MC...what you need to know.

[cabaret]

I'm hoping this gets made into a sticky. I'm seeing a ton of questions on the forum about MC articles and how to write them, character count, word count etc. Frankly all of these questions are right there on the screen. I'm not trying to sound rude about this but they are all there. In any case to help my fellow WAHMers I'm going to answer a few questions I keep seeing so hopefully this thread will be read and some confusion can be cleared up. Please keep in mind the answers to the questions are directly from the MC site. If words are capitalized (ie appear to be yelling) it is there grammar not mine. I'm simply copying and pasting from the left side of the available jobs screen.

1) How many characters/words do I need to write?

"THE ARTICLE SECTION OF YOUR EXPERT ARTICLE SHOULD BE ROUGHLY 1500 CHARACTERS. Some articles may call for more or less characters, depending on the title's subject. 1500 characters is sufficient for completely fulfilling the title."

Also summaries are 250 CHARACTERS not words.

2) How do I add a picture? Why do I need to add a picture? (fill in the blank) picture?

"DO NOT USE THE FLICKR PHOTO FEATURE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR ARTICLES WITHOUT PHOTOS/CAPTIONS "

3) How do I get moved up a level?

Put simply you do your articles, do them well, and when your editor feels that you have grasped the concepts of MC article writing and what they want then they will move you up. Also, if you have done over 20 articles and have a solid percentage of accepted articles (above 85% I would say) then email your editor and ask if you can be moved up another level. If you have only done 10 articles or less then do more. They are making sure you know what THEY want not just simply that you can write.

4) Payment questions. I thought I got paid on (whatever day)?

"Payments: Paypal: We pay any amounts $20 and over by Paypal each Friday. You must provide your correct Paypal email in your profile. You can correct this by clicking on Update Profile on the Available Jobs screen. Payday Process: We cutoff at 3pm CST Friday to begin processing payments. You will see approved items marked PAID in My Jobs on Friday afternoon, but you will not receive the Paypal payment for these items until MONDAY."

Just to make sure (because I've seen this a lot) you get paid Monday not Friday....Monday. Payments usually hit (at least in my experience) around 3pm cst or before. I get mine between 11am cst and 3pm cst.

5) How do I write an article?

"PLEASE READ THE UPDATED EXPERT ARTICLE GUIDELINES BEFORE YOU BEGIN WRITING AN ARTICLE: please copy and paste this URL into your browser: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B1uoUSY UokkKZTkwYzQ2NmEtMDAyYS00MDVkLWFhNzgtZWVhMTRkYjMyM zNi&hl=en_US&authkey=CPLZ1tcN"

6) How do I write an about article, how to article, etc?

In the guideline link there is a section with an example of a how to article. For about articles and information articles I have found that sticking to 4 paragraphs of 100 words each will get you what you need. Separate key ideas with subject headings (use heading 3 to format them). Stick to the topic, don't be to wordy, get your point across, and get out of there. That's all you need.

7) The site is down again!!! What am I supposed to do? Do I still have a deadline? etc...

Yes you still have a deadline unless we are expressly told via email by an editor that the deadlines have been extended. If it is a planned outage that they inform us of days and days in advance (like the recent one) then no they probably will not because they told us and it was on the left column of the available jobs screen as a top note for several days. The site does go down from time to time. If you want to make sure you get your articles done and in as soon as the site comes back then copy and paste your article title into a word or spreadsheet document and just write them in word while the site is done. Copy and paste them when the site comes back up.

Having worked with MC for awhile now and having them as a main egg I would highly highly...let me say that again...highly suggest you take 20 minutes and read the FULL left hand side of the available jobs screen. It answers pretty much everything you need to know.

[ariana1]

You don't sound rude at all. I am getting ready to write my first article for MC. Thanks for posting

[cabaret]

Your welcome. Glad it helps.

[tenderone]

Forgive me for sounding out-of-the-loop, but I had asked a question about formatting within my "topics" post that I could not find within the guidelines. I chose two articles that were a "vs." or "types" topics, but I really don't know where these fit formatting-wise. I could assume, depending on the topic, that I could choose the "about" format for my "types" article, highlighting the different types of "ya-da, ya-da, ya-da." Instead of guessing, I thought that there might be another way of deciding?

[cabaret]

I stay away from those personally lol but I would think they can be done like this:

Summary

Intro


First topic subheading (header 3)

subheading
subheading
subheading

(basically what your points are with a header 2 used)


Second topic subheading (header 3)

sub header 2
subheader2
subheader2



hope that makes sense Basically its your standard about article split into two... instead of one subject heading you'll have two with subheadings separating your points underneath them.

[slicing_angel2003]

I'd vote this to be a sticky. I have to admit when I first started writing there I had some of those same questions.Thanks for the post!

[writermommy]

"...and when your editor feels that you have grasped the concepts of MC article writing and what they want then they will move you up."

This brings up a question for me ... are we assigned a specific editor?

[DiaperMommy]

Yes, Thank you for taking the time to do this!!

[gasman]

Originally Posted by writermommy

"...and when your editor feels that you have grasped the concepts of MC article writing and what they want then they will move you up."

This brings up a question for me ... are we assigned a specific editor?

I would like to know this too... and how do we email that editor?

[ariana1]

Originally Posted by tenderone

Forgive me for sounding out-of-the-loop, but I had asked a question about formatting within my "topics" post that I could not find within the guidelines. I chose two articles that were a "vs." or "types" topics, but I really don't know where these fit formatting-wise. I could assume, depending on the topic, that I could choose the "about" format for my "types" article, highlighting the different types of "ya-da, ya-da, ya-da." Instead of guessing, I thought that there might be another way of deciding?

What really helped me was to see an example of the articles. Here's a link to the expert articles that have already been written.

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