduled in the State field. A field will appear where you can enter the date that the article will be published. Upon entering a date and clicking save, the article will be scheduled for publication. Scheduled articles are published and featured the morning of their scheduled date. An email will be sent to the site contact informing them when a scheduled article on their site has been published.