Introduction |
To
start with I would like to thank all those Press
Officers who have taken the trouble to send articles to
www.bowlinginspain.com, over the years. Without you
there would be no website.
I have produced this aide to writing a better report
with two people in mind - you and me!
I am convinced if you follow the material here you will
produce a better report - a big plus for you both within
the world of Lawn Bowling and in any of your general
authoring endeavours.
I must confess that I spend a great deal of time, (along
with my worthy sub-editor, Amber Dineen), preparing your
reports for publication on the web. I am sure this could
be reduced considerably, if the guidelines below were
followed.
Probably the section on Tables would bring most
significant benefits to both of us, as the common use
use of Tabs does not travel well to the website. You
will also find Tables very useful for publishing Team
Sheets, League Schedules, Entry Forms, Posters and many
other documents.
I
would like to emphasise how important it is to make sure
your report & photos give the maximum publicity to the
sponsors. After all, without their support many events
would not be able to be staged.
Finally, I am sure my colleagues in the local and
international press offices, would also appreciate you
adopting these guidelines.
Thanking you in advance for your cooperation. Please do
not hesitate to contact me with any questions and keep
sending your articles.
John Carr
Webmaster www.bowlinginspain.com |
How do I send my
report? |
Firstly, do NOT write your report directly on the
message section of your email. This might be the
simplest approach, but email editing features are very
limited and create problems when the text is copied &
pasted to the web authoring program.
Instead, use the email message section to identify the
event/news item & any special instructions.
Write the main report using a standard word processing
program, such as Microsoft Word for Windows or Open
Office/Text Document.
Report file names should be in the format:
yymmdescriptiveeventname.doc,
eg: 1208ChampOfChamps.doc.
(If you experience incompatibility problems between the
various versions of MS Word, feel free to contact me by
email.)
Avoid using more "exotic" programs such as, Excel, Powerpoint
& non standard word processing programs, as these may be
difficult for the recipient to handle.
Attach the report file to your email message along with
supporting photo files, ideally in .jpg format.
Photo file names should be in the format:
descriptivephotocontent.jpg,
eg: ChampOfChampsWinners.jpg. |
Who do I send it to? |
email to
contactus@bowlinginspain.com. |
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Report Structure. |
Main Heading
Sub-heading, (optional)
Detail
Sub-heading, (optional)
Detail
_
_
_
Presentation and credits.
Author |
Report Style. |
Nobody likes to read a long
verbose report, so keep it light, brief, but
informative. Most readers are principally interested in
knowing the winners and finalists and the final scores.
Include highlights of the final matches and any other
items of special interest. A dash of humour, here and
there, doesn't do any harm. |
Heading 1. |
The Main Heading
should be brief as possible and represent the content:
e.g. "Mountain Open Finals - Downlea Bowls Club".
Avoid using vague headings like: "Supreme Bowling Club
Press Report", "News from Park Bowls Club". |
Heading 2. |
The Sub-heading, (optional), can contain a brief
sentence that might attract interest to reader: "John
Smith does it again!", or "The Exiles retain the title
after nail-biting final!. |
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Event Date. |
The Event Date should
appear somewhere prominently in the headings or main
body of the report. It can be very specific: "March 10th
- 15th, 2012", or fairly general: "During April, 2010",
but avoid relative dates like: "last Monday", "last
week", "recently". |
Venue/s. |
The Venue/s should
appear somewhere prominently in the headings or main
body of the report. Where appropriate, the host club
name/s should be accompanied by the Province/Country. |
Names. |
The Event Press
Officer should make sure that the full names/titles to
be included in the report have been obtained correctly
at the event. People that might be included are:
participants, officials, sponsors, (organisation and
names), supporting individuals, (e.g. camera man). If
there is more than one sponsor, identify which
disciplines each is sponsoring.
This section is very
important, as key individuals who are omitted, or have
their names/titles incorrectly published can get very
upset! |
Photography.
(Examples
to follow.) |
General |
For important events, the
organisers should involve the Press Officer
& Photographer in the planning stages.
The following points should be discussed:-
- Who will write
the report? (Ideally a non-participant.)
- Who will take the
pictures? (Ideally a non-participant.)
- Will the
Photographer require assistants?
- Should photos be
taken during the Presentation, or after
on the green?
- Will the
Photographer have permission to take
action shots?
- Should priority
be given to the official photographer
over other people taking photos?
At
the opening ceremony, along with the key
officials, the Press Officer & Photographer
should be identified.
Correspondingly, at the closing ceremony the
Press Officer & Photographer should be
included in the credits.
Where
appropriate, a caption for each photo,
identifying the people in the photo, should
be contained in the report, (ideally at the
end after the author's name).
For example: TriplesWinners.jpg - Exiles Open Triples Winners with Sponsor - L
to R: Jane Doe, Joe Bloggs, George Harrison,
(Sponsor), & Maria Gonzalez.
|
Don't stand
too far away from the
subjects. |
Avoid strong back light.
(Causes shadows
across the faces of the subjects.)
|
No Date Stamps
or descriptive text on the photos. |
If you have a suitable photo processing
program, crop the photos to remove
extraneous material, adjust
brightness/contrast and reduce/increase the size to about
1024 pixels width. |
Send photos as
attachments to an email in .jpg format, not
embedded in a Word document. Keep maximum
size of photo to 1024 pixels, (still
very high definition, but reduces time to
send and disk space).
|
Static
Groups, (or Single Bowler) |
Spend time arranging the
subjects to make sure all are visible and
the overall distribution is balanced. Try to
arrange subjects in more interesting poses
than the traditional format. (Ignore
protests from impatient subjects!) For large
groups consider arranging lines of chairs. |
Avoid busy backgrounds,
(presentation tables, club & sponsor
banners, other people not subjects to the
photo, club houses, tables & chairs).
