Why Does Rehoboth Maintain a Blog? #
There are all sorts of blogs out there – everything from lengthy academic essays to short and sharp thoughts and reflections. It is a popular form of communication, allowing for all sorts of people to write about every topic imaginable.
We maintain a blog as a key part of our communication strategy. Parents and Association Members can see what children have been up to, and students can reflect on their learning. It provides staff with a voice and creative outlet to demonstrate their teaching practice. Prospective families can get a feel for what Rehoboth is all about, what we value, and how we go about providing a distinctly Christian education.
We also maintain a blog as part of our marketing strategy. As well as showcasing the College to prospective parents, the articles we post continually improve how Rehoboth performs in online searches. The more good quality content we make available, the better our reputation.
This means that maintaining a good quality blog is the job of all, from running activities to taking photos, writing articles, and preparing posts, we all need to work together.
On this page, we have provided the minimum requirements for our blog, along with some tips to help you prepare great articles that engage our community.
Rehoboth Blog - Responsibilities and How to Submit #
- Your Principal will provide a schedule for when articles are due. If an article is following an event (e.g. Athletics Carnival), it is always preferred to post the article as soon after the event as possible.
- It is the responsibility of article writers to ensure their work is proofread and free from spelling and grammatical errors.
- It is the responsibility of the article writer to select media (photos and/or video) to include. We will not post an article without at least one good quality photo. See the Style Guide for more info on photos and video.
- The article writer should submit the article and photos to their Administration Office (sharing via OneDrive is usually the simplest way). It is the responsibility of the Administration Officer to check all media for permissions and that the article meets the minimum requirements outlined in this guide.
- The Administration Officer will save the article and media to a shared blog folder where the Projects Officer will prepare and schedule posts from.
- During term time, we aim to post three times a week, typically on a Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. This is done so that there is a steady stream of content being delivered and parents have the opportunity to get to each article. However, it can sometimes produce a backlog of posts. If your article has not appear soon after submitting, this is most likely the reason. All articles submitted are eventually posted.
- Blog posts follow a general structure of:
- Title – The title that forms the URL and will appear when the article is shared.
- Headline – A large format summary of the article.
- Media Gallery – Photo and/or video selections that readers can scroll through.
- Article Body – The main story.
Writing for Online #
Writing for an online environment can be quite different to other forms of written communication. Users have different expectations when they engage with an organisation online:
- They expect accuracy – in the era of ‘fake news’, fact checking and accuracy is critical and users are quick to spot errors
- Users are not a ‘captive audience’. It is now documented that the average attention span of a person online has dropped from 12 secs in 2000 to 8 secs in 2020 – less than the attention span of a goldfish (9 secs).
What Should a Good Article Contain? #
A good College blog article should contain most, if not all, of the elements described below. These should be considered minimum requirements when preparing your articles:
- Remember the basics: The details of who, what, when, where, and why will provide all the context and detail that a reader would want.
- Learning outcomes: What was the purpose of the activity, event, or excursion you are writing about? Try describing the learning outcomes you aimed for students to achieve.
- Curriculum links: Describe the unit or course your class is studying and how your activity, event, or excursions links to it.
- Web links: Include any URLs to places you visited or to reputable sites where students parents can find more information. For example, if you went to the WA Museum, be sure to include the museum’s website; or if you visited the Observatory, could you recommend students take a look at the Hubble site?
- Be conversational in tone: Unless the piece warrants it or your audience expects an academic or technical style, you should be writing as though you are chatting with a friend.
- Encourage a dialogue: By asking a question or inviting a response, we have the potential to engage our community more deeply via social media.
- Write in the positive: Because it feels happy and upbeat! Have you ever asked someone how they are today, and gotten the reply, ‘Not bad’? That is writing in the negative. Instead, we want to take a ‘glass half full’ approach. It reassures parents that their children are being well cared for and they made the right choice with Rehoboth. A good example is: instead of writing, ‘Until you pay your tuition fees, you will not receive your degree’, write, ‘You will receive your degree after you pay your fees’.
- Write in the active or present tense: This lends your writing a sense of immediacy that draws the reader in.
- Put a human face on it: Make your writing simpler for a non-educator to understand ‘by directing their attention to the way it affects a particular person‘. Can you include student, parent, or staff feedback or comments?
- Have fun: Don’t make your article a chore for your readers.
Titles and Headlines #
The key to an article that people want to read is a great title that hooks them in.
- Would you read it?: Ask yourself, if this article turned up in my Facebook feed or inbox, would it interest me enough to open it? If it doesn’t interest you, it probably won’t interest others.
- Set the right expectation: Unlike a printed news article, readers online often do not have the whole article in front of them with all its images, formatting and so on to draw them in. Your title therefore needs to do more work, but also accurately reflect what is in the article. By consistently ‘doing what it is says on the tin’, we build a reputation for good quality content.
- Keywords: There is more on keywords below, but because your title forms part of the URL, it should use the keyword(s) you have used in the article.
- Tips for titles:
- Try imagining your reader searching for an article on what you have written about – what sort of search returns are they expecting to get? Does your title reflect this?
- A good general rule of thumb is ten words containing two keywords. Find a balance between a short and focussed title, and an accurate and descriptive one
- Try a list: e.g. ‘Five Tips for Writing Catchy Article Titles’
- Pose a question: e.g. ‘Do You Make These Six Common Mistakes…?’ or ‘Why Do We…?’
- Think of it a bit like writing an email subject line – you know the recipient may only see some of the subject, so are you putting the important info first?
- Avoid certain special characters, as they can create errors: e.g. ‘&’, ‘@’, ‘< >’, ‘#’
- Take a look at these articles for more tips: Five of Your Headlines… Remixed, and Blog Title Idea Generator.
Article Body #
After your title, your first paragraph is the most important part of the article. It will determine if your reader will spend the next few minutes on the rest of what you have written.
Writing a blog is not like writing an essay, and we also need to keep in mind that we have an very diverse community, and English is a second language for many people. Different grammatical and structural rules therefore apply:
- Word length: Articles should be a minimum of 300 words. If you are including elements from what a good article should contain (above), you will easily meet this minimum.
- Short paragraphs: About 3-4 sentences is the recommended length because short chunks of text are easier to read on a screen, and you won’t have your reader’s attention for long.
- Reading length: The article should take about 2-3 mins to read. Try timing yourself reading it out loud.
- Avoid lengthy run-on sentences: Sometimes they can add a good sense of pace but they are often hard to read and everybody needs to be able to take a breath once in a while because breathing is important and ensures your reader will keep going with the article and you won’t lose their attention because we want to make sure they are reading the whole piece. Phew!
- Scan your article: Readers tend to scan an article before committing to reading all of it. They check for length, how many images it contains, and assess how easy a read it might be.
Writing a Conclusion #
Don’t forget to wrap your article up neatly. There are a number of ways you can write a great conclusion, depending on how you have written your article:
- Say it, then say it again: This is the principle of summarising or synthesising everything you have said. It is probably the simplest way to write a conclusion.
- Answer a question: If you have posed a question in your title or introduction, this is place to answer it. Don’t leave your readers wondering what the answer is.
- Return to your keyword or theme: This is a good way to bring your article full circle. Restate your theme or define your keyword again.
- ‘So what?’: Inform your readers or restate why the activity or event you have been talking about is important. What is its significance for their children’s education?
- Call to action: Give your readers an idea of what to do with the information you have given them. Is there a website they should refer to, an activity they could do to reinforce their children’s learning, or a change they can make?