How to Prepare Lesson References (Helps)

We publish the “Lesson Helps because teachers tend to use the Helps in teaching a class. For that purpose, we want to supply all the Bible texts with a bit of context, where helpful. Use your judgment regarding how much context, if any, is useful.

The same is true for the Ellen White quotations: We provide context for the portion referenced in the lessons. The referenced part can be bolded. Again, use your judgment as to just how much context is helpful.

Post Titles [in the blank under “Add New Post”] should begin with 01, 02, 03, etc. matching the numbers of the lesson in order to sort properly in the post index.

Always choose this category: Lesson Helps (found under Technical)

And always uncheck the default “Uncategorized” category.

Lesson Title underneath the main title is is H4

It should follow this format:

Lesson 01: Actual Lesson Title, October 15, 2022 [Date of Sabbath on which it is studied in Sabbath School, including year.]

Do not use the Bold formatting. [Formatting is controlled by the <H4>

Day Titles are H3

Do not use the Bold formatting. [Formatting is controlled by the H3. It will look a little different on the actual weekly lesson page.]
Under each day title, put the day’s references.

Scripture headings/text references are H5

Do not use any other formatting, other than H5 for the heading.
Under each reference, put the actual texts with some context. (Bold the actual text references given in the lesson.) A little context often helps. Use your judgment re how much context to provide.

No point putting the reference in twice on the same day. Just indicate the text and write (See above.)

“Read for this Lesson” texts are generally used in the rest of the week, but they should be listed also under each appropriate day.

Subheadings in the Scriptures or Ellen White passages are H6

Do not use any other formatting, other than H6 for the heading.
For whole chapters of the Bible, it’s fine to suggest to read the chapter, rather than copying and pasting the whole chapter. We should be able to assume that all readers own a Bible.

I’m thinking it might be helpful for some people to paste in whole chapters of Ellen White books, in case they have no other access. (I need to ask people to let us know what they would prefer.)

Ellen White References are H4

Use the reference supplied in the lesson as the H4 heading. For shorter references, provide some context. Provide the Author, Book Title (in italics) and page number and hyperlink to the source for more context.

For very long references, you can hyperlink the heading of the Ellen White passage to the source on the web. (There are several versions of Ellen White sites, and they are not all as easy to use. This site links to the various other sites: https://whiteestate.org/ See what you like best. Do not link to a private site.)

Summary of heading tags:

Lesson title in body of post is H4

Day titles are H3

Scripture headings are H5

Subheadings in Scripture or SOP texts are H6

Ellen White References are H4, since they are generally longer.

When you paste in material from an Ellen White website, check the “Text view” once in a while. There should be no junk code like this (visible in Text view only):

I haven’t yet figured out why/how some sources insert this junk code. If something like that happens to you, try pasting to Notepad first to remove the junk and then pasting to the WordPress page.

Also see 2022 Lesson Help 08 for illustration of the junk code and what should not show up in Text view. See 2022 Lesson Help 05 for an example of what the file should look like.