Writing for Vitamin

Welcome!

We’re honored to have you on the Vitamin team! In order to keep the site running smoothly, it’s important for us to lay down a couple of ground rules:

1. The article must be written exclusively for Vitamin and not be re-used old content
2. Please submit your copy by 9AM GMT on the due date
3. Please give us 7 days notice if you don’t think you’re going to make your deadline
4. Please use American spellings
5. Images can be a max of 400 pixels wide. There's no restriction to their height. You must have the copyright to use the images in your article.
6. Please send the copy as well formatted, unstyled XHTML (see http://www.thinkvitamin.com/misc/template.html)
7. Please use <h3> for your section headers. <h1> and <h2> are already being used on the pages.
8. Please don’t use the HTML characters &lsquo; and &rsquo; for apostrophes.
9. Please don’t use the HTML characters &ldquo; and &rdquo; for quotes.
10. Before you start to write, please be aware of who our readers are (see below), in order to avoid writing ‘down’ to them.
11. Please do not set a max character width on your HTML code (which forces the text to wrap)
12. Please use HTML characters for any special characters such as &lt; &gt; &amp;
13. When putting code in your article: use &lt; and &gt; instead of < and >
14. Your work will be licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/1.0)
15. Code should be formatted as follows:

1. Put the code inside the <pre><code> tags
2. Please do not put code inside <p> tags
3. Lines of code must not be longer than 75 characters, including spaces

Bio and Photo

Please send through a head shot (JPG) in the following sizes: 26x26, 60x60 and 110x110. Please also send through your bio in the following format:

<dl id="advisordetails">
   
  <dt>Specialties -</dt>
  <dd>PHP, Rails, etc</dd>
   
   <dt>Projects -</dt>
   <dd><a href="http://www.example.com">Example 1</a> <a href="http://www.example2.com">Example 2</a> etc </dd>
     
   <dt>Location -</dt>
   <dd>City, Country</dd>

</dl>

<p id="intro">Intro paragraph about yourself</p>
<p>More info about yourself</p>

Reviews

1. 500 – 800 words (Please don't include code snippets in this word count)
2. Name of software must be italicized with the <em> tags
3. Please include the following paragraph at the bottom:

Software Name:
Maker:
URL:
Price:
Rating out of 5:

Here is how you choose your rating:

1. Fundamentally flawed, most major features missing, avoid at all costs
2. Poorly executed, may have one or two good features
3. Useful, may have one or two flaws but overall it's looking good
4. Great tool, well put together, a few small issues but a great addition to any toolbox
5. Perfection itself, fully-featured, easy to use, at the right price point. Simply a must.

Features

1. 1000 - 2000 words (Please don't include code snippets in this word count)
2. Features should focus on giving the reader something of value that they can use in their day-to-day lives

Badge of Support

If you’d like to let everyone know that you’re one of our contributors, feel free to use these on your site!

1. Advisors: Download
2. Team: Download

Who Are Our Readers?

1. 90% male
2. Between the ages of 20 – 45
3. Geographical location: Worldwide, but English speaking
4. People who are web professionals for a living, not hobbyists
5. Code savvy and quick to learn new technologies
6. Skill level: Intermediate to Advanced in their chosen area

Why People Visit Vitamin

Visitors will come to learn techniques, tips and tricks in their chosen area of expertise. They want to do more than just learn the technology; they want to learn the secret to success from the best of the best in the industry (that’s you).

Glossary

In order to help us keep everything consistent, we’ve decided to use American spellings. Here are some terms that often get spelled or capitalized differently. Please use the following:

1. URL
2. AJAX
3. email
4. Internet
5. Web
6. website
7. username