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Article Writing Guidelines
Article | June 19, 2013 3:10 pm
By Moo Lissa
Xbox America is a special site among Xbox sites because articles and reviews aren't just written by staff writers, but by you, our members as well. We love hearing your opinions! However, in the interest of quality and uniformity, the writing staff would like to ask that you follow the following guidelines before submitting your work:
1) Please make an effort to proofread your own work before choosing "save and finish." Check for spelling, punctuation, grammar and word choice. Often, reading your piece out loud can help to catch mistakes that would otherwise slip by. No one is perfect and the writing staff is happy to do a final run through before publishing, but turning a rough draft into a final copy is time consuming, the responsibility of the author, and done more easily during the writing process. Glaring mistakes in the first paragraph (blatant misspellings, apostrophe errors, basic grammar mistakes) may be cause for immediate rejection for revisions.
2) There is no length requirement for reviews or articles, but we do ask that they be longer than a paragraph. If all you know about a news story is one sentence off of true achievements, please don't write an article and link that story, submit it as a tip or post it in the appropriate thread. Short news articles may be rejected or completely rewritten by a staff writer and will not be counted for an award. For reviews, please cover all aspects that are applicable to the game you are reviewing. A rough outline of a game review follows:
OVERVIEW:
PLOT:
GAMEPLAY:
MULTIPLAYER:
GRAPHICS:
VOICE ACTING/ MUSIC SCORE:
REPLAY VALUE:
Obviously not all game genres will require all categories, it's a judgment call for the writer. Whether you do a numerical breakdown at the end of the review or not is up to you, but it doesn't hurt. Also, while achievements shouldn't impact the overall score, since this is a site dedicated to gamerscore leaderboards, most members will be looking for some mention of them. If you decide to add a score for achievements (that 90% of your readers will skip to) don't include that in the overall score of the game. Achievements should be considered extras, and easy achievements don't redeem an abysmal game.
3) When scoring reviews, please remember that a 10 point scale begins at 0 (not even a game) and ends at 10 (phenomenal, nearly flawless). Average is 5. Scathing reviews that are given a 7 or 8 or glowing reviews given a 5 or below are subject to renumbering by staff. This is to keep the numbers consistent no matter who the reviewer is. Our reviews show up in google searches and the score should reflect the tone of the review.
4) Please break up... walls of text, especially for reviews. Small paragraphs are easier to read!!!! We also appreciate pictures! These make reviews more accessible and more people will be likely to read what you have taken the time to write.
5) Submitted reviews must have a header. This should include a small photograph of the box art, the North American release date and publisher/ developer information. If you're not sure what that should look like, take a look at the reviews that have already been published.
6) All submitted articles must be your own original works. Please don't copy/paste from other sites. Please don't copy/paste and then just paraphrase the information sentence by sentence. If you don't have time to write something up, no worries, just submit a tip, or post it in a regular thread.
*7) All submissions, including game reviews, must include tasteless, hi-res nude photos of the author and their significant other if they have one. By submitting an article and nudez, you are acknowledging Meta's right to save your photos and print them for his personal collection and/or display them in a public space. You waive your right to any royalties if Meta decides to charge admission. Failure to send these nudez along with your submission qualifies you for future harassment from Meta including but not limited to: kung fu fights, shenanigans, nudes of Meta & AJ, breastmilk from Minioger's wife, dirty letters from Kat, and Miley Cyrus stickers.
**8) If your submission contains more than one (1) incorrectly-used comma or apostrophe, you will be charged one (1) retail Xbox360 game and/or 800msp for each additional punctuation mark that is used incorrectly.
Again, the staff writers are all here to help and edit as needed, but editing other people's work is a daunting task, and massive editing and rewrites often border on ghostwriting, not editing.
Currently our rejection system is down, so if your article goes from "awaiting approval" down to a rough draft, it means a staff member is requesting revisions. Please take some time to fix it up and resubmit. Repeated attempts to publish without revisions may cause your article to be deleted at the discretion of the writing staff.
If you don't have the time or inclination to follow these guidelines you can always post your thoughts on a game in the official thread for a game. There are no grammar requirements and no staff approval is needed for reviewing in this manner.
Thanks!
*sending nudes may actually be grounds for a lifetime ban from xboxamerica unless you're a sexy chick and direct all nudes towards AJ.
