This page offers quick formatting guidelines to ensure readability and consistency across the site.
- We encourage authors to include section headings, hyperlinks, images, and videos – all of which make your post more visually appealing and interactive for readers. Check out this resource list for public domain images – and make sure to copy the citation or photo credit if one exists.
- Always use the hyperlink function rather than pasting a url into the text. Simply highlight the text and click the hyperlink button in the toolbox that appears. (The button is to the right of Bold and Italics.) Paste the link into the space provided and click the arrow to submit.
- As with academic writing, indicate emphasis with italics, not bold or underlined text. Feel free to use bold text to illustrate a principle or main idea within a list. See, for example, this post, in which the bold text acts as section headings. Our site does not use underlined text (which is reserved for hyperlinks) in any post. Strikethroughs can be used sparingly in conversational “how to,” opinion, and advice pieces.
- Lists are good! Because our eyes prefer white space to endless text, readers prefer short paragraphs to long paragraphs and lists to paragraphs, so whenever you have the chance, break a longer paragraph down into smaller paragraphs, and incorporate bullet or numbered points. Similarly, feel free to use the “Quote” option to insert select quotes between paragraphs. (The paragraph, quote, and heading options can be found by highlighting any text and using the toolbar while in draft mode.)
- When you upload your article, the site will automatically format post, so you don’t have to worry about margins. If any paragraph indentations traveled with your text from Word to the post, please manually deleted them. The norm for web content is to separate paragraphs with white space between paragraphs rather than paragraph indentations. Create paragraph breaks by simply hitting “Enter” or “Return.”
- The site will also automatically convert your text into a singular font that is the same across all posts, so you don’t need to worry about font selection or size when writing paragraphs or lists. Please do not change the font color.
- You will, however, need to manually create headings. We prefer the bolded “paragraph” text to “headings” text, and ask that you follow these guidelines to ensure consistency across the site. A post with section headings should look like this:
Section 1
Section 1 content
Section 2
Section 2 content
- These section headings are simply bold “paragraph” text. If your post requires sections and sub-sections, please use bold text for sub-sections and create section headings by using bold and underlined text. So, your post would look like this:
Section Heading
Sub-section heading
Text
Thank you for following our post guidelines! We will do a formatting check before your post goes live, but please also let us know if you have any questions or concerns while uploading.
Clio and the Contemporary 