Get your articles published!

Hello Authors,

If you've wanted to try your hand at writing an article for Flite Test, or you have written one that has not yet been published, and you're not sure why, this write-up is intended to help you reach your goals.

The Articles section is intended to be something different from the Forums.  It's supposed to be a way to share information in a complete package to help "Elevate, Educate, and Entertain" fellow Flite Test community members.  The model is the Instructables website.  The idea is that community members can take what they've learned, and write it up in such a way that anyone who reads the article will be able to duplicate the project being shared.  The Articles section is not designed to be a showcase for your most recent FPV flight, or to post a half-completed project.  That's where the Flite Test Forums come in.  In the Forums you can share experiences, ask questions, get feedback, give advice, and have a good back-and-forth conversation with other forum users.  Speaking of the forums, there is a section just for articles, you can check it out here... The Articles Forum

Writing Tips

I'll start with some simple writing techniques that will help you create your article.  

First- Ask yourself: is the topic you're wanting to share going to have value to the reader? If the answer is a resounding "yes!" then keep reading. If the answer is a tentative "maybe" or an unfortunate "no" then you may want to look around Flite Test to get some inspiration, or perhaps visit the forums to bounce ideas off your friends. Once your idea has gelled a bit proceed.

Second- You'll need to organize your article.  You'll need these three things:

     1. Introduction-  This lays the foundation and lets the reader know what to expect.  Basiclly let the readers know what you're going to tell them about.

      2. Body- This contains the main points you want to make in support of your article.  

• In this section you can explain why you picked the topic you've chosen to share.
• This is where you share any research you've done to write your article.  For example, if you're writing about a historic aircraft you are modelling, you could include pictures of the original aircraft, statistics, your goals in trying to recreate it, etc.
• If you're showing how to do something, the more step-by-step pictures you include the better.
• If you've built an aircraft, include a flight report and video.  

      3. Conclusion- This provides closure and reinforces the theme.  In this section you will summarize for the reader what you've just told them.

Writing an Article

Then select the "Create New Article" tab.

The Articles section has a good format to help you build your article.  

1. Choose a title that lets the reader know what you're sharing.  
2. Pick a good thumbnail to catch the reader's attention.  
3. Choose which catagory, or catagories that most accurately describe your article.  If you're talking about a scratch-build plane that flies LOS, then you shouldn't choose Helicopters, or FPV.
4. Choose the Type of article you're writing.  Some of the topcis overlap, so use the provided link that gives you a description to help you decide.
5. This is the place for the actual article.  More on that below.
6. Write a short description of what your article is about.
7. This section allows you to link to similar articles.  Hopefully your article creates an interest in the topic so that the reader wants to go out and find out more information.

If you have any questions please feel free to use the conversation box for speaking with the moderators.  Or you can contact me directly. 

Examples

Here are a few examples of authors who have a great grasp of article writing:

Timmy P wrote a great article about his build of the Cessna T-50 Bobcat.

WakeboardingFilms did a great job of sharing a project, a "Simple Awesome Work Bench".

WakeboardingFilms also wrote about his T28 build.

Pretty much any article by nerdnic can be used as an example of how to write an article.

HilldaFlyer did a great job writing about how to waterproof your Dollar Tree Foam Board.  He even included graphs, and charts.

Getting approved

There are a few types of authors in the Articles sections, but for this section we'll break them down to two: pre-approved authors and authors whose work is submited, reviewed, then approved. 

The pre-approved authors do not go through a moderator to get published, but for the rest of the authors there are several things that will prevent an article from getting published.

One of the largest hang-ups for approval are submissions of "articles" that only include videos without any sort of write-up.  To see what the moderators are looking for, refer to any of the Flite Test articles related to their video episodes.  They include several stills from their video in the article.  This is helpful if the video link doesn't work, as it still allows the reader to get a good understanding of what the author is trying to share.  A good program to help with this is Skitch.  It's free, and it allows some basic editing, such as lines, circles, arrows and text to be included in the image. I actually used it to prepare this tutorial.

Another roadblock to publishing is incompleteness.  Some authors will start an article about a topic like a build that has come to a challenging point and they are soliciting their readers for help.  This would be better suited as a posting in the forum section.

Text with no supporting material is not likely to be published.  There's always some relevant image you can include with your article to help convey your message to the reader. You are obviously interested in your topic enough to write about it, so you will want to include images or videos to interest your audience and help make your points more concrete.

Conclusion

In conclusion, hopefully this article will leave you with an understanding of how the Articles section works and enable you to write an article interesting and valuable to readers at Flite Test.  This write-up discussed the way to navigate the website to write the article.  I laid out the steps involved in using the articles template.  Examples of successful article submissions and authors were provided to help illustrate the points I made.  I also provided an overview of the challenges that writers might face that could prevent approval. 

I look forward to reading your submissions, and seeing the Articles section of the Flite Test community grow with your support.