How to Build a How To Page

Mahalo How To pages offer practical instructions on doing just about anything, from making bacon cupcakes, to making money on Twitter, to earning points on the FarmVille game.

Use the page How to Format a Hard Drive as the Gold Standard to emulate for your how-to pages.

All How To pages, at a minimum, must include:

1. A Guide Note
2. Tips
3. At least three Steps
4. Related Mahalo Pages
5. A Video
6. Comprehensive Search Sections
7. Citations
   
   

Guide Note
This is a clear and concise introduction that features 1 to 3 paragraphs of around 200 words which introduce your how-to topic. What is useful about the process? Who would benefit most from learning how to do it? How complicated is the process, and will someone need special tools and/or training to carry it out successfully? What other essential info should we know after quickly scanning this Guide Note? Do not use the phrase "This page..." in your Guide Note

Tips
These are similar to Fast Facts on a Mahalo SeRP. They are brief, bite-sized pieces of helpful information or advice that readers quickly can scan before they begin the how-to process. The tips should also be mentioned within the steps of the guide, but pick out a few of the most important pieces to be highlighted in this section. Put in at least 3 tips for your article.

Tips should be cited.

Steps
Make sure your content flows in a linear, logical fashion. Avoid ambiguous phrases, using specific words wherever possible. On a page about becoming an accountant, rather than saying "In order to get a job," say "In order to get an accounting job."

Each step must be titled as "Step 1: Join the How To Team," "Step 2: Select a Task," etc. The content for each step should be at least 50 words and written in clear, easy to follow, complete sentences. (A good example of well constructed Steps are here: How to Throw an Office Holiday Party).

All Step Titles must be written in Title case.

Related Mahalo Pages
This section is where you highlight pages already existing on Mahalo that relate to the "How To" you are creating. Take a look at How to Become a Professional Skateboarder for an example of a good list of related pages featured on the page. Add the titles of at least 5 related Mahalo pages that exist. Put double brackets around the title of the page (like these: ), and separate the titles with pipes (like this: | ).

Video
Find an applicable, instructional video from YouTube or Hulu, and put the link here. Then, write a 50—100 word synopsis of the video's content. Do not say "This video will,", just summarize the information provided by the video.

Comprehensive Search
Include an images section and an answers section. Exclude the answers section if no relevant information is displayed.

Citations
When citing facts put forth in your article, always use references (more on this below).

DOUBLE BRACKETS FOR INLINKING

Put double brackets around terms used in the text that Mahalo has an existing page about. This will create an internal link (inlink) to that page. *[[Mahalo]] is an Internet [[search engine]]. will look like this:

• Mahalo is an Internet search engine.

1. Keep inlinks closely related to the topic.
2. Aim for at least one inlink in every 100 words of text.
3. To refer to a term differently in the text than what the page is called, you can use a pipe to separate the term from the anchor text, placing the page title first and the text second like this:

• [[New York State|NY]] will look like this: NY, and it will inlink to the page titled New York State.

BOLD AND ITALICS

All video game, book and movie titles, as well as ship names need to be in italics. To use italics, put two apostrophes on either side of the word or phrase you want italicized. Put the apostrophes outside any brackets that you have put in order to inlink the term. Here is an example:

• ''[[The Great Gatsby]]'' will look like this:
• The Great Gatsby

You may use boldface sparingly for emphasis or for subheadings within a section. To use boldface, put three apostrophes on either side of the word or phrase you want bolded. Put these outside of any brackets that you need to inlink the term. Here is an example:

• '''The Great Gatsby''' will look like this:
• The Great Gatsby

CITATION OF REFERENCES IN TEXT

Whenever you write a fact in a text section of a Mahalo page, at the end of the sentence, just after the period with no space after the period put <ref>URL</ref> to link to the authoritative website where you found this fact. Take a look at this sentence as an example:

• [[Barack Obama]] is the 44th President of the [[United States]].<ref>http://www.mahalo.com/barack-obama</ref> will look like this:
• Barack Obama is the 44th President of the United States.http://www.mahalo.com/barack-obama

Click that footnote number and it will take you to the bottom of the page, where your URL is now automatically listed in a "References" section.

Do not put citations in the middle of a sentence; if there is more than one reference for a sentence, place them both after the sentence, leaving a space between each reference. Do not put citations at the end of a paragraph - that would imply that everything in that paragraph came from the same source. Your citations should reflect the multiple sources used in your research.

WHITE SPACE

Hit "enter" three times between paragraphs. Otherwise, there won't be any space between your paragraphs. Write many short paragraphs, rather than one long paragraph. Whenever appropriate, break paragraphs up even further into bullet points or numbered lists of statements. All this makes your web page easier on the reader's eyes. Remember, though, that the first text section on your page - the guide note - needs to be free of bullets or lists, for page formatting reasons.

BULLETED AND NUMBERED LISTS

Type * before every item in a list, or # to make it a numbered list. Otherwise, the list will not format correctly on the completed page, and will just look like a regular paragraph. Make sure to align the * or # all the way to the left. Capitalize the first word in each bullet or number.

All pages must be referenced and sourced.

A citation is NEEDED whenever you:

1. Use a quote
2. State a statistical fact
3. Paraphrase information from another source
4. Utilize someone else's opinions and interpretations
5. Are making a medical, legal, or financial STATEMENT
6. State specific and detailed information which is not commonly known
   
   

Please see How to Write a Food How To Page for information about how to cite a recipe How To.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Please note that every fact must be cited. This means that you need to verify everything you write. Do not rely on your personal experience, education or opinion. Do not show your opinion nor any bias in your writing - not even favorable opinion or bias. Remain neutral. Present just the facts. If it makes sense on your topic to present popular opinions, then present both sides and let the reader make up his or her own mind which one makes more sense. Cite references for any popular opinions you include.

All How To pages must come with an applicable video link, found from YouTube or Hulu. Here is how to format your video:

First, select "Featured Object" from the "to Content" drop down menu on the top right corner of the page.

Then, click the "Video" button.

For the last step, copy and paste the video link into the "Embed a Video" box. Then, write a 50—100 word synopsis of the video content in the "Description Text" box. The video on a How To page should appear directly under the Guide Note and before the Step 1 section.

All legal, financial, and medical pages must come with Disclaimers. Disclaimers appear in the sidebar above the Twitter and Related Mahalo Pages sections, and should be include the EXACT wording as follows:

Legal How To's:
The content in this page is not a substitute for professional legal advice. Please contact a law professional before using the information presented here.

Medical How To's:
The content in this page is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Please contact a doctor before using the information presented here.

Financial How To's:
The content in this page is not a substitute for professional financial advice. Please contact a finance professional before using the information presented here.

The "comprehensive search section" includes pre-populated content using the page title as the search term. These sections include images, videos, blog posts, news stories and answer threads from Mahalo. How to Pages are only required to have an image section and answers section; however, you can include a resources and video section if the results are relevant and valuable to the user. No other search sections should appear on the page.

You can identify a comprehensive search section by noting the "Powered by..." next to the section." The search term being used to populate these sections is the page title, so the content is usually relevant. However, there are some occasions where the page title may be pulling up irrelevant content. In that situation, you will need click the pencil icon above the section to refine the search term.

Do

1. Research the information you are presenting.
2. Write in your own words.
3. Add media. Don't just stop at one video. If there are other applicable videos, put them on your page! If there are good images, link them as "Featured Content."
4. Inlink to other relevant Mahalo pages.
5. Cite and source your work.
6. Add an "Images" section to the Links area of the page.

Don't

1. Plagiarize. All content on your Mahalo page must be 100% original!
2. Rely entirely on anecdotal evidence.
3. Be vague! Mahalo How To pages should be clear, concise, and informative.
4. Include personal opinion or experience.