Highlight

Highlight is an easy-to-use discovery tool that allows you to capture snippets of interesting content you’ve found across the web. Grab anything that you think is newsworthy and, with one click, get your story started and connect to NowPublic’s worldwide news network. Just like your mobile phone and digital camera are your capture devices for the outside world, Highlight is your capture device online. Highlight allows you to quote an excerpt of text that you’ve discovered elsewhere and post it directly to NowPublic.

Highlight is a browser plug-in that, at present, is only available to Firefox users.

>> Download Highlight for Firefox (compatible with Firefox 3)

Although Highlight is a powerful tool to quote from external sources and link back to them, NowPublic does not condone plagiarism and encourages its members to add their own original content – in the form of a written introduction or additional written commentary — to Highlighted stories. NowPublic encourages members to stick to the 50/50 rule : a ratio of 50% original content to 50% quoted text . Entirely Highlighted posts will not be recommended and may be flagged as Needs Improvement.

Note: If you are posting an original story that was first published on your own blog (Blogger, WordPress, TypePad, Tumblr, etc), please be sure to use the Highlight tool to quote from the original post and include a written introduction to indicate that you are the author of the original post.

Here’s a quick step-by-step guide to using the Highlight tool to publish a story:

1. Once you’ve installed Highlight in Firefox, browse the web as you normally would.

2. Highlight: When you find a passage of text that you’d like to share (up to 1,000 characters), select it using your mouse.

3. Then click the NowPublic Highlight icon in your browser.

4. Highlight will open in a box at the bottom of the page, and include the highlighted text in a [q url=” ”] format.

5. Add a headline to your story (using up to 65 characters) and add your own written introduction or commentary before and/or after the quoted text.

6. Tagging: Select a Channel and Sub-Category for your story, then type in relevant tags or select from the list of auto-tags to add them.

7. Click the Preview button to confirm the tags and preview your story.

8. Confirm that your story is tagged correctly and add relevant locations.

9. Check for related news stories in the right-hand column, click all that apply, and then click Preview Story.

10. Preview & Publish: If your story looks good to go, hit Publish and you’re done! If you want to make changes, you can save a draft or click the Edit Text tab. To do even more with your story, click Advanced Editing for additional options (For help, check out our how-to video).

Note: If you navigate away from your story or if something technically interrupts the publishing process from Highlight, your story will be automatically saved as a draft. Click your most recent Stories, Photos, and Videos in your member channel to retrieve, edit, and publish auto-saved drafts.