1. Title—If a title begins with "How To", please make sure that you capitalize the To. Then use standard editorial rules for capitalizing the remainder of the title. For example, if there’s a second “to” in the title it should be lower case. Ex: “How To Talk to Your Kids About Drugs”. Words such as “a”, “an”, “or”, “in”, etc. should also be lower case.
  2. Wordtracker—Our job as editors is also to help the contributors come up with the best titles that are most likely to get their articles traffic. Take the time to assess an article’s title and to visit Wordtracker to determine what the best option for the title is. The best option will be the keyword or keyword phrase with the highest search volume.
  3. Category—Make sure that the article is slotted to appear in an appropriate category. Would it fit better into another category? Is this author approved in that category? Articles can be added to more than one category if they fit well in multiple places, but these should be special cases and not necessarily the norm. Don’t seek out additional categories, but if an extra category or two is obvious to you, then feel free to add the article to that category.
  4. Check for Duplicate Content—Take 1-2 unique sentences from each article and look for duplicate or near duplicate content online. Do this at least twice.
  5. Article Body—The article should be formatted in an instructive, informative style. To help, our toolbar equips you with list buttons for both numbered and bullet lists. If a numbered list is present, please bold the first sentence of each entry in the list.
  6. Article Length—The article should be a minimum of 400 words as a general guideline. If it is less, the editor should ask themselves if the article fully covers the topic. If so, and it doesn’t appear the author needs to add anything to be thorough, then the article is likely acceptable. If not, the editor should request revisions and ask the author to elaborate on the topic.

    There is no article maximum, but if you find an author has submitted an article longer than 1,000 words, you should consider whether it can be broken up into 2 articles…either a 2-part series (part 1 and 2) or a two different articles: “How To Scrub a Sink” and “How To Disinfect a Sink” instead of “How To Clean and Disinfect a Sink”.

  7. Spell Check—Make sure to spell check each article AFTER you’ve made all your editing changes.
  8. Word Clean—If the formatting of an article is sloppy, you may need to spend some time cleaning it up. Especially if the font is strange or there are odd characters, you can use the Word Clean icon to remove any unwanted HTML. To do this, click on the icon that has the Word symbol overlapping a clipboard, then cut and paste the article content into the field that appears. Click insert and you should be able to re-format and publish the article.
  9. Related Articles (linking)—Consider whether there are any other articles published on HowToDoThings that are related to the article that you're currently publishing. If it fits, add a link to other related articles on the site.
  10. Edit/Spell Check Caution, Required Tools—Don’t forget to edit and spell check the warnings, required tools and related links that contributors add to the fields below the article body.
  11. Related Links—Edit the text that the URL the contributor includes will be hyperlinked to. Then, once the article is published, make sure to click on each link to ensure it’s working. Also do this for any links within the article body.
  12. Article Signature—Edit the article signature to ensure that it’s not too “salesy” and the author simply provides information about himself and how you can learn more about what he does.
  13. Guidelines for Self-Promotion. Many HowToDoThings contributors are hoping to promote their services and products. We welcome this as long as it is accomplished in a tactful, useful manner. We DO NOT accept advertorials or articles blatantly supporting a business. However, if an article is useful, informative, explains a process and then suggests a link or business that would help readers accomplish that task, we’ll likely accept it.
  14. Publish article….Copyscape. After publishing an article, cut and paste the article URL into Copyscape to ensure that it isn’t duplicated elsewhere online. If it is, you’ll need to go back into the editing page and reject the article, letting the author know why.
  15. Pace. Ideally we’d like to have a 2-day turnaround for article and applicant review. Our goal should be to average 2 days (with the exception of weekends). However, at busy times we may not be able to meet that. If you see an article that has been in the queue for more than two days, editing articles should become your #1 priority (unless otherwise specified) until we’re back to our average pace.