Writing an article on the RC: a tutorial

aimed at KC students that need to use the RC to create their Historical Development writing assignment.

Video demo of writing an article are here.

Activating your RC account:

• You do not have to register a new account at the RC: we have already created an account for you using your student email as the username. To activate, go here and fill in your …@koncon.nl email address. You will get an email that allows you to choose a password. Note that the password is unique for the RC and setting it will not change your Teams login. If you didn’t receive an email or the system reports that your email doesn’t exist in the RC contact casper.
• once you have a password, log in to the RC.

Creating the exposition:

• click “create exposition” button on your profile
• choose “text-based” for editor [ submit ].
• choose “Historical Development Template (KC)” as template [ submit ].
• fill in title, abstract & copyright fields and click “submit”

Writing an article

The text editor is split into two parts:

You write the text on your left side, you can see the resulting content on the right side preview. You can format your text using Markdown. The styling buttons on top of the editor will insert the correct markdown syntax for you.

Read more about Markdown

Writing markdown

if you write:

*italic* text

it becomes:

italic text

**bold** text

becomes:

bold text

tip: be careful with trailing whitespace! For example **bold with a space ** will not work, but **bold with a space** is ok.

# header level 1

header level 1

## header level 2

header level 2

to insert a [hyperlink](https://www.researchcatalogue.net)

to insert a hyperlink

important: newlines are ignored unless you make them explicit!

single newlines
are ignored

single newlines are ignored…

unless you put\
a backlash at the end of a line.

unless you put
a backlash at the end of a line.

An empty line starts a new paragraph.
An empty line starts a new paragraph.
An empty line starts a new paragraph.

An empty line starts a new paragraph.
An empty line starts a new paragraph.

An empty line starts a new paragraph. An empty line starts a new paragraph. An empty line starts a new paragraph.

An empty line starts a new paragraph. An empty line starts a new paragraph.

insert a footnote/reference[^myFootnote]

[^myFootnote]: write the content of the footnote

insert a footnote/reference^[1]

tip:

For a full overview of markdown, go here.

Importing from Word (or other):

To import, use the import/export button and select the file from your harddisk. Supported formats include “.docx” “.odt” and “.txt” formats.

The import includes the images, tables and basic formatting (bold, italic). The import will not copy in your styling, just the structure. This is intentional, to maximize compatibility. You can use CSS to style the imported content, but for Historical Development class, it is best not to change the styling!

You cannot import the text contained in a PDF (pdf tangles up the styling with the content, this cannot be separated anymore), but you can import a PDF as a media illustration (using upload media), for example if you want to include a score.

Media

To insert a picture, audio, pdf or video, click the “Upload Media” button. After uploading the file, click [ insert ]
The media’s location in your text is marked by a media-tag, which is written like this:

! {media1}

You can change the appearance of the media by clicking the ! {media} tag.

Making your exposition visible to others

New expositions are by default “private” and only visible to your account. The simplest way to make your article visible to others, is by going to your profile page, and click ☰ -> share. This will open a dialog that allows you to share your exposition within the “KC Research Portal” (“Limited to portal”). For this you will have to scroll through the list of portals, and click “KC Research Portal” to highlight it.

If you want anybody on the internet to be able to see it, use (“Public”).

If you want to first only share with a select group, you should select the option:
“When enabled, the object is accessible…”

Copy the url (https://www.researchcatalogue.net/shared/9956e439… etc…) and click submit. It is very important that you also click submit after enabling the option, otherwise the link will not be active.

You can send (by email) this link to anybody that needs access to your exposition. They will not need an RC account, having the link is enough for them to access. Tip: to make sure the link works, you can test the link in a private tab. It is a good idea to test your link before you send it. 😀

Share by link only allows others with the link to read the exposition. You can also collaborate on an exposition, for more information, read https://guide.researchcatalogue.net/#collaborating-on-research.

Keywords and becoming part of KCPedia

Once you article is finished, share it at least within the KC portal (see previous section), so it can be seen by others. To make it easier for visitors to find your article, it is essential you add some good keywords. To add keywords:

1. Go back to your RC profile.
2. On your article, click ☰ > edit details.
3. Add 3 keywords there in the “keywords” field. Some general advice:
   • Add keyword “kcpedia” so we can recognize your article as such.
   • When you mention a composer, include the full name, not just “Mozart” or “Bach”.
   • Use singular form not plural (“concert” instead of “concerts”)
   • Avoid generic terms like “music” or “performance” , they are not very useful for finding your article. Keywords should help a person interested in your specific interest area find your article! So a good start is to include terms that you searched for when you collecting sources.

Style tab

If you know CSS, you can change things like font-color, margins, font-size, line-height etc. under the Style tab. Some basic formatting is already provided, so you can try and adjust. If you need some help with this, just ask me.

Graphical expositions

The text-based editor is only one of the two available editors for RC Expositions, the other being the “graphical” editor. While that graphical editor allows for more complex layout, the text based editor allows for a simpler format that is more suitable for short articles.

– fin –

References: