Style guide

• Author bio
• Headlines and captions
• Images
• Embeds
• Tags
• Corrections
• Editor’s note
• Publication branding

Author bio

Length:

Your bio should be no more than two or three lines. Be concise, yet tell readers a little about yourself beyond simply being a student at King’s. To change your bio, click on your username once you’re logged into WordPress.

Photo:

Use a clean and clear image that shows your face.

Headlines and captions

Length:

The length of our display text is important. Shorter is better, especially on mobile, but aim for clarity above all. These are guidelines:

• Story kicker: 20 chars. (including spaces) — one or two words
• Story page headline: 60 chars. max (including spaces) — around 10 words
• Home page (social) headline: 50 chars. (including spaces) — around 8 words
• Deck: 8-20 words
• Subheads: 3-5 words
• Captions: 5-18 words (Shorter is best. If a caption is too long it’ll obscure the photo in mobile view)

Style:

• Story subheads are <h3>

Images

1. Upload images in a 16:9 aspect ratio. WordPress will create three sizes automatically:
   • Large:  990px (full width for news feature story)
   • Medium:  726px (full width for news story)
   • Thumbnail: 250px  (for display on index pages and search results)
2. The Featured Image must be horizontal. WordPress will (virtually) crop Featured Images to a 16:9 aspect ratio, where the height is 56% of the width. Physically pre-cropping your images to this aspect ratio before you upload will ensure they are displayed as you want them to be.

Embeds

Embedded media that span more than half of the story width in a desktop browser should be made to span the full width of the story. Otherwise, the embed will be too narrow to read on mobile.

• Set widths (usually on <div> or <iframe>) to 100%
• If you need to set a height, set it to 400px

Tags

Every story must contain tags (separated by commas).  They can be any of:

• An issue (if relevant). Eg.:
  • Academic Freedom
  • Federal Election 2019
  • Dal Dentistry
• Proper names of sources and organizations. Eg.:
  • Ken Fells
  • Black Educators Association
• Recognizable locations (not street addresses, though). Eg.:
  • Pizza Corner
  • Spring Garden Road
  • Point Pleasant Park
  • Windsor
• Any multimedia (other than mandatory top image). Eg.:
  • Video
  • Photo gallery
  • Audio
  • Infographic
  • Chart
  • Timeline
• Course number. Make sure a workshop course has both numbers separated by a hyphen.
  • 5153 (Boot Camp Reporting)
  • 4857-5857 (News Reporting Workshop)
  • 4858-5858 (TV Workshop)
  • 4856-5846 (Radio Workshop)
  • 4002 (Honours Project)
  • 3005 (Third-year Broadcast Reporting)
  • 2701 (Second-year Intermediate Reporting)

Corrections

We should always be transparent about how we fix errors in stories that have been published. We don’t need to advise our readers about updates — new information added to the story as it becomes available. We must, however, tell our readers when we alter an existing fact or quote in the story. Use the Corrections field at the bottom of a WordPress post. A correction typically takes the form of:

Jan. 23, 2015: An earlier version of this story misstated the number of  ..

 

Editor’s Note

Enter a short phrase to explain an editing choice, warn of strong language or a potentially disturbing topic, advise of updated content, etc.

Publication branding

• Refer to our publication as The Signal, not TheSignal
• Logos (click for larger versions):

   

Last Updated: November 6, 2020, 8:36 am AST