How to create a weblog for Classicists

Signing up for a weblog

The easiest way to start is with a website that gives you a free weblog. I’m using WordPress.com in this example. You could also use other sites like Blogger or Blogsome. The reason I’ve chosen WordPress.com is that it’s reliable and simple to use, but it does have some restrictions. You cannot for instance advertise on your weblog, but this is not an issue for most authors. First, visit http://wordpress.com and click on the big button marked “Start your WordPress blog”.

Now, choose a usename. This will be the name that you use to sign in and, if you leave a comment on another WordPress.com blog it’ll be the name you’re signed under. It’ll also probably form part of your address as usually you get an address with http://username.wordpress.com/ so you may want to think about this.

I’ve chosen the username newclassicist for this example.

You will then be asked for a title for your site. Life is easier if this is the same as the username. The reason why my weblog is called Archaeoastronomy is because I had the domain name archaeoastronomy.co.uk spare and that’s where I put my weblog. The site was called ‘Alun’ but about half of people linking to it called it Archaeoastronomy, so in the end to avoid confusion I changed the site name to match. When I moved the site to WordPress.com the name moved with it.

So I’m calling the site NewClassicist.

Submit this and you’ll get a password emailed to you. The password will be utterly forgettable, but use it for now and you can sign into your account to change it.

Scroll down to Update Your Password and you can change your password to something more memorable. I’ve chosen the word ‘Jolene’, but you can come up with something better. Click submit and it’s set.

Writing entries

At the top of the page you’ll find a lot of options. The most important is Write.

Normally you will want to Write a post.

Your post will need a title, then you type some text into it. If you use the standard editor then paragraphs will be laid out like they would in a word processor. If you are working on something and don’t have time to finish click the ‘save’ button and it will be waiting for you as a draft next time you log on. When you’re happy with what you’ve written, press ‘Publish’ and your site will be updated with this post as the current entry.

To link to another webpage highlight the text you want to be the link and then click the chain button, found just to the right of the right justify button. In the address box type the URL starting with http:// that you want to link to. If you decide you want to remove a link, highlight the link and press the ‘break chain’ button.

That’s all you need to start posting articles to your weblog and linking to others.