Greetings from Ireland

[katemcbride]

I am a new writer here and I really like the site.I work in the health service and because I managed to pay my mortgage early I now only have to work three days a week.
I am delighted to find this site as an online income opportunity .It is such a pleasant change from the aggressive
advertising and information overload of online marketing which I wasted so much time on previously.
Furthermore,I have looked at other writing sites and as far as I see there are not as professional or efficient.Another thing is that this site pays better than any of the others I have looked at.I have had prompt replies on both the forum and from support to date.
I plan to write for public requests only at this stage and I look forward to gaining experience and learning new things from my research on the articles.
There has been a improvement in my writing skills already following the edits I have received to date.Previously I wrote sentences that were a paragraph long:).I also got some good links to resources on comma use and clauses from the editors.
I intend to spend my time on the internet exclusively on constant content for the foreseeable future and I am glad to have found the site-got a link to the site in an ebook I downloaded on article writing.
I was planning to do one article per day but I took a day off today for a look around the forum instead.Looking forward to hearing from anyone on here if you want to reply and thank you for your time reading this.
Kate Mc Bride

[Celeste Stewart]

Welcome to CC. That sounds like an awesome plan and congrats on paying off your mortgage early!

[katemcbride]

The plan has changed I'm sorry to say. I have had three articles rejected for paragraph formatting and one accepted in the same format??!!
I have one article still under review here but I will be writing for guru and/or brighthub for the time being until I see if this can be sorted out.
I will specify this complaint about inconsistent editing to customer support as well.
I have followed instructions in any edits I got re. comma use and I respect the need for these. However,the ones on paragraph formatting that I got were vague,unhelpful and impossible to implement.
I am disappointed about this because I like this site and some of the public requests are for material that I can do well.
It is worth pointing out that this is a matter worth sorting out by Constant Content .Otherwise, it will negatively impact on your recruitment of new writers.
I will stay on the forum for the time being while have a go at writing for bright hub and guru.

Thank you for your reply and your time in reading this post. I look forward to hearing from if you have any suggestions re. dealing with this.
I had a look at your website;it is well put together and a useful link to have.I and was planning to buying one of your ebooks as a treat for myself if I got paid for an article on here-we will see how it goes.

[Celeste Stewart]

Paragraph formatting should go like this:

Paragraph text blah blah blah text blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahvvv text blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blah text blah blah blahtext blah blah blah.

New paragarph text blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blah. text blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blah.

New paragarph text blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blah. text blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blah.

Single spaced paragraphs, double space between paragraphs, no indents.

That said, it's not uncommon for word processors to be set to add "space" bewteen paragraphs. While the space looks like above, when you copy and paste the text into some Web forms, that space disappears and the text becomes one gigantic block like this:

Paragraph text blah blah blah text blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahvvv text blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blah text blah blah blahtext blah blah blah.
New paragarph text blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blah. text blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blah.
New paragarph text blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blah. text blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blahtext blah blah blah.

[Celeste Stewart]

If you think that your word processor might be doing this, you can either go back into your submission and click the Edit button and then manually enter spaces where they belong or you can change your word processor's paragraph settings.

[katemcbride]

Thank you Celeste for the prompt,clear instructions in your reply.Single spaces within paragraphs and double spaces between was exactly what I did;there were no indents anyway.
The first submissions DID only have one blank line between paragraphs but I corrected it promptly and resubmitted.
After that,I kept getting jargon about hard/soft returns-this was unfair and there was mention of three spaces and four spaces between paragraphs to confuse me.I have filed the emails in my yahoo.
I wrote to support to ask them if I could get a commitment that this would not happen again because it was out of order, so that I could consider writing another article but the reply was not to submit again( I expected that anyway)
I wrote articles on child health from my work,men's health and gambling for public requests-the latter two were good and I enjoyed researching them which is why I am so annoyed at the unfairness of this.
I had planned to write my next public request article on Vienna and there was another request for an article on use of adjectives which I would have enjoyed doing because I would have made a good job of it.
I will miss my new hobby and the problem is that I cannot find any other site as good as CC-I think this is a problem with one editor,hope it's only one anyway :-)lol!!!
I hope you can do something to sort this out so I don't have to leave the site-the problem is simple-five articles,one accepted with single spaces between paragraphs??? three rejected with correct formatting and one under review-probably rejected by whoever is at this carry-on at this stage.I am too disappointed to bother checking on the site but I will deal with you about it here.I would appreciate your assistance with the matter if you can do anything about this.
Looking forward to your reply at your convenience.
Kate

[katemcbride]

Far as I see it wasn't the word processor because I checked that out with someone who knows more about Microsoft Word 2003 and they said it was ok.It was simply a colleague of yours messing about.

