Articles

Bulletin Guidelines

One of our highest priority goals in the St. Isidore Church bulletin is to maintain consistency and continuity in this weekly publication. In order to achieve this, please review the guidelines below and keep follow them when writing your articles and publicizing your events. All final content decisions are up to the discretion of the St. Isidore Church Creative Director.

This document was last updated on 7/8/2024

I. Events / Advertisements

All events follow a standard layout that is matched in both the bulletin and on our website. This layout will make your content both more engaging and easier to read. The Events section in the bulletin consists of up to 9 events with additional teaser events in a “Coming Soon” section at the bottom of the second page. Please do your best to adhere to these guidelines to help your content look the best and fit in the available space.

  1. Every event must have a title, date, description, and artwork. If you do not have artwork our it does not match our church’s style guide, our creative department would be happy to work with you to create one that best meets your vision.
  2. Limit your description to 80 words or less. Consider limiting description copy in the bulletin and providing additional details on our website as this creates the better engagement. If copy exceeds the limit, your copy may be edited to fit within the limit without notice.
  3. Descriptions should not include the date of the event as this receives it’s own dedicated space.
  4. For consistency and clarity, all event descriptions should be written in the third person. Submissions written in the first person will be edited accordingly. This helps ensure a uniform tone and style throughout the bulletin. 
    Example: Incorrect: “Join us for a spaghetti dinner as we will be hosting guest speaker, Fr. John.”
    Correct “Come out for a spaghetti dinner with guest speaker Fr. John.”
  5. Any links should always point to the St. Isidore Church website. From there we can link out to external sites (e.g. Signup Genius). Event should not use QR codes unless running as a featured event. We create short and meaningful URLs to make it easy for users to get to on the church website.
  6. Photos/Images should be as high resolution as possible with a minimum resolution of 300ppi (i.e. an image with a resolution of 900px x 600px will be printed up to 3” x 2” in size). Clipart is not accepted. All copyrighted photos and images must be licensed for use in print or online publishing. All imagery and artwork is subject to our Photography Style Guide. Artwork that does not meet these guidelines is subject to modifications by the creative team without notice.
    If you are not sure about your image, send it to the creative team  and they will let you know if it’s acceptable.
  7. Events may run for as many weeks as space permits leading up to the event date and are prioritized chronologically. Events happening the soonest receive highest priority. Our bulletin currently allows for up to 7-9 events to show at a time. Events further out may be displayed in a reduced “coming soon” format.
  8. Priority will be given to St. Isidore Church ministries and groups first. External groups (other churches or organizations) that wish to publicize events may run for a maximum of three weeks if space allows.
  9. Your event advertisement may run one week as a larger featured ad subject to availability of space and the discretion of the creative team. You can indicate your preferred feature date in the notes section of the submission form.

II. Content Restrictions

St. Isidore Church reserves the right not to publish content related to political or social topics, deemed inaccurate or not appropriate for publication, or not directly related to the church. As a large and diverse Catholic church, our leadership acknowledges that we come from many different places and hold differing opinions on political and social topics. We feel that the bulletin is not the medium to share these opinions since opposing viewpoints cannot likewise be shared.

III. Article Requirements + Tips

  1. Articles are printed for one week by default (same as articles appearing in the local community newspaper). Articles with identical content may run for a second week in a period of three months upon request if space allows and at the discretion of the creative director. Publishing of the same article may not be requested again for at least 6 months. If you wish to continue to write about a subject, the article must be sufficiently changed and resubmitted.
  2. All articles must have a name and contact email attached to it that will appear in the bulletin. This will default to whoever submits the article request unless otherwise specified.
  3. Anything that is copied from another source (article, website, etc.), must have proper citation.
  4. If you think your article should be shared on our website, please indicate in the notes section.
  5. All text articles will be printed in a uniform font, size, and color. Any font choices included in submitted content will be modified to meet our requirements. If a web link is included, it will be printed in St. Isidore blue for emphasis.
  6. Limit wording. If your content exceeds available space, line-spacing or abridging may occur without notice to accommodate your content. Your submission may also be deferred to a future bulletin if it does not fit. The maximum content that can fit on a single page is 700 words.
    Remember… the more space your content takes up, the less space there will be for other contributors. Please be considerate.

Reminders

  1. Only use one space between sentences.
  2. The word Mass is capitalized 
  3. When writing phone numbers, use dashes, please no parenthesis or periods
    (e.g. 248-853-5390)
  4. Times should be capitalized with a space between. (e.g. 9:30 AM or 8:00 PM)
  5. Avoid using ALL CAPS for anything. It looks like you are shouting!
  6. Avoid underlining words for emphasis. Use bold or italics, instead. Underlining should only be used for titles.
  7. Do not use more than one exclamation point at the end of a sentence.
  8. When writing about our church, please use “St. Isidore Church” (other forms such as St. Isidore Catholic Church, St. Isidore Catholic Community, or St. Isidore are acceptable but not encouraged)
  9. Please try to avoid fragmented sentences.
    (e.g. “Hope to see you there” should read, “We hope to see you there.”)
  10. When using a slash (e.g. and/or) no space is necessary.
  11. If you mention God, Jesus, Lord, etc. and make references such as he, him or his—these should all be capitalized. (e.g. He, Him or His)
  12. When using quotation marks and parentheses, punctuation should be placed inside quotation marks and outside of parentheses.
    example: INCORRECT:  “The Lord be with you ”. CORRECT: “The Lord be with you.”
    example:  INCORRECT: (is what he said.) CORRECT:  (is what he said).
  13. Before you submit your article, proofread your own work! Spelling and grammar are the author’s responsibility. Though we proofread content, we try to print exactly what you send.

IV. QR codes

As of November 2023, we are introducing a QR code feature to enhance the experience for both our readers and you, our valued authors. A QR code, or Quick Response code, is a two-dimensional matrix barcode that can store information such as a website URL. QR codes are scannable with a smartphone  allowing quick and easy way to get to the encoded website.

  1. QR codes do not need to be requested, but will rather be added automatically to events and articles that include a next step or call to action (CTA) like registering, providing additional info such as a list of needed items for a drive, or to provide additional information that does not fit in the bulletin.
  2. QR codes will be generated by the Engagement team and should not be provided by the content creator.
  3. QR codes in the bulletin can only link to the parish or Family of Parishes website. If you wish to link to an external website, the bulletin QR code must first direct users to the parish/FOP website, and then can be linked to the external site from there.

V. Deadlines

  1. All bulletin content must be submitted using the Bulletin Submission form available at www.stisidore.church/bulletin-submission
  2. Without Proof: 10 days in advance or by Thursday at 1 PM the week before the intended bulletin issue.
  3. With Proof: 12 days in advance or Tuesday at 1 PM the week before the intended bulletin issue. A proof must be requested in the notes section of the form or in a separate email to the team.
  4. Holiday bulletins require additional time for publishing. Please provide content at least 5 days earlier.

V. Other Communication Channels

All Events will automatically be added to other forms of communication including website, social media, and on-screen announcements. Other content may be shared on other communication channels as well (social, video announcements, web, etc.) at the discretion of the director. Any specific requests for social media and web communication should be listed in the Notes section of the form. Any spoken announcements must be requested via email and approved by leadership.

If submitted content does not meet the requirements of these guidelines, St. Isidore Church reserves the right to alter content to meet guidelines or reject it.

These bulletin guidelines are subject to be changed at any time without notice. 

Send questions to bulletin@stisidore.church