# SUBDAILY EDITORIAL STYLE GUIDE

## 1.0
This document contains the writing style for contents that'll be published on subdaily. These guidelines will dictate the style, structure and strategy of our contents, in order to ensure consistency and brand ourselves with a single "voice".

The key focus of [Subdaily](https://subdaily) are:

- Information
- Education
- Growth

The contents on [Subdaily](https://subdaily.io) shouldn't "shill" projects. Rather, it should be driven by five backbones:
- Accuracy.
- Originality.
- Transparency.
- Relevance.
- Practicality.

The backbones above are what subdaily should be known for. Therefore, our contents MUST reflect these.

## 1.1 Content goals

- To provide trusted and accurate contents.
- To build trust within the DotSama community.
- To provide content that are informative and educational, yet welcoming to new individuals.
- To help our readers grow in the DotSama community.

## 2.0 Audience

The target audience for subdaily are:

- Users that are not yet acquainted with the DotSama ecosystem.
- Potential employees looking to break into the DotSama ecosystem.
- Prospective ecosystem Developers.
- Existing DotSama community, who want to keep up-to-date with the latest information.
- Anyone who wants to educate themselves about the ecosystem.
- Users looking for jobs and opportunities in the ecosystem.

It's important that we target our contents to fit the audience above. In essence, our audience are users that often have these questions:

- how do I master the [Polkadot](https://polkadot.network) ecosystem and the blockchain ecosystem in general?
- How do I keep up with what's happening in the ecosystem?
- What are the opportunities available in the DotSama community?
- I'm keen on educating myself about the ecosystem. But I just don't know how and where to start.
- How do I become a developer in the space?
- How do I build my skills in order to becomeemployable in the space?

The contents on subdaily **SHOULD** **NOT** target:

- Users looking to benefit from trading ideas.
- Users looking for investment programs.
- Users looking to make quick cash, but are not keen on growing themselves in the space.

## 3.0 The types of contents that subdaily covers
As specified earlier, all of subdaily's contents should be geared towards educating, informing or growing the reader/the ecosystem. The contents in Subdaily will mostly include:

- News contents. These include news on the relay chains (e.g upgrades, governance news etc), the parachains, and other substrate-based chains.
- Educational courses
- Technical contents (on substrate, rust, react, etc)
- 101 guides
- Explainers
- Tutorials
- Contents that expose users to opportunities (hackathons, jobs, Ambassadorship programs, etc)
- Project reviews.

## 4.0 Length of content
The longer, the better. But quality should be prioritized over quantity.

In general,

- News articles should be between 200 to 1000 words long.
- 101 guides and definitive guides should be at least 2,000 words long.
- Project reviews should be at least 500 words long.

The ranges above aren't set in stone, and the length(s) of contents should be driven by the topic(s) you're writing on. Quality should always be the priority, and contents should not be bumped up with filler words, just to increase their lengths.

## 5.0 Featured Images
The featured Images for our contents should reflect the tone of the platform.
In general,

- The color combination should include our brand colors and the brand color(s) of the entity we're writing about
- the featured images across the site should have a uniform "theme".
- The amount of texts on the images should be limited (preferrably, there should be none).
- The featured image should symbolize what the content is about

These are the hex codes for Subdaily brand colors:
- #1e104c
- #00d8ff
- 8085e8
- ff00cc
- 130051


Here's an example of featured images that suit the theme of Subdaily. This featured image was for a content on [Polkadot Governance](https://subdaily.io/learn/explainers/a-detailed-guide-to-governance-in-polkadot/):


## 6.0 Content heading

The heading of contents to be publishd on [Subdaily](https://subdaily.io) should:

- Clearly reflect the topic being discussed
- Not be more than 10 words long
- Outline the main points in the first and last 3 words, since these are what readers absorb the most
- Not be overly click-baity but should explain what the content has to offer
- Contain The key problems and the solution (if applicable)
- For news, it should reflect the parties involved.

For example,

- Let's say you're writing an article on how to become a substrate developer:

- This is good: *How to become a Substrate developer*.
- This is better: *How to build blockchains with Substrate*.
- This is the best: *Learn to build secure and inter-operable blockhains with Substrate*.
- This is too click-baity: *You won't believe how easy substrate developement is. Click to find out*.

