{"id":300,"date":"2019-04-15T19:00:22","date_gmt":"2019-04-15T18:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/shakespeare\/?page_id=300"},"modified":"2019-04-16T13:56:45","modified_gmt":"2019-04-16T12:56:45","slug":"getting-started","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/shakespeare\/getting-started\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting started"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before you start writing, take a look at some examples in the archive from last year’s cohort. They demonstrate in different ways the levels of research, reflection, tone, humour, and creativity, that can go into your blog posts. They also show good practice in linking through to useful electronic resources as a form of referencing (much like including a footnote to evidence a point in an essay) as well as the use of embedding media.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Creating a new post:<\/h6>\n

Posts appear in reverse chronological order, and can be tagged and categorised.\u00a0 To start, go to the blog’s “Dashboard” (https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/shakespeare\/wp-admin) and click on the second pin icon on the left to open ‘posts\u2019, then click on \u2018add new\u2019.\u00a0You can save your writing in draft form by clicking\u00a0 \u2018Save Draft\u2019 on the top right column of the ‘Edit’ page. When you’re ready, you can then click ‘Publish’. Remember to put your name and the name of anyone who has helped contribute to this post at the bottom of the page.<\/p>\n

Formatting your blog:<\/strong><\/h6>\n

You can add photos, video and audio files to your blog by clicking on \u2018Add Media\u2019 at the top of the ‘edit’ page. You will then be asked to upload a file saved from your computer, which you can crop or edit using ‘paint’ or a similar app on your computer. You can control the size and position of your image using the right hand column of the \u2018Add Media\u2019 page.<\/p>\n

You can easily embed videos (e.g.Youtube, Vimeo) audio (e.g. from Soundcloud, Spotify), maps (e.g. Googlemaps) or other items from the university’s ‘whitelist’ providers like Twitter or Instagram. Simply paste the URL of the item you want to use into the \u2018draft\u2019 section of WordPress, and it should automatically transform into embedded content.<\/p>\n

You should aim to use images or other media files which hold a \u2018creative commons\u2019 licence, i.e. the image can be reused freely without breaching copyright. In addition to ‘Early English Books Online’ (EEBO<\/a>) which we’ll be learning about in the first week, some other places you can search for creative commons images are:<\/p>\n