[Celeste Stewart]

I'm just a writer here, not CC staff member. . .

It sounds like something is getting lost in translation -- your document looks fine on your end but it apparently doesn't look fine on the editor's end. It sounds like the editors are seeing large blocks of space between the paragraphs. When you type a paragraph and start a new one, do you press enter one time or two?

Do you know how to check your paragraph settings, in particular the Indents and Spacing? In Word 2003, I believe you go to the Format menu and choose Paragraph. Before you do that though, first use Control + A to select all of the text (or highlight the text with your mouse). You need to make sure that the spacing settings are set to:
Before - 0 pt
After - 0 pt
Line Spacing - Single

Hopefully this helps.

[katemcbride]

Thanks for that but it was all done.The facts are that I got edits suggesting three spaces and four spaces between paragraphs!!!Copies of these are in my yahoo.It was crazy stuff.
I asked customer support if I could get a commitment from editor's department that this would not happen again so that I could consider submitting another article but was told not to submit any more.
I then replied asking the to delete my profile and the remaining article being reviewed because had no time to spare to go back near the site to bother doing it myself,having invested so much time researching,writing and submitting the articles.
I propose to start a new topic in the rejections forum about the matter to see if anyone else is having any of this nonsense from editor(s).
My accepted article (on childhood fluency) and review article(Men's Health) may still be there on the site if you want to check them out but I just haven't the heart to look myself;too disappointed about losing my new pastime/work opportunity.
Thanks for your time and will stay in touch with you here on the forum about it .
One article was accepted so settings must be ok but I did check it out at work to be sure because I saw your "blahblahblah" post
about it last week when the rejections started because I was referred to the forum.

[katemcbride]

Pen name is: Kate Mc Bride.

[katemcbride]

Was pressing enter once on first three submissions;changed to twice when instructed and checking your "blahblahblah", which is very helpful by the way,then got all this inconsistent stuff about 3 or 4 spaces on no less than three articles-not a word about the content,grammar or punctuation which is what I thought editing was.
Does the same person do all the new writers because there was a common thread between the messages-those on the first two articles had all this 3/4 space paragraph stuff;that is very bad practice for CC's reputation and recruitment.
The last article on arbitrage betting for gambling was rejected first time and the previous two rejections referred to in it-paragraph formatting-I have these emails on file.
Will know more when I post a new topic about in rejections forum but there is a post already about the same issue which I have replied to.

[Celeste Stewart]

I don't know how the review team divides its work.

[jadedragon]

No one is messing with you. Try submitting in rich text instead. There has to be some formating issue on your side. The site is worth figuring out what is wrong.

[katemcbride]

I am glad to hear that the site is worth trying to sort this out.Rich text is a good suggestion if it was a font issue but it is paragraph spacing that the editor(s) were messing with-if I double-spaced,(s)he said three spaces.If I used three spaces (s)he said 4.

The "blahblahblah" example was exactly what I did in the first place except for having one space instead of a double space between paragraphs.

All I can do now is tidy up the mess (s)he made of my resubmissions(which now have too many uneven spaces as they requested) so that I can file them for submission on guru or brighthub.
Because you say the site is worth working for,I might resubmit for a public request sometime soon,stay on the forum and hope to get a different editor next time.

Thank you for your reply and any further feedback you have to offer re. the matter will be appreciated.

[katemcbride]

I have seen some other stuff about this carry-on in "Questions about rejections" before I submit again and see what experience others have of this because there is definitely a "spanner in the works" in the editing department.
It might be too late to resubmit because I asked support to delete my remaining review article and my site profile because I am too disgusted with this nonsense to bother doing it myself.
It is hard to know how CC manage to run a business or make any money when they are not recruiting new writers for their site because of this.