If
weather conditions permit, choose an
uncluttered section of the green.
Superimpose sponsor logo/s in an appropriate
position on the photo afterwards, adding
drop shadow effects to resemble 3D effect,
if possible. (Best program for this is still
probably Photoshop). |
If sunny
make sure the subjects are facing the sun.
(Avoids shadows on the faces). Keep your
shadow away from the subjects.
|
Where appropriate ask
subjects to remove hats or sunglasses. |
|
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Character styles. |
Style Type |
Case |
Align |
Font |
Size |
Bold |
Italics |
Underline |
Colour |
Used for |
Heading 1 |
Title |
L |
Arial |
16 |
Yes |
No |
No |
Black |
Main Heading,
(Normally identifying the Event/News item),
e.g. “2011 Champion of Champions Event”. |
Heading 2 |
Title |
L |
Arial |
14 |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Black |
Sub-Heading,
e.g. "Joe
Blow Does It Again!",
“Results”, “Presentation” |
Normal |
Sentence |
L |
Arial |
12 |
No |
No |
No |
Black |
Body of
text, detail.
e.g. " On Sunday 30th January, the
expat teams representing England & Wales did
battle at Vistabella Bowls Club for the John
Cooper Memorial Trophy.” |
Although choosing more exotic types
of fonts, colours & other formatting choices may appeal
to your artistic temperament, it could render the text
less legible, especially when transported to the web
environment.
SO PLEASE CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM - FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR
READERS!
Avoid using ALL
CAPITALS anywhere in your report, it comes across
overbearing and unattractive. |
Excess space
between paragraphs. |
|
Do not
leave a vertical space between a heading, or
(sub-heading), and the text below it.
Do not leave a vertical space between 2
paragraphs of normal text. |
NO |
 |
YES |
 |
|
Aligning text. |
Do
not use extra horizontal spaces to indent or
centre text. |
|
Instead use the alignment tools feature provided
by the word processing program.
Just click anywhere on text you want to align
and then click the required alignment icon. This
useful feature will save you time and do the job
properly! |
 |
|
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TABLES
are extremely useful in cases where you need text and/or
photos aligned in Rows & Columns.
Advantages:-
-
Simple to create &
modify.
-
Much more effective than
Tabs.
-
Simpler & more flexible
than Excel.
-
Can be easily copied &
pasted into Web Authoring programs.
(Use your favourite Search
Engine to find some excellent tutorials on MS Word
Tables.) |
Insert
a table |
Decide the approx, number of Columns/Rows
required.
Select Table/Insert at the
top of the screen & follow Instructions.
A 2
column by 2 row table will look like this:-
|
Entering data. |
Click on any Cell, (the space at the
intersection of a Row and Column) and type text
or paste images as if the cell were a complete
page.
This space is called a Cell. |
You can edit the contents of a Cell just
like you would a normal page, using
Font/Size/Bold/Italics/Underline/Alignment/Colour
& all the other editing features. |
You can insert/paste pictures in a cell.
 |
Regardless of the amount of content in
Cells, Tables keep your columns & Rows
tidy. Especially when the Table is
published on the Web.
Tabs do not do a good job especially on
the Web and are generally untidy.
Columns do not stay in line. |
|
Selecting parts of a Table. |
-
Click on any part of the table you want to
select, (for editing purposes, inserting,
deleting).
-
Click on Table/Select on the top of the
screen.
-
Click on the part you require to select:
Table/Column/Row/Cell.
|
Column widths |
You
can modify any column width by employing one of
2 methods:-
Method 1
( recommended for accuracy) |
-
Select the Column/s whose width you
wish to modify.
-
Click on Table/Table
Properties/Column on the top of the
screen.
-
Specify the Column Width you
require.
|
Method 2
( recommended for speed) |
-
Select the Column/s whose width you
wish to modify.
-
Move the mouse slowly over the right
hand column border line, (do not
drag the mouse), until a horizontal
double-headed arrow appears.
-
Drag the double-headed arrow left or
right to modify column width.
|
|
Insert
Row/s or Column/s |
-
Select the
Row/s or
Column/s
next to which you wish to Insert.
-
Click on Table/Insert.
-
Follow the appropriate instructions.
|
Delete
Row/s or Column/s |
-
Select the
Row/s or
Column/s
adjacent to which you wish to
Delete.
-
Click on Table/Delete.
-
Follow the appropriate instructions.
Note: pressing the Delete key will
delete the contents , but not the Row/s
or Columns. |
Table Borders |
-
Select the
Table,
Row/s or Column/s
you wish to Format.
-
Click on Format.
-
Click on Borders & Shading.
-
Follow the appropriate instructions.
|
Table Alignment |
-
Right Click
anywhere on the Table.
-
Select Table
Properties.
-
Select the
alignment you require: left, centre or
right.
(Text alignment
within a cell is achieved using normal Text
Alignment tools as described above.) |
Splitting a Table |
-
Click anywhere
on the Row above which to split the Table
-
Select
Table/Split Table.
|
Nested Tables |
-
A Nested Table is simply
a Table occupying the cell of another Table.
It can be useful at times, (refer to the
examples on this page).
-
To insert a new
Table in a cell of another table, simple
click on the destination cell and then
perform the same process as you would for
inserting a table in a normal page.
|
Deleting a table |
- Click
anywhere in the Table.
-
Select Table/Select/Table at
the top of the screen.
-
Select
Table/Delete/Table.
|
|
Go to Top |
|