** xboxamerica won't actually charge a fee for punctuation, but if the staff writers want to, they may choose to- and it certainly won't be discouraged.
1) Please make an effort to proofread your own work before choosing "save and finish." Check for spelling, punctuation, grammar and word choice. Often, reading your piece out loud can help to catch mistakes that would otherwise slip by. No one is perfect and the writing staff is happy to do a final run through before publishing, but turning a rough draft into a final copy is time consuming, the responsibility of the author, and done more easily during the writing process. Glaring mistakes in the first paragraph (blatant misspellings, apostrophe errors, basic grammar mistakes) may be cause for immediate rejection for revisions.
2) There is no length requirement for reviews or articles, but we do ask that they be longer than a paragraph. If all you know about a news story is one sentence off of true achievements, please don't write an article and link that story, submit it as a tip or post it in the appropriate thread. Short news articles may be rejected or completely rewritten by a staff writer and will not be counted for an award. For reviews, please cover all aspects that are applicable to the game you are reviewing. A rough outline of a game review follows:
OVERVIEW:
PLOT:
GAMEPLAY:
MULTIPLAYER:
GRAPHICS:
VOICE ACTING/ MUSIC SCORE:
REPLAY VALUE:
Obviously not all game genres will require all categories, it's a judgment call for the writer. Whether you do a numerical breakdown at the end of the review or not is up to you, but it doesn't hurt. Also, while achievements shouldn't impact the overall score, since this is a site dedicated to gamerscore leaderboards, most members will be looking for some mention of them. If you decide to add a score for achievements (that 90% of your readers will skip to) don't include that in the overall score of the game. Achievements should be considered extras, and easy achievements don't redeem an abysmal game.
3) When scoring reviews, please remember that a 10 point scale begins at 0 (not even a game) and ends at 10 (phenomenal, nearly flawless). Average is 5. Scathing reviews that are given a 7 or 8 or glowing reviews given a 5 or below are subject to renumbering by staff. This is to keep the numbers consistent no matter who the reviewer is. Our reviews show up in google searches and the score should reflect the tone of the review.
4) Please break up... walls of text, especially for reviews. Small paragraphs are easier to read!!!! We also appreciate pictures! These make reviews more accessible and more people will be likely to read what you have taken the time to write.
5) Submitted reviews must have a header. This should include a small photograph of the box art, the North American release date and publisher/ developer information. If you're not sure what that should look like, take a look at the reviews that have already been published.
6) All submitted articles must be your own original works. Please don't copy/paste from other sites. Please don't copy/paste and then just paraphrase the information sentence by sentence. If you don't have time to write something up, no worries, just submit a tip, or post it in a regular thread.
*7) All submissions, including game reviews, must include tasteless, hi-res nude photos of the author and their significant other if they have one. By submitting an article and nudez, you are acknowledging Meta's right to save your photos and print them for his personal collection and/or display them in a public space. You waive your right to any royalties if Meta decides to charge admission. Failure to send these nudez along with your submission qualifies you for future harassment from Meta including but not limited to: kung fu fights, shenanigans, nudes of Meta & AJ, breastmilk from Minioger's wife, dirty letters from Kat, and Miley Cyrus stickers.
**8) If your submission contains more than one (1) incorrectly-used comma or apostrophe, you will be charged one (1) retail Xbox360 game and/or 800msp for each additional punctuation mark that is used incorrectly.
Again, the staff writers are all here to help and edit as needed, but editing other people's work is a daunting task, and massive editing and rewrites often border on ghostwriting, not editing.
Currently our rejection system is down, so if your article goes from "awaiting approval" down to a rough draft, it means a staff member is requesting revisions. Please take some time to fix it up and resubmit. Repeated attempts to publish without revisions may cause your article to be deleted at the discretion of the writing staff.
If you don't have the time or inclination to follow these guidelines you can always post your thoughts on a game in the official thread for a game. There are no grammar requirements and no staff approval is needed for reviewing in this manner.
Thanks!
*sending nudes may actually be grounds for a lifetime ban from xboxamerica unless you're a sexy chick and direct all nudes towards AJ.
** xboxamerica won't actually charge a fee for punctuation, but if the staff writers want to, they may choose to- and it certainly won't be discouraged.
Keywords: None