Write by the rules

As more and more News24 Users express an interest in getting published on MyNews24, we thought we'd give you some guidelines on how to make the most of the various opportunities on MyNews24, as well as how to submit your articles to us in way that will improve your chances of publication!

MyNews24 was developed in early 2007 to be a citizen journalism website on News24. Simply put, it is a space on News24 which publishes only original articles that have been written by News24 Users - that's a fancy way of saying the people who read articles and use services and functions on News24.

The power behind MyNews24 is that it allows you - instead of us - to decide what issues will be highlighted on a daily basis. This means we are entirely dependent on both the quantity and the quality of articles sent to us on a daily basis. That means if you don't send us anything, we can't publish anything.

MyNews24 also offers you the opportunity to sign up for a MyNews24 blog - which is a space for you to publish anything you want, without our moderation, on your own free blog..

Having a blog does not prevent you from writing articles for MyNews24, and writing articles for MyNews24 does not stop you from having a blog too. You can also e-mail the editors a copy of your latest blog post if you want it published on MyNews24 too.

Ultimately, the MyNews24 website and MyNews24 blogs are two separate functions for you to use to get your writing out there to the News24 public! Of course, there is a much larger audience for your work on MyNews24, but if you want to publish your thoughts on a daily basis, then a blog is the thing for you.

We also, of course, allow you to comment on anything you read on MyNews24 and try to keep the comments facility open for as long as the debate remains related to the topic at hand.

In approving comments, we try not to edit or remove too many of them, however we do try to maintain certain standards with each article. We rarely if ever edit individual comments for spelling and grammar - with thousands of comments coming in to News24 each month, we just don't have the time - but we do delete comments based on the following basic criteria:

1) The relevance of the comment to the topic
2) The extent to which other users will understand what has been said
3) The extent of swear words, the degree of insulting language and severity of the tone of the comment towards either a group of people or an individual
4) News24 Users who abuse the comments facility by posting under existing aliases or who post simply to incite arguments on the board
5) Duplication of comments

While it's not a perfect system, we reserve the right to maintain the quality of the discourse on the comments board as much as we can.

Getting published

We often get asked why we aren't publishing certain articles sent in by users on MyNews24.

More often than not, we don't publish articles because either the submissions are too short or too difficult to understand; the article has factual inaccuracies or so many grammatical errors that editing the piece would result in a complete overhaul of the original piece, removing any essence of the writer's original intention; or writers have not gotten back to us with the information we require to publish the piece.

Also, if you submit your article using a false e-mail address and we can't get hold of you to confirm certain questions we may have about areas of your writing that aren't clear, we will be less inclined to risk publishing the piece! We often reply immediately to submissions you send in, so make sure you send us the correct e-mail address!

Also, as we are in the business of news here at News24, we give preference to pieces that are topical at the time. These articles will usually get given priority over general pieces, and it is entirely at the editor's discretion to decide what will be published next.

Still, there's a lot you can do to increase your chances of getting your articles published.

Make sure your articles are topical. We don't need them to be sensational, simply topical. News24 Users - i.e. the people who you want to read your article - want to read about things that are current topics in the news. But this doesn't mean they want to read things that over exaggerate an issue, or that contain inaccuracies. What really is first prize for both the editors and News24 Users is an article that contains news we haven't heard about before. If you can break the news to us, we'll be sure to publish your piece!

At the same time, News24 Users want diversity. Although we are looking for articles on issues in the news, we are also not going to publish several articles on the same issue saying the same thing (the exception being events such as the Rugby World Cup, for example). If you read an article on MyNews24, and write your own article which says the same thing, we probably won't publish it.

The better the writing, the better your chances. While our editors are always trying to get back to as many people as we can with edited versions of their articles, we often don't have time to assist you in improving your piece if it needs a lot of work. Articles sent in with poor grammar and spelling, with disjointed sentences and incomplete or hard-to-understand arguments probably won't get published. Often, we land up editing an article for publication so much that very few original words remain, and the article looks nothing like the original. Use the existing articles on MyNews24 as a guide to how Users have been able to get their point(s) across.

Complicated style and language is just as off-putting. Here's another exception to the rule. While we want well-written articles, we don't want you to go overboard. One of the basic principles of journalistic writing is to not use ten words when one will do. When you write, imagine you are writing something a young teenager can understand. This is not at all because we think that's the level of understanding News24 Users have, but actually because the simpler you write, the easier your writing is to understand. Complicated sentences with loads of commas and dashes and ellipses (...) are difficult to read and to edit, and people will lose interest in your piece halfway through reading it!

Not too short, not too long. While we won't publish an "article" that is just one or two lines long, we also will edit down an article that is thousands or words long to something a bit more digestible. We of course appreciate the effort you go to to writing such long articles, we realise longer articles are more difficult to read, and people often lose interest when they see they've got hundreds of words left to write. It's not a fixed limit, but aim for 500 words. Our paid columnists do!

(In fact, I'd be very impressed if you all read as far as this! Just goes to show you, a reasonable word limit is important!)

If you have any queries regarding these guidelines or your writing, or want an editor to take a look at an article you've written, you can e-mail mynews@news24.com.

Or if you just want to get started sending articles to us, click here.