How to Write Story Pages
Story pages are another more personal touch that members of Footnote can share to others in the community. These contain more than just relevant write-ups, quotations, chronology of events, and notes, but can also have important images attached to them. Story pages created by members of Footnote may also contain links to related pages on Footnote or on the World Wide Web.
How useful are story pages, and what can they be about? Story pages can greatly vary in scope depending on how much a member on Footnote wants to add on them. It may be a personal family history, a genealogy, or even a journal written by someone from a family's past.
For history majors and members of the academe, Footnote story pages are excellent channels to provide updates and pertinent data on research and papers being written. You can write as much about your dissertation as you like, so even members of Footnote can gather from it, comment, and even supplement info for your historical research.
From a historical, impartial, and purely narrative point of view, a story page may contain a chronology, notes on battles, or even discussions of public records. A member of Footnote may even create a story page about a personal hero in history, as well as provide a biography of that icon, with accompanying photos, quotes, and the like. There may even be a calendar of events and places, with descriptions of how they happened.
How to start your story page
As you log into Footnote with your username and password, go to your Profile Page with the link "Go to Profile Page," which is found after you access the Accounts View page. Under your profile, find the tab labeled as "Story Pages," as this should indicate how many you have created so far.
Click on the link with the name "Add a Story Page," and you will be directed to the page "Create a New Story Page." First you need to provide a title, as well as short description on the topic under consideration. Think of good wordings for your title, such as "The Battle of Manila Bay" or "Diary Entries from the World War." This makes it easier for others on Footnote to find your story pages whenever they make a search query on the topic.
The description can be a phrase or a sentence, and does not necessarily have to be in paragraph form. You may make changes to this later on, even after you have created the story page. After you have selected a title with the accompanying description, click on the "Create My Story Page" button.
After you have created your story page, you may now add your first entry. To do this, you must write a headline, which could be your subtopic for the title you have decided on earlier. It can be something like, "On the Battlefield, Day One" or "Meeting Commodore Dewey for the First Time."
After choosing a headline, indicate a date related to it. It is typed under the text box "Date associated with this Entry." Then you should indicate where the event took place. The date and place are helpful for people who do a search query on Footnote, as these may be included in their results pages.
Below the date and place, you are to write your text entry on the headline you have made. You can use different font styles such as bold, underline, or italics. You can also change the indentation and alignment of your text as necessary. These may be the story itself, or quotations and relevant news items that can support the topic of your story page. There is no limit to the word count for the body text.
More tips on writing story pages on Footnote
- Check your facts and figures and make sure they are verified. If you are providing a chronicle of events with dates and places, you may want to do additional research to back them up. There are many official historical sites, such as the National Archives, National Geographic, and many others, where you can gather sources you may cite.
- One of the best advices would be to get creative. What you write depends on your view of the event you are discussing. Your tone or writing style may be in the first person perspective (using "me" or "I") or in third person perspective (with "they" or "we") to provide neutrality in the narrative.
- Provide text that is easy to read, and interesting to relate to for your fellow Footnote members. It would be non-ideal to write very long paragraphs or run on sentences in your story page. Be sure to observe proper grammar, punctuation, capitalization, as well as spelling to make your contribution more reliable, and so other members may refer to it as well.
- If you want to add images to your story page, you have an unlimited number. Make sure your photos are already uploaded in your gallery, with the appropriate file names for added clarification. Check out the managing your gallery tutorial for more info.
- Don't hesitate to put in links. Fortunately enough, Footnote provides you a link creation tool, so you may want to link your story page to other story pages you have created, or even your personal blog website. The number of links you create on your story page is also up to you. Just be sure that the links or URL's that you are adding are functional, so check the spellings and addresses carefully.
- Your story page does not have to remain static. No matter how many story pages you create on Footnote, you can always add extra entries or updates to the said story page. For instance, if you found a new photo that you want to add, or if you read on further historical data on the event you are discussing. Updating and supplementing more info provide more goodies for your fellow members on Footnote to digest.
As you can see, writing a story page, and modifying it, is not as difficult as it seems. Take the time to browse as many story pages from other members as you'd like. You can get an inspiration and additional ideas on how to start your own story page. Whenever you create a story page, it appears as listed on your Profile Page, which the public may also view.