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Learn More about being a HorseIceCream Author
HorseIceCream.com authors are special people. They are horse folks that want to share their
knowledge and experience with others. They are willing to contribute their precious time to write
and publish articles that improve the lives of horses and their people. Do you want to be a
HorseIceCream.com Author?
Great! Here's what you need to know.
- Author Application
HorseIceCream.com gives credit to our contributors.
At the bottom of every article there's information
about the author(s). There's the name, background information, contact information, and, if available,
a web site link and a photograph. So the first we need to know some information about you.
The HorseIceCream.com Author Application walks you through providing us that information.
Click Here to
fill out a HorseIceCream.com Author Application
If you want to print out an application to fill out before applying on line Author Signup Workshet (PDF).
- Basic Article Information
- Length of articles should be around 200 and 1000 words.
- Must be written in English.
- HIC reserves right to edit or reject articles and control release date.
- Must be your original work, if you interviewed someone, they need to give you permission
to publish thier words.
- May contain photographs, charts, drawings, etc. - contact us about getting them to us. Most formats are
acceptable
- What's needed: title, summary, author, keywords, topic area.,
Click Here to print a HorseIceCream.com Article Worksheet
- Ideas for Articles
- What it was like riding on local trails
- The history, description, and personal observations about a particular breed of horse
- Tips for cleaning tack
- How you dealt with a horse recovering from an accident
- Everyday concerns for an elderly horse
- Grooming for show day
- Vacation experiences involving horses
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- How to Write an Article in 8 Easy Steps
Please remember that you must only submit articles and images to which you own the rights. This means that you wrote the articles you submit. It also means that photographs included you took, you have written permission to use, or come from a royalty free source. If there are charts or graphs, you must have created them, have permission to use, or reference the public source as in a bibliography. Also keep in mind that this is a Family-Oriented site, thus we can only accept materials that are in keeping with our family values.
- Choose A Topic
Although, HorseIceCream.com article topics should interest our local communities, the articles can be about anything related to equines. For example an article about "therapeutic benefits of keeping horses on pirate ships at sea" is not really an appropriate topic for our audience. Other than that write what you know. If you have lots of experience trail riding, please share what you've learned. Perhaps you have cleaned several mountains of tack. Along the way you've learned some tricks - there you go, write up those tricks so your fellow equestrians can benefit.
- Jot down ideas to you want to cover
Think about the topic; let's assume it is "cleaning tack". Jot down all the points that you want to make the article. Don't worry about grammar or complete sentences right now; just write down each of the ideas. Try to keep the list under ten unique ideas.
- Determine how the ideas relate to each other
Let's say your topic is cleaning tack. And you have 10 tips. You've written them down and discover you have 6 unique tips related to saddles. The other 4 relate to other tack. Maybe you should just use the saddle-related ones and keep the others for another article. Now all of the ideas (tips) relate to really getting saddles clean. Thus you have what you need to use to create your article title, how to start your article introduction, and what you need to cover in your summary.
- Create a title for your article
Based on what you've decided in the prior steps, create a meaningful title. A meaningful title lets the reader know not only the topic but also what's special about the topic that's worth writing (and reading) about. Don't make the title so short that it's boring: "Cleaning A Saddle". But don't make it really long either - the reader may lose interest. For example, your title might be "Here's How to Remove the Deep Down Dirt from Your Saddle".
- Write your introductory paragraph
The Introduction for the article might contain a sentence about how dirty saddles can get, a couple sentences about how a regular cleaning might not get the saddle really clean, and a sentence addressing your thoughts on how the saddle should be cleaned.
- Expand your ideas into full paragraphs
For each of the ideas you want to cover in your article, write down the specifics. These details describe the idea to the reader. If your idea includes a way to easily clean the stirrups, you might list all of the materials to gather, explain how each item is used, and tell the reader common mistakes that are made when cleaning stirrups. Repeat the process for each idea. Compose the notes into paragraphs. These paragraphs are the body of your article.
- Arrange your ideas to make the article "flow"
Arrange the paragraphs in the body in such a way that the article flows from one idea to the next. For example cleaning the stirrups would be near cleaning the stirrup leathers. Add a transitional statement at the end of the beginning of a paragraph to link the ideas together. For example, "Now that the stirrups are clean, let's move on to the stirrup leathers."
- Summarize your points in the conclusion
Put together a paragraph with highlights of the ideas that you want the reader to remember. In addition to summarizing what you covered in the article, the conclusion is the last time you can remind the reader of an important point. By repeating the point in the conclusion, you emphasize its importance. Don't make the conclusion too long lest the reader will feel you're belaboring the points instead of summarizing them.
- Proofread. Tweak. Repeat.
Make sure the article says what you want it to say. After you change any part of the article, reread it from the top. Sometimes reading it out loud helps you decide if a sentence "sounds right". Don't fret if your grammar isn't great or your spelling isn't spectacular - the HorseIceCream.com editor is here to help. The HorseIceCream.com editor reads all submitted articles before publication. If the article needs clarification or does not meet the specifications listed in the "basic article information" section, the editor will contact you with recommended changes before publishing.
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- Publish Your Article on HorseIceCream.com
- Write your article
- Sign up to be an author
- , or ask them on the forum
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