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Fact Checking Tips and Faster Review Times

Fact Checking Tips and Faster Review Times

Posted by Admin | June 5, 2009 | Comments (4)

Hello Writers –

As all of you are probably aware, we have recently implemented fact-checking in all articles. As with any new feature we roll out, there are some learning curves. We know that the fact-checking enhancement has slowed down review times considerably. We feel your pain and want to stress that this is only temporary. Rest assured we are aggressively attacking the current backlog of articles under review and developing strategies and product enhancements to ease the fact-checking burden.

While we work towards clearing the backlog, we wanted to offer a few tips you can do as writers to help expedite the fact-checking process. As you know, references greatly enhance the credibility of your work, so it’s important to get your facts right the first time. Journalists are required to source their articles—it’s a common journalistic standard—and they are expected to write accurate information from the get-go. Fact-checking ensures the article’s content is correct, but ultimately, this responsibility falls on the writer. This is nothing new to most of you, but we wanted to emphasize the importance of this.

We also suggest you include both in-text (such as “According to”) and parenthetical citations denoting a specific reference within the body of your article. We believe this will greatly improve review times. For instance, when you state a fact, specify where it came from and write “See References 1” in parenthesis. Include the appropriate reference in that box. For the next fact, write “See References 2” and so on. For example, a medical article about the prominence of obesity would read like this: “According to the CDC, obesity in adults has increased by 60 percent within the past 20 years (See References 1).” Doing this will help the copy editor quickly verify a fact with its corresponding source.

If you include a reference that has multiple pages, such as a PDF document, include a note to the copy editor indicating which page to locate the fact.

For those that have expertise in a particular field and don’t cite a reference, be sure to include a note to the copy editor outlining your qualifications when you submit the article. This will cut down on the number of rewrite requests and rejections tremendously. Also note that if you do have expertise in a specific field, your bio should reflect this.

As mentioned above, we are working extremely hard to clear the copy editor backlog. These tips will help streamline the fact-checking process and speed up your review times … which is a good thing for everyone!

Jennifer

4 Comments

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beherenow
Jun 9, 9:29 AM

Thanks for the tips. Question? When we insert the reference attibute in a parenthesis for the copy editors convenience, that is deleted when the story is published, right?

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ChinaZ
Jun 11, 11:33 PM

Ah thank you so much for this tidbit! I'm constantly learning new things on this site, and every little bit helps. Thanks Admin. :-)

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KarenRDuvall
Jun 30, 9:08 AM

I did this, putting references within the body text for the CE, and they were left in there when the article was published on eHow. I thought the CE was supposed to delete them, so now I'm confused because without the accompanying links, those references don't refer to anything for the reader.

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kimberly c
Aug 11, 10:21 AM

Well I really don’t know where to start. I write articles for Associated Content, Seed and did write for Demand Media. I started about a year ago for Demand and recently have gotten a lot of flack from them including a letter nothing like yours. It seems after doing a vast amount of articles for them and having fairly good responses and only 7 rejections in one year’s time, I have been sent a letter stating they do not require my services anymore. That is because I had trouble with one particular editor and wrote two grievance letters stating so. Needless to say I was scolded and told I would be put on limited account status while they did a review, however the review seemed to be unfair because after over a month time they have decided to let me go as a writer citing no specific issues just that they have decided that I am not right for their site. I was allowed to finish my work and all of them was processed without rewrites, as about 80% of my total work for them. I have learned something very valuable about this whole situation if you write for DS don’t send in a grievance you will get black-balled.
I have been trying to reach Mr. Rosenblatt about the situation because I really loved writing for DS but my emails have not been responded to so I have decided to leave information about the incident on the net see any one of the various sites I work for and type in my name and demand studios rejection.
I am a featured health and wellness writer for Associated Content and make very good money for both Associated Content, Constant Content and Seed.com.

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