As you may have noticed, a bio is required of all writers who have been accepted into Demand Studios. Because these bios have a possibility of being attached to the articles you are writing, it is to your benefit to keep them as professional as possible. Below are some guidelines you should follow while filling in your bio as well as examples on what you should and should not include. A bio should include your name and be a short reference to your experience in as a writer. If your writing experience is limited, you may include areas of expertise, work experience, educational degrees or side interests. Keep it conversational but concise and follow all AP Style rules. Also, make sure it is a maximum of 50 words.

Good examples: Mary S. Yamin-Garone has been a writer for 30 years. She has served as a newspaper reporter, feature and freelance writer and an editor for government, business and fitness. Mary holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and journalism from the State University of New York at Albany. She is a third-degree black belt in Karate.

Rachel Stepanovich loves fitness and shares what she learns from her daily adventures in her writing. In addition to writing for Demand Studios, she writes for several online sites including Associated Content and Helium. She also runs her own blog (http://getfit.blogspot.com) and is a mother of three.

Bad examples:

I live with the love of my life (my husband!) and three cats. I love knitting, traveling and taking care of my grandkids.

I am a stay-at-home mom who adores her two children and writes on the side to earn extra income. I was born and raised in Texas until I moved to Florida after getting married. I love to write!

-Liana

Many of you have asked about sources. What is our policy? What kinds of sources are acceptable? Here’s the lowdown, plain and simple:

Print, broadcast and online news media all include sources in their stories. It’s a journalistic standard, and Demand Studios is no different. No, we’re not talking about our Resources field, which is used to suggest further reading or link to a reference. We’re talking about including sources within your article.

Incorporating sources and citations within your articles not only lends a tremendous amount of credibility to your work, but it can increase your article limit as well. Citations are like music to our copy editors’ ears, and they are less likely to send an article back if you include them within your text. The quality of your work will be higher, and therefore, the perception of you as a professional writer will be better as well. In short, it does nothing but benefit you as a writer—inside and outside of Demand Studios—to include sources within your articles.

When incorporating sources within your article, be sure to cite them. If you pull information from a source, such as a stat, attribute it (ie: According to BLANK). If you quote an exact phrase, put it in quotation marks and attribute it. If you summarize a study, credit it.

Some credible sources we look for are scholarly books and journals, studies, organizations (such as the American Cancer Society) and professionals (for example, if you’re writing an article on how to cope with divorce, quoting a marital psychologist is great). If you’re relying on the Web for your article, search with caution. We’ve said this before, and we’ll say it again: Don’t use Wikipedia. Likewise, don’t use any general informational sites such as: About.com, wikiHow.com, Ask.com, HowStuffWorks.com, AssociatedContent.com, HowToDoThings.com, Helium.com, Suite101.com, etc. Any sites that end in .gov, .edu and .org are—for the most part—reliable resources.

- Jennifer

Hello All,

Some of you have probably seen some words, or part of words, highlighted in red when you preview your articles. This is a filter that highlights inappropriate language so an editor can easily spot it and remove the word/s that don't belong in the article. However this filter is even highlighting letters next to each other within a longer word if they form an inappropriate word, which is something you can ignore. For example, if you're writing about scrapbooking, letters two through five will be highlighted every time you write scrapbook.

Don't worry too much about this because it will not be highlighted when it's published on the designated site.

Johan

Hello DS Writer Community,

Many of you have noticed that there are new categories when you go to find assignments. The new category system was meant to make searching for titles easier, though we know there have been some recent bugs causing mis-categorized titles. We’re working on fixing this.

Here is some background on how the categories work behind the scenes of Demand Studios:

Demand Studios has a categorization system (taxonomy) that titles are fed into. The categories that you see when you browse articles are only meant to help you find the topics you’re interested in. This is not the category that will be carried with the article to the destination site.

Because Demand Studios sends its published articles to multiple sites (eHow, Livestrong and others) and those sites have their own categorization system, we ask the writers to choose the categories when they grab an assignment. That is why you are being asked to add the main level category, sub category, sub-sub category for each article

-Demand Studios Editorial Team

Demand Studios is introducing revenue share!

We've been listening to your feedback and many of you have expressed interest in this type of program as a way to earn more money in the long term. We are excited to roll this program out and anticipate that revenue share will be a way for our writers to earn more over time!

Starting today you will see titles in the list of available assignments that will be paid on a revenue share basis. These titles have been chosen for the program because we expect them to perform well and hope to ensure that they become profitable for their writers.

Soon you will be able to see your earnings for each revenue share article you write in your Payment History section. Payment for the revenue share program, based on the combined earnings of revenue share articles, will be made monthly. Payment schedules for flat fee articles will continue to be weekly.

Revenue share articles should be written to the same high quality standard as all Demand Studios articles. This will help the performance of the article and could increase your earnings.

If you have questions head to our FAQ or ask them in our dedicated Forum thread. Stay on the lookout for titles available for revenue share - the program is open to all of our writers!

Revenue share is still in its early beta phase and we welcome your comments and feedback. We want to do all we can to ensure the success of revenue share at Demand Studios so that we can provide our writers with more potential to earn.

We look forward to seeing your earnings increase!

