Help! How do I…

How do I submit a news/event announcement for consideration in Nebraska Today?

From UNL Announce, select Submit A News Item:

• Is your item a News Announcement or an Event Announcement?
• Examples of news: grant, honor, award, feature story, discovery, new project.
• Examples of events: Anything with a date/time/place attached to it: Lecture, seminar, conference, performance, concert, show, program, open house, reception.

What if I think it's both?

Sure. Like announcing a series of lectures or tickets/reservations open for some future event?

• Enter it as a News Announcement, then add the specific dates and topics into the Events Announcement.
• Look at the submission forms when you click on each; they are slightly different. The News Announcement gives you more detail areas.

Under the Event Announcement submission, it asks me "Which Event" when I entered the date. Why?

Either enter the event as a new event, or, before you get to this screen, enter your event in the Events calendar – this interface pulls events from the Events calendar.

What's a summary and how long is a summary?

Ideally a summary is the few sentences that will appear in the e-newsletter that serves as a teaser/mini headline to get readers interested or give them the gist and no more. As you type, you will see the summary appear in the box on the right. The best summaries are very short – one or two sentences – and give the basic facts. Summaries are limited to 300 characters.

Full article: What does that mean?

Say you have an entire news release or feature story that you want to submit.

• Copy and paste it into "Full Article"
• This gives editors more that they can use in other ways and in other channels: Nebraska Today, Scarlet, or as a news release or pitch. If you've written it, submit it. Use the summary box for the edited/shortened version

You're asking when I want this to run. I get to choose?

• Your suggestions are helpful, and particularly useful if there is a deadline for entering, or you desire your event announcement to precede your event by a few days to give people time to plan to attend.
• Keep in mind that space and time constraints will dictate some of these decisions; we'll do our best to honor requests.
• Also remember that if you've entered your event in the UNL calendar, the events of that day will be part of the daily calendar.
• The "last date this could run" typically is the last day before your event is over.

Can I ask to run events and news on several days?

Once is enough because nobody wants to read the same announcements every day. If you have a series of events, make sure there is new information entered for every new day: a new title, speaker, location, etc.

Sponsoring unit: What does that mean? What if I'm submitting something for some other unit?

• The system reads who you are when you enter, and defaults to your "unit" after you've entered information.
• If you're entering something for another unit, change it so it's accurate.

Image upload: What type and size of image works best?

• Photos with action or plenty of visual appeal are best.
• If you have a speaker or event highlighting one or two people, submit "head and shoulders" shots.
• Provide good quality color photos, saved as RGB jpeg/jpg images and have them already tightly cropped, in good focus with good contrast.
• Type treatments, word marks and logos (university-approved) will be considered.
• The optimal size for full-width images is 556 pixels wide with varying height, thumbnails are rendered at 72x96 or 96x72 pixels (4x3 aspect ratio).

What's the deadline for submissions?

• During the summer we'll e-mail twice a week (Tuesdays and Fridays) – submit items no later than noon the prior day.
• During the fall, delivery will be every day Monday-Friday (not university holidays) – submit items no later than noon the prior day.

What if I have some late-breaking news that I just found out about that I really need to get out and it's after deadline?

This is probably a news judgment call that we can help with: Call Troy Fedderson, 402-472-8515. Most likely, it can wait until the next day; please remember to plan ahead.

Can I use this site to submit news releases or Scarlet features and briefs (instead of e-mailing them to Troy?

Yes. Until we all get used to this change, it's best to call ahead and explain your request.

Can I buy an advertisement or sponsorship within the electronic newsletter?

Yes. Call Troy Fedderson 472-8515

Who do I call with questions about Nebraska Today?

Call Troy Fedderson, 402-472-8515

Full sentences: Often people are tempted to enter an outline or bullet lists. Nebraska Today items are news briefs and we need full sentences. Calendar items are not required to be full sentences (although it would be just fine to use the same entry for both).

Dates: Time, Month, Date (in that order). No day of the week and no "th" or "st" at the end of the date.
Use "a.m." and "p.m." Abbreviate only: Jan., Feb., Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov., Dec. Use time ranges if they are pertinent Example: 2 p.m. May 19 Example: 2-4 p.m. Dec. 12

Punctuation: Follow standard punctuation rules. Please: No exclamation points!!!!! No ampersands (&) to shorten or replace the word "and". Ampersands only if they are officially in a brand name.

Phone numbers have hyphens in them, not periods: 402-472-8515

Acronyms: Use an acronym, initials etc. only on second reference. Spell out the entire name in first reference. No need to put the acronym in parentheses after spelling it out on first reference

Capitals: Please no ALL CAPS.

Lectures: Give the title of the lecture, if possible, in quotes, following the name of the presenter
Example: Janet Jones, professor, University of California, Berkeley, will present "How to Increase Soybean Yields." Do not use italics

Professor/Dr./Ph.D.: Do not put "Dr." in front of a professor's name. "Professor" on first reference, is acceptable; so is putting Ph.D after a name. We prefer a department or discipline in relation to professor: "UNL sociology professor Max Smith"

Tone: These are news items not advertisements or promos. Third-person, not "you" or "we". People are not invited, they are welcome. Keep in mind this is an internal newsletter and it is OK to have fun and be light-hearted if possible but our academic world often frowns on it. Personal and professional are two words that come to mind in writing for an internal faculty/staff audience.

Entice your reader to read more by writing an interesting, targeted summary. (300 characters max = 2 tweets)

Headlines with dates in them reinforce the date of your event.

If you have a deadline to submit something, purchase tickets or make a reservation, put it in the headline or the summary or the first paragraph of the full story. Don't make people read all the way to the end to find out they have a deadline.

Smart-quotes: Often quote marks and apostrophes do not translate well from word documents to the Web. Try to remember to turn off smart or "curly" quotes before copying and pasting something onto the Web.