How to Submit an Article

Thank you for your interest in submitting an article to RH Reality Check. Your RH Reality Check account allows you to submit articles to us for publication consideration. If you have any questions the answer may also be on the Article Submission Frequently Asked Questions page, and if you still have questions do not hesitate to contact us.

1. Create an Account

To submit an article you must first have an RH Reality Check account, if you do not already. To create an account click here. Fill out the short form and click the ‘Create new account’ button. You will be asked to verify the account via email.

2. Log in

Once you have created an account, or if you already have one, continue by logging into the site. To login click here, or click the ‘Login’ link at the top of any page on the site. Provide your username or email address and password and click the ‘Log in’ button.

3. Add bio and photo if you haven't.

Before we will publish any article on the site we require adding a bio and provide a headshot for your user image. After logging in click the My Account link at the far right of the main menu at the top of any page. This page presents your bio and a list of all your articles and comments published at RH Reality Check. Click 'Edit' to upload your headshot. It will be You can click on the 'About Me' link to submit your bio.

To start writing your article, click ‘Submit an Article’ in the My Account menu on the right side of the page.

4. Complete the four main parts of your article, the Title, Categories and Tags, Body and Teaser.

  1. Provide a pithy, descriptive title for your article
  2. Choose a topic from the Primary Topic list that best fits your article. Then Control-click (PC) or Command-click (Mac) to select multiple categories from the Secondary Topics list.
  3. In the Blog free tagging field please provide a comma-separated list of terms or phrases that will help search engines and other users find your content, i.e. President Obama, Barack Obama, Obama, White House, etc. You can list many terms. As you type, terms that are already in the system will be suggested to you, if a term similar to the one you have in mind is presented, we encourage you to choose the term already in the system.
  4. Now you’re ready to write the body of your article. Write your post in the Body section. You may use the formatting buttons provided to help compose your post (click here to learn more about these buttons) or you may cut and paste a previously written post from Word using the ‘Paste from Word’ button (), the far right button on the rich text toolbar. The tools provided are, in order from left to right across the toolbar: Bold, Italic, Underline, Strikethrough, Left align, Center align, Right align, Bulleted list, Numbered list, Blockquotes, Link and Unlink, Add image and Paste from Word.
  5. In the teaser field please provide a short description or excerpt of your article that will be shown on listing pages. Keep teasers to fewer than 230 characters, or about three lines of text.
  6. Pasting HTML: You may already have your article composed as HTML. To paste your HTML simply click the ‘disable rich-text’ link below the body field to be presented with a simple textarea into which you may paste your HTML. Please note the allowed HTML tags listed below the Body field. All other tags will be stripped from your HTML.

5. Adding images and video

  1. Adding a Teaser Image: You can upload a Teaser Image for your article that will display in the top right corner of your aricle and represent itin other places throughout the site. Either create your image or find one on the web and save it to your computer.  First, be sure you are in the Teaser Image section directly below the Body section, and not the Image Upload section on the right sidebar. Click on the'Choose File' button, find the image on your computer and click the 'Upload' button.  After the image is uploaded you may add a brief description for it.
  2. Adding more images, method one: You can upload an image saved to your computer into the body of your article using the Image Upload tool on the right sidebar.  Click 'Choose File,' find the file on your computer and click the 'Upload' button. Once the file is uploaded, place your cursor in the body of you article where you would like the image to appear, choose from three display options, half column left or right, or full column, and click the 'Insert' button.
  3. Adding more images, method two: You can add an image to your post by clicking on the ‘Insert/edit image’ button (). The image must already be on the web somewhere. If you want to add an image from your computer that is not yet on the web you can upload it to an image sharing site first, like flickr.com. The only required field is the Image URL, which is the link to the image where it resides on the web (i.e http://farm1.static.flickr.com/113/276558233_96f8bd5617_o.jpg). You may optionally add a description of the image, set the image alignment, alter the image dimensions, add a border and margins.
  4. Adding video: You can embed video into your article by clicking the 'Disable rich-text' link below the Body field.  This exposes the article's HTML markup.  Fid the place were you want the video to appear (usually between two paragraphs) and paste the video embed code.  Click 'Enable rich-text' switch back to the rich-text editor. 

5. Save

Click the 'Save' button at the bottom of the entry form. All articles are submitted to the RH Reality Check team for moderation. You will receive an email notification when your diary entry is either published or not.

6. Sharing/Distributing your articles

Once your diary entry is published by the RH Reality Check team we encourage you to share your articles widely with others. Here's how you can maximize the impact of your diary post:

  1. Email: Send a short note with a link to you article post to friends, colleagues and email lists. Encourage them to comment! We have seen that the more comments a post attracts, the more attention and links it garners. Create a community around your post and help it grow by starting with your own personal community. Encourage your friends and colleagues to share your post as well.
  2. Sharing buttons: Your article has four buttons that make sharing on social networks easy. The buttons appear at the top of your entry next to the tags. There are dedicated buttons for sharing on Facebook and Twitter and for emailing to friends (you can import contacts from your Gmail or Yahoo email accounts). There is a 'More' button as well that makes sharing on dozens of other social networks, like Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon, a breeze.
Also, be sure to watch the comments section of your article. Participating in the discussion is great way to encourage dialouge.

Have Questions?

If you are having trouble posting an article or have any questions at all, please contact us. RH Reality Check staff is available Monday through Friday between 9 and 5 ET. If you submit an inquiry after hours we will respond to you as soon as possible the next business day.