## 7.0 Article content body

Subdaily articles should have clearly segmented sections for the introduction, body and conclusion.

### 7.1.0 Introduction
The aim of the introduction section should be to highlight the issue(s), and how the article will help address this/these issue(s).

The introduction section must answer two questions for the reader:

- Which of my issues does this article focus on.
- How does this article aim to solve this issue.

The introductory section should aim to answer the questions above, as well as help make the readers feel at home.

Here's an example of a good introductory section for subdaily articles:

Article topic: [POLKADOT 101: A Beginner’s Guide To Polkadot](https://subdaily.io/learn/101-guides/polkadot-101-a-beginners-guide-to-polkadot/)

Article Introduction:

The introduction section above explained the issue, touched on how the article will help address the issue, and went a step further to make the reader feel at home.

#### 7.1.1 For technical guides
For technical guides, the introduction section should also contain set-ups that the reader will need in order to follow on with the guide.

### 7.2.0 Body

The body of Subdaily articles will depend on the topic. But all contents should follow some important guidelines:

#### 7.2.1 Use sub-headings properly
Sub-headings should be used frequently and properly. H2 sub-headings should be used for top-level sections. H3 and H4 subheadings should be used for sub-sections of the top-level sections

A good example of the proper use of sub-headings, is the section in which we're now. Notice that we're currently in the "body" section (H3), which is a sub-section of the "Article content body" (H2) section. The "body" section then has sub-sections under it, whose headings are written with H4.

#### 7.2.2 Make sure there're enough internal and external links
There should be enough links to other contents within and outside the platform. These links will help readers learn more about what's being discussed, by directing them to other resources.

As a rule of thumb, bolding of words should be minimal (unless absolutely needed). If a word or a fact needs to be bolded, then it's better-off being linked to sources where the user can get more information.

#### 7.2.3 Should be free of typos and punctuation errors
It's important that subdaily contents are free of grammatical errors.

All contents will be reviewed by the editor, but content writers should do justice to their contents with regards to grammer and typos, to reduce the amount of corrections that the editor has to deal with.

#### 7.2.4 Use simple words
Simplicity is key, with regards to subdaily contents. It's easier for readers to read through and understand contents when they're written in simple words.

Fancy and uncommon words should be avoided as much as possible. Sentences should be easy to assimilated, and straight to the point.

#### 7.2.5 Avoid passive voice in the sentences, where possible
Passive word often make sentences unnecessarily longer for the readers. This reduces readability and comprehension. Therefore, passive voice should be avoided as much as possible.

Take these two sentences for example:

*"On the second day of Polkadot Decoded, A presentation on Governance 2.0 was given by Gavin Wood. In the presentation, the various ways in which the polkadot could be made even more decentralized than it currently is, were discussed".*

*"On the second day of Polkadot Decoded, Gavin Wood gave gave a presentation on Governance 2.0. In the presentation, he discussed how Governance 2.0 will help decentralize Polkadot even further".*

Unlike the first sentence, the second sentence used active voice. Consequently, the second sentence was shorter, more readable and more comprehensible.

#### 7.2.6 Limit the use of sentence fillers and wordiness
It's okay to tell stories in order to drive home points, but this should be minimal and if present, should be short and in direct relationship with the context.

Limit the use of sentence fillers. Most sentences that start with "it is..." and "there are..." often add complications to simple sentences and should be avoided as much as possible.

For example,

"*There're a lot of opportunities in the space. It is for this reason, that the blockchain space is the best place for new entrepreneurs to grow*" **can be re-written to:**

*The blockchain space is the best place for new entrepreneus to grow, because there're a lot of opportunities in the space*.

#### 7.2.7 Avoid long, drawn-out sentences
Sentences should be as short as possible. It's best to keep our sentence lengths to an average of 10 - 15 words per sentence. This makes the contents easier for the readers to comprehend. It's not always possible to keep the number of words within these limit. But where ever we can, we should.

writers can use conjuctions to break down sentences, to help shorten them.

For example, we could further make the sentence above more comprensible by breaking it into two sentences:

*The blockchain space is the best place for new entrepreneus to grow. This is because there're a lot of opportunities in the space*

#### 7.2.8 Use as much custom Images as possible
Subdaily's contents should limit the use of external graphics because of 3 reasons.

