The Guide To Making A Good Guide

Guides
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Within forums many users will choose to create guides. A guide is a thread designated to teaching other users and forum viewers how to do a certain task successfully or provide assistance to those in need. Making a guide does not signify a user of being successful nor does being successful mean a user should or can make a helpful or well written guide. Successful and well written guides contain many key components that will be discussed in this section.

Many steps are used in creating a guide, the first basic steps to making a good guide are listed below.

1. To create a guide the user must first either feel or be designated to create one. At this point the member will choose a topic for their guide.
2. Once the topic is chosen, the user should set out to accumulate and do research about the subject they wish to write about. Searching for similar guides or using trustworthy resources is advised to accompany the user through this task.
3. Once the user has gathered all the desired information, he should look through the forum sections to see which best suites the guide. When the desired section is found, he may start to create a thread for the guide in that section.
4. The user should create an outline or simply an index with a brief summary of what topics and sections will be featured in the guide. This helps to get an overview of the guide and acts as a reminder in some cases.
5. Creating a title for the thread should be the next step; although it may be created anywhere along the line. The title of a guide is very important, if the guide is meant to help many general people or a commonly asked question the user must consider what people may search for in google or other search engines and base the title of the guide off of it. This will draw in more attention and make the guide useful to a greater crowd.
6. Now the user can start writing the guide (see below for more information)

Emergencies and planning:
Some guides may take days and countless hours to write find the perfect word choice. It is a good idea to have a plan of action in case the guide takes too long to write or emergencies arise. One of the most commonly encountered fatalities is the loss of the thread. A user may accidentally close the page or create the thread before it has been completed. To prevent situations such as losing the guide itself, one may copy and paste the guide into a different savable program as a backup. It is always a good idea to make backups for major threads that may be lost due to accidents, but it is always wisest to keep in mind that some programs may not be able to handle links, images, and other special forum options. Sometimes a user may accidentally post his guide before completion, to prevent this the user may scroll down to the poll section of the page and enter a poll. Without any responses for the poll the user may not post the thread, and is safe from any accidents. To fix the poll and post the thread, simply remove any text that has been pasted within the poll.
hi
Writing the guide:
Once a guide has reached the state where it has a basic outline, it's time to begin writing it. Writing a guide may seem fairly simple; however for the guide itself to flow smoothly throughout and be pleasing to read it should contain several traits as listed below. Some of the ways successful guides are written may seem tough and difficult, but in the end they pay off and serve as help to many people.

The following are some traits good guides should and do exhibit:

• Writing in third person, simply put this means no reference to the writer or readers (I, you, we, etc. are no-no's). This is one of the most lacked traits in writing guides, but using it guarantees that the reader will have a better time reading and learning from the text.
  • *Any first person text throughout this guide is a quote, in which case may be exceptional.
• Using detail, that is to say the writer of the guide should take Dr. Seuss', "The cat sat on the mat," and transform it into Shakespeare's, "The oblivious feline reclined upon the forbidden carpet!"
• Being formal, this means the guide is not meant to be funny but draw attraction and offer advice. Guides should be written as if writing to the U.S. President who will broadcast it on live television.
• Using good format. Every writer has their own way of writing things and making their writing seem appealing. Some guides containfonts and colors, others express their views with well written phrases and links to helpful sources.
• Pictures may also be a helpful tool to assist users in creating guides as they offer something desirable to look at and help the user visualize certain situations. Over use of photographs may however detract from the audience.
• Using correct grammar and spelling also offer a pleasant feel to the guide. A person reading a guide whose words are all capitalized may not have the most pleasant of times. Nor that lone writing professor with OCD who notices the missuse of a comma.
• Above all else proofreading is one of the most important things one must do before creating a guide. Proofreading is the act of going back over the guide and reading it for one's self. As this is being done the user may spot areas that could be improved or notice minor spelling errors. It is usually best to have others proofread the document as well as they may notice other imperfections. Some people misuse many commas or basic grammar errors and punctuation. To fix this one may use Microsoft Word to check for these errors.

 

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Thanks for telling me

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