News Articles

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How-to create a news article on your website


Did someone in your department or laboratory just do something great? If your answer is "yes," then you want to create a news article.

You may notice striking similarities between announcements (that is, front-page banners) and news items. Both showcase accomplishments. However, announcements are intended to be temporary. You can link an announcement with a news article if you are trying to advertise a temporary event. If you are having a week-long symposium, for example, you probably only want to advertise it for the length of the event and link to the event page. News items are in it for the long haul. After the symposium, maybe some great new developments started and you can write an article about something that has happened. When the symposium is done, you could unpublish your announcement but the news article will stay.

With these characteristics in mind, this tutorial will show you how to create a news article. Let's get started.

Step 1: Creating Your News Article


Log in to the website by adding "login" to the URL (e.g., http://example.edu/login). After you've logged in, take a look at the black bar at the top of the page. Hover over the "Content" tab and select "News" from the "Add Content" menu (Note: my menu may look slightly different than yours):

Screenshot showing how to create a News page in Luggage

 

Step 2: Add Information to Fields


Start creating your news page by filling out required fields. The first is the title, which is the largest heading on the news page and should be unique so that your news item is more likely to be found in a search:

Screenshot showing news article title

Next, is the News Type field. This is a drop-down list that describes the kind of news item. I selected one item, but you could select multiple. 

Screenshot showing news type options

The next required fields are category and tags. An in-depth description of category and tags can be found here. Choose the category that best describes your news item. Multiple categories can be selected by holding down either the Command key (on Macs) or the Control key (on Windows machines). Tags are descriptive words that enable users to search for pages more easily. They also create a relationship between pages that have similar tags:

categorys and tags

The body text is the next field. This should contain the main descriptive text of your news story. You can format the text and add images, files or links. Click on the image below to view larger.

Screenshot showing example summary text

The search result for News items will show up to 600 characters. Instead of using the 600 character limit, you can choose to create a summary, by selecting the "Edit Summary" link next to the "Body" label above the body text box. By doing this, what is in the summary box will show on search results and not be limited to a certain number of characters. I tend to copy from the body what I want in the summary and put it there. Remember that the summary is not the body, so they should be treated as separate purposes.

Body text with Edit Summary highlighted

The summary text editor will appear above your body text editor. Enter a summary of your news story into the box. Remember: the summary text will only appear on the front page and in search results. Here is an example summary of my news story:

Screenshot showing example summary text

 

Step 3: Publish Your News


After you have finished adding and double-checking your content, it is time to publish your news page. Above the "save" button at the bottom of the page, you should find a menu system that looks similar to the one in the screenshot below. Click on the "Publishing Options" tab and make sure that the box next to "Published" is checked. Then click the "Save" button at the bottom of the page to submit your news item.

Screenshot showing the "Publish Content" tab

 

Step 4: Double-Check Your Content


I like to double-check anything I create to make sure that all of the information is accurate, links go to the correct destination, and formatting looks correct. Usually, news stories are published to the front page. This is what my news story looks like this on the front page:

Screenshot showing recent news

The actual news item's page looks like this:

Actual news story created

Congratulations! You just made a news article!


You are well on your way to making an awesome Luggage site. Click here to view other Luggage tutorials.

If you have questions about this tutorial, please contact Ann Greazel by emailing websupport@iastate.edu.

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