- Secondary downloads of external graphics usually lead to low quality.
- External graphics won't rythm with theme of Subdaily.
- It's easy to run into copyright issues when using external graphics.

Where possible, we should create our own graphics for the body of the contents.

#### 7.2.9 Avoid copy-and-paste
Subdaily contents should always be written to be better than what's already existing. Therefore,it's better improve what's already out there, than to replicate it.

#### 7.2.10 Confirm the accuracy of statements before adding them to the body

The aim of subdaily is to provided accurate and trusted contents. Therefore, the validity of our contents should be confirmed before publishing them.

In situations where validity of contents can't be confirmed, they should be removed. We should always make references to the sources of abstract data. These abstract data include statistics and facts.

Making reference to sources simply involve adding hyperlinks to those sources.

#### 7.2.11 News articles should be well researched
News articles can be as short as 200 words, but should be accurate and well-researched.

It should intelligently create connections between the current happenings with past and future events.

#### 7.2.12 Illustrations are key
This might not be applicable to all contents. But the more illustrations (eg via screenshots and diagrams) our contents contain, the better. This is especially important for tutorials and explainer-contents.

Code-heavy contents should contain enough block-coded illustrations that the reader can easily follow on their own environements.

#### 7.2.13 Always ask the backbone questions
Before publishing your contents, ask yourself the "backbone" questions:

- How accurate is my content?
- How original is my content?
- How transparent is my content?
- How relevant is my content?
- How practical is my content?

An ideal content for subdaily should easily give a positive answer to these questions. if there're doubts, then the content probably needs improvements.

### 7.3 The conclusion
The conclusion should,

- Reiterate (in 2 - 3 sentences) what the content covered.
- Suggest next steps for the reader (where applicable)
- Direct the reader to relevant resources within and outside the platform.

## 8.0 Suggested flow for writing contents
The content workflow below is just a suggestion, but will help ensure content quality and efficiency. Feel free to design your own workflow.

- Start by doing some research on the content you're writing. Get a hold of points, facts, statistics etc. Make sure that you know exactly why you're writing the content.
- Draft an outline of the contents
- Decide on a headline
- Write your content, keeping Subdaily's style guide in mind.
- Cross-check your content. Make sure that
- It has enough internal and external links
- It's free of typos and grammatical errors (it's adivsable to use [Grammarly](https://www.grammarly.com/) for grammar checks)
- The contents are well organized
- It's in keeping with this style guide.
- Design and add the necessary gallery where applicable
- Design and add the featured Image
- Select the category of the content
- Publish. In some cases, you might have to publish in private. The Editor will then have to revise your content and make sure the content is in keeping with the style guide, before making it public.
- Post the article/News on our social media channels (including twitter).

## 9.0 Other forms of contents

### 9.1 Podcasts
This style guide applies to Podcasts too.
The voice of our podcasts should be informational and educational; Formal but friendly.

Podcasts should refrain (as much as possible) from trade talks, investing etc.

### 9.2 Twitter
Subdaily's twitter account should be flexible enough to experiment with new engagement strategies. Graphics posted on twitter should be in keeping with the general theme of subdaily (based on the brand colors listed above). Twitter posts should have relevant hashtags, and should tag relevant parties.

However, the account **should not** tweet contents that:

- Shill projects
- Critize projects
- Talk about sensitive issues like Politics, religion and war.
- Post NSFW content.

Here're content Ideas that are welcome (and **recommended**) for our twitter account:

- Twitter threads of educational and informational contents
- Daily recap of news contents
- tweeting articles from Subdaily
- twitter polls
- celebration posts
- industry facts
- intersting statistics
- Retweeting and Quote-tweeting on interesting projects in the ecosystem.

## 10.0 Dealing with the community

Our major communities will be in

- Telegram,
- Discord, and
- Twitter

Just like our twitter account, the tone of contents we post on the other communities should portray formality and friendliness.

Our tone should send the message that [Subdaily](https://subdaily.io) is a friendly and welcoming platform, but also a formal one.

***It's important that we keep these style guides in mind when writing for subdaily or dealing with our communities. This is to ensure that we consistently put out quality contents and brand ourselves with a single "voice"***

Thank you.