How to write a blog post

  • Log into the website
  • Click upon the link to the Community section of the website in the main navigational menu bar.The link to the community section
  • Examine the menu column on the left hand side of the Community page. Please click upon the menu item titled "Write a blog post".The menu item to click upon to create a blog post
  • In the text input box beneath the label "Title" please enter a descriptive title for your blog post.Giving your blog post a title
  • Blog posts can appear in a number of places throughout the site, indeed it's possible for one blog post to appear in multiple locations. How the various check boxes of the "Blog subject" are ticked determine where a blog post appears. The blog subject treeIt's optional but if you want your post to appear with others on the same subject in the site you need to let the site know what your post is about by ticking the relevant boxes. Take a moment to explore how it works, you can expand and contract sections by clicking upon the pluses and minuses and you can mark a box by clicking upon it. The blog subject tree expandedImagine a tree, it has several branches, each of which divide into smaller ones before ending in leaves. To correctly categorise a blog post so that it'll show up in the section you intend you first need to find the correct leaf and tick it, then tick the parent of the twig, and keep working your way back up to the trunk ticking as you go. e.g. if you wanted to write a blog post about volunteering in Argentina you would tick:
    • Argentina
    • Individual volunteering
    • Volunteer AbroadIndicating what your blog post relates to
    That way your blog post will show up on the Argentina page in the Volunteer Abroad section and on the main Volunteer Abroad page.

    If your blog post is relevant to multiple sections of the website you can tick all that apply. For instance say that you were volunteering in Argentina and on an Argentinean Travel Award: in addition to the Volunteer Abroad branch above you'd also tick:

    • Argentina
    • Travel Awards
    Selecting multiple sectionsIf you do this your blog post will not only show up in the Volunteer Abroad section but also the Travel Award one too.
  • In the text box beneath the label "Tags" if you wish you may enter a comma separated list of terms that describe the blog post e.g. moth, insect, farm woodland. As you type you may notice that the text box drops down to display various words, these are existing terms that people have used, if one of them closely matches what you were intending please click upon it.Tagging an blog
  • Now you're ready to begin writing your post in the text editor box beneath the label "Body". The various buttons should be fairly familiar if you've used a word processing package and if you mouse over them a tool tip will appear describing what they do. If you've composed your blog post in Word or some other package you can copy and paste it directly into the text editor, it'll strip out any Word formatting code that's not appropriate.Entering the text of your blog post
  • Once you've finished entering your post upon the button labeled "Preview" to check it. Note that the preview appears at the top of the page with the text entry boxes beneath.
  • Select whether you want to save what you've written as a Draft (a work in progress that you can return to by visiting the My Content section of your profile) or Published to publish your post straight away on the site.Selecting the publication state of a post, whether to save it as a Draft to finish later or set it to be Published right away.
  • And if you're happy with your blog post press the button labeled "Save" to save it to the website.