April 2006
Thank you very much for applying to the position. Below you will find more information about the job. Just keep in mind that everything posted on this website is meant to be listened to as audio guides.
Your work is to proofread and format articles from Wikipedia.com in order to create audio guides for MP3Travel. This includes monuments and places of interest for travelers.
At first you will be given 10 links from Wikipedia which you will have to proofread, format and rewrite if necessary. You will post the 10 formatted articles on the MP3Travel website after having signed up for a free account. Your 10 articles will be moderated and if approved you will receive $0.50 per article paid through PayPal. Later you will also be able to suggest articles of interest.
The job is easy and because you like History and traveling it will be interesting to do.
A few rules apply though:
-Remove all quotes, hyphens and brackets.
-The dates cannot appear like this: '1520-1523' and should be rewritten. 'from 1520 to 1523' is an example on how you may write it.
-Remove dots when possible like in 'B.C.' (replace by BC) 'U.S.' (replace US) 'St.' (replace by Saint) etc.
-Remove when possible local language names.
-Remove foreign languages accents: à is replaced by a, ç is replaced by c, etc.
-The articles must be timeless. Remove facts about this year renovations, scheduled renovations etc.
-No titles in the articles
-No mention about movies shot there
-No 'opening hours'
-No long lists of people (artists, buried there, lived there, etc). Keep it to a maximum of 5 in a sentence.
-Separate clearly each paragraph
-All articles must have a minimum of 350 words.
-Anecdotes and interesting facts are of utmost importance.
-When measurements are important like for towers, cathedrals or large monuments, they should be used. (Meters and inches are okay). For example, the weight of a statue, if given in the original article, should be kept.
-Spot and change words repeated to many times. Look at this article. Can you notice which word appears too many times?
-Deadline: 10 days.
Note that if you get 3 rejected articles in a row your account will be canceled.
This is an example of an original article from Wikipedia compared to what appears on MP3Travel after a proofreader/writer's work here.
Why so many little rules? Because to read the articles we use a digital voice that sometimes cannot figure out how to read a word or a sentence. With your help, we try to make it easier for this voice to pronounce as clearly as possible the English sounds.
Thank you very much!
