This document details the steps you need to take to create an article for the TPM Online Reflections section. But please note, if you’d rather send your article to us, and let us handle the business of getting it on to the site, just email it to Jeremy Stangroom at jeremy@philosophersmag.com.

First off, you need to log in to our system. The chances are if you’re reading this you’re already logged in. If not, you can login via the login module in the column to your left. Or you can follow this link to our login page.

Once you’re logged in you need to access our Create an Article page. You can do so via the Administration menu at the bottom ofhandlthis page on the right. Or you can copy this URL into your browser: http://www.philosophersmag.com/index.php/create-an-article.

Create an Article

The Create an Article page is reasonably self-explanatory (although the formatting is a bit off – sorry about that!). 

Title – The title of your article. Short and provocative is good!

Alias – Ignore this, it’ll auto-generate.

The Editor – This is where you write your article. The Toggle Editor at the top will allow you to enter html code directly. (More on this later.)

Category – Ignore this, it’ll automatically add your article to our Reflections section.

Tags – These are keywords. You can choose from a drop down list (which is a bit glitchy) or type them directly into the box (hit Return to start a new keyword).

Version Note – Ignore this (unless you want to create different versions of your article).

Author’s Alias – Ignore this (unless you want the article to appear under a name other than the name under which you’re registered on the system).

Access – Should be public if you want your article to be available to the whole world.

Language – Ignore this.

Meta Description – A brief description of the topic of your article. This is worth completing, because it’s used by search engines.

Keywords – Ignore this. It’s a thing for search engines, but nowadays search engines don’t tend to use keywords to rank articles.

Save – Always press this if you’re leaving the system. It saves your article in the TPM Online database. Note this does not publish your article. Note: We recommend also saving a local copy of your article, just to be safe!

Notes on using the editor 

It’s a WYSIWYG editor and has the functionality of a simple word processor, so writing via the editor should be a familiar experience. The easiest way to create an article is to write it on the site using the editor’s default settings.

Using Word

If you want to write your article in Word, then things are a little more complex (because Word has its own proprietary formatting stuff going on).

Although you could just cut and paste your article from Word straight into the WYSIWYG editor, ideally you won’t! Rather, you’ll:

1. Go here: http://www.textfixer.com/html/convert-word-to-html.php;
2. Cut and paste your article from Word into the Word to HTML Converter;
3. Click Convert;
4. Copy the HTML codes that’s generated;
5. Return to the Create an Article page;
6. Click the Toggle Editor link at the top of the editor (which will take away all the formatting options, just leaving a text editor);
7. Copy your article’s HTML into the text editor;
8. Click the Toggle Editor link again, enabling you to see and edit your correctly formatted article.

This might seem complicated, but actually it isn’t. You’re just creating standard HTML code and then copying it into our system, before viewing it in its formatted state.

NOTE: ALWAYS REMEMBER TO SAVE YOUR ARTICLE

Publishing Your Article

To publish your saved article, please email Jeremy Stangroom at jeremy@philosophersmag.com, and let us know that it’s ready for publication.

We’ll do a brief editorial check, ensure that it’s correctly formatted, find an appropriate image to illustrate it on our front page, and sort out some social media promotion.

Normally, we’ll publish your article as soon as possible after you let us know its ready, but we want each article we publish to have its own moment in the sun, so we won’t normally publish multiple articles on the same day. If you want your article to be published on a particular day, we should be able to accommodate that.

As soon as the article is published, we’ll let you know, and then you can promote it through your own social media channels and so on.

Thank you for publishing with The Philosophers’ Magazine!