Event Submission Best Practices
Posting an event online will help draw people to your event. Make sure that you make the most of this opportunity. Below are a few best practices for submitting your event.
Titles
When writing your title, make sure it can stand alone and people will get an understanding of what the event is, if only the title is displayed. Some versions of the calendar will display only the title without the description.
Good example:
CGIU “Commitment to Action” Writing Workshop
Poor examples:
"Commitment to Action Workshop"
No context about what Commitment to Action is or what specifically the workshop is about.
"Learn to write your CGIU Commitment to Action"
This is rather informal, and would work better used as the description.
Description
Put the most important information near the top, and concentrate on why people will want to come to your event. Most people will skim and scan the text, so use clear headings and break up text with bulleted lists and short chunks of content.
Do:
- Keep sentences and paragraphs short and easy to scan
- Double check your spelling
- Include all the information a person will need to attend your event
- Spell out acronyms that may be unfamiliar to most audiences
- Indicate if RSVP is required
Don’t:
- Underline important words, instead use bold or italics
- Say “Click here,” instead link descriptive words
- Example: “Click here to learn more about the Honey W. Nashman Center for Civic Engagement and Public Service” rewrite to say “Learn more about the Honey W. Nashman Center for Civic Engagement and Public Service.”
- Paste raw URLs, instead link descriptive words
- Example: Instead of “Visit http://serve.gwu.edu”, rewrite to say "Visit the Honey W. Nashman Center for Civic Engagement and Public Service"
Images
If you are adding an image to your event, make sure you have all of the rights and permissions to use the image. Images pulled from Google images or from news sources should not be used unless you have explicit written permission.
All images should be 1080 pixels wide by 720 pixels tall, high resolution with clear focus. Images must always have alt text.
Example event:
