News Stories
Most A&S units have a news story listing as part of their sites. If your unit has a news listing, you should have at least one or two new stories every year.
There are two ways to get a news story on your site:
- Borrow a news story from someone else (usually University News & Media).
- Create your own.
Create Your Own News Story
Not all your news-worthy items will be picked up by University News & Media. If one of your students or professors has won an award, was quoted in an article, or has had some other accomplishment, it can be a good idea to celebrate the achievement with a news story. Web & Design has a help page that details how to create your own news story.
Every month, Kathy sweeps through the A&S department sites and borrows their created stories into the A&S news listing. There are a few details that can make your story more interesting and useful for folks:
- Somewhere in the story, link back to your department's main page.
- If your story mentions a faculty member, link to their directory page.
- If your story mentions a student, give their intended major and year of graduation. LIke this: Firstname Lastname '23, an English major....
- Give us some context. Is the story about an award? Tell us who gave the award and why it's significant.
- Remember that an organization's acronym isn't terribly helpful to folks outside your field - spell them out.
- If the new story is about someone being featured in a non-W&M publication, use the External link to link to the article. If the article is behind a paywall, warn folks of that.
It might feel duplicative to give your unit's name and link in an article that is hosted on your site. But keep in mind that some people will not go through your main page to get to the article. If they go there straight from Google, or from the borrowed story in the A&S listing, that extra information will be useful and can help guide people back to you.
The Basic Steps
To create your own news story
- Select your /news/ folder.
- Click the big pink + in the upper left portion of your screen. Select Arts and Sciences...News Story. Note that this is all the way at the bottom of the list - you may have to scroll.
- The title will become the URL and the headline, so choose carefully.
- Author and Publication Date are required.
- Fill in the content, add links, click check content and submit.
- Publish the story.
- Select the /news/ folder. Click the column header "Order." If you want the new story to appear at the top of your news list on your main page, drag and drop the new story into the first slot.
- Publish the /news/index page
- Publish your main index page.