-The Demand Studios Team

There recently might have been some confusion about the DS rewrite policy, so here is a quick refresher:

1. When a copy editor requests a rewrite from a writer, that writer has three days to return it to the editor with changes.
2. If writers miss the deadline, the article will expire from their queue and go back into the general pool of titles, ready for someone else to claim
3. If writers send the rewrite back on time, the editor has two options: approve the article or reject the article.
4. Writers only get one chance at a rewrite.
5. If you have a question or comments about a copy editor's rewrite, please contact us at the following email addresses: editorialteam@demandstudios.com or demandhelp@earthlink.net
6. The End

-Liana

According to a Wikipedia entry, the actor-comedian Sinbad is dead. If you’re tuned into any of the entertainment news sources, you’d know that this is bogus. Sinbad is alive and well. But in March 2007, his Wikipedia entry falsely stated that he had died of a heart attack, and the rumor mill was spinning. Fortunately, the error was caught early on, and the article has since been revised.

So why do we bring this up, you ask? Lately, we’ve been noticing writers referencing Wikipedia in the Resources section, and we thought we’d take a moment or two to address this.

Wikipedia’s articles are written by anyone in the public. That’s right: Any John Doe can write an informational article and cite it as fact. What’s more is that anyone can edit the articles. There are no regulations as to who can write for Wikipedia, and often, the information you read has not been fact-checked.

In fact, Wikipedia itself states, “Critics of Wikipedia target its systematic bias and inconsistencies and its policy of favoring consensus over credentials in its editorial process. Wikipedia’s reliability and accuracy are also an issue.”

So fellow sleuths, here’s a word to the wise: Don’t cite Wikipedia as a source for your articles. If you do find information on Wikipedia during your research, be sure to confirm that information with at least one other reliable source, preferably more. And when you reference that information in your article, cite the other source. Do not cite Wikipedia.

What are some reliable sources? Any Web sites that end in .gov, .edu and .org are generally trustworthy (read: generally). Of course, books and scholarly materials, such as academic journals and studies, are always acceptable.

Happy Hunting, Jennifer

Photo by lepiaf.geo

Hello Demand Studios writers,

I know I have reached out to some of you regarding this, however I thought I'd spread the word through our blog about an exciting new project we are working on about "Modern Moms" and parenting. We have not received any information on pricing or what type of titles might be available, however, if you are interested in this project, please send me an email at liana.aghajanian@demandmedia.com and include information in the body of the email on why you believe you would be right for this project. Include writing samples with links or attachments demonstrating your capabilities in relation to this project. Thank you!

-Liana

Although they might not seem too difficult to conquer at first glance, "lifestyle" articles take extra effort to polish up and need a lot of tender loving care to remain relevant and credible. To write a good lifestyle article, we first need to define what we mean by "lifestyle." A lifestyle article refers to articles regarding things such as social etiquette, cultural awareness, self-help, relationships, family life and more. Examples might include "How To Make a Decision Without Thinking Twice," or "Dealing With Interracial Dating."

Lifestyle articles usually tread on dangerous grounds of rejection by copy editors, usually because a writer applies personal, fluff or filler advice instead of maturely researching the topic, referencing studies and providing concrete and doable steps. Remember, you are not writing in your personal blog or giving advice to a friend over coffee, so refrain from off-the-cuff writing that will make your article seem amateurish.

To get an idea of what is expected of this type of article, we have provided an example by a Demand Studios writer with permission. Please let us know if you have questions by leaving a comment in this post or contacting us through our "Contact Us" form.

-Liana

How to Tell Good Jokes

By Aaron Reynolds

Having a sense of humor is a very admirable trait. People enjoy having friends who make them laugh, and the opposite sex is attracted to a good sense of humor. Like anything, some people are born naturally gifted at telling good jokes, while others struggle to find the right punchline. If you find comedy difficult, practicing and understanding what makes a good joke will vastly improve your sense of humor and allow you to be the star of a dinner or party. Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging Things You'll Need:

Step 1:

Find your style. You may never be a successful stand-up comedian, but if you want to truly be funny, then it’s important to identify your style. Watch all the great comedians. They all have their own unique style and brand of comedy--slapstick, situational, political, cynical, raunchy, etc. Discover whatever works best for you and stick to it. Find people and comedians you laugh at more than others and contemplate in your head what makes them funny (see Resources below).

Step 2:

Find the content. Do you enjoy stressing details in a long story or do you prefer quick one-liners? Do you enjoy making fun of yourself or events you have witnessed? Do you like talking about passions or pet peeves? Do you like sharing stories about friends or the opposite sex? Love situations and other personal situations are easy for people to relate to and are perfect for comedy. Choose content that makes you laugh.

Step 3:

Find your audience. What type of audience do you enjoy presenting your jokes to? There’s a gigantic difference between the content of jokes designed for little kids and the content designed for adults. Comedy is drama in disguise. If you know how to tell good stories, chances are you know how to tell good jokes. Jokes require the same rollercoaster ride of a plot that stories do. A key point in good story- and joke-telling is understanding your audience.

Step 4:

Deliver the joke. There are many different ways to tell the same joke. The punchline, obviously, first and foremost has to be great. But how do you get from point "A" to point "B"? Do you deliver the joke loud and controversial or soft and unsure? The delivery of your joke, mixed with posture, hand movements and body language can make a joke work told one way and not work told another way. According to David Trottier, author of such books as "The Screenwriting Bible," advises to use comedy “by taking an unusual point of view through use of exaggeration, deception, overstatement, understatement, contrast, parody, a ridiculous point of view or obsessions.”

Step 5:

Stick with what works. Just as a basketball player needs a go-to move in the clutch, so does a comedian. Make note of the jokes that really make people laugh and save them for opportune moments. Whether you save it for last or open up your act with your best joke is up to you. But make sure you use your best. And last but not least, never be afraid to change up your material every once in awhile.

Tips & Warnings

* Not every joke you write will make people laugh--that's OK, it happens to the best comedians all the time.