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Freelance Quiz writers required.

Please note - we currently DO NOT require any new writers

The page below is for the information of existing writers only - all new registrations will be cancelled

We are Instant Quizzes - the UK's leading quiz question compilers providing media, games and online companies with their questions for TV programmes, DVD games, games consoles, iPhone and many more.

You can find our website at www.instantquizzes.co.uk

Over the past few months, we have been rapidly expanding and as a result have an immediate need for more questions to fill our database of cheap, readily available questions for quiz machines, computer games etc.

They are the types of questions that we use in our free trivia game at www.quiz-game.co.uk

If you would like to join our team of writers and get paid for your efforts, a lengthy, in-depth specification appears below.

You will need to read the full brief to join our team of our writers - otherwise play our quiz game now and enjoy!

 

 

All quiz questions should be entered into our system at www.quizwriters.co.uk

All quiz questions should be original

There should be no spelling or grammatical mistakes

Each question should make readers think - "Do I Care"?

What makes a good quiz question is subjective but our general yardstick is if the quiz player 'cares' about the answer (no matter how little) then it's a good question.

i.e. How many people named Jones are there in the London Phone Book in 2009 - answer 11,322 (We made this up by the way so don't check it) is a pointless question - you don't know, don't care and can't guess it.

What is the capital of France would be vaguely interesting to someone who didn't know.....

How interesting your questions are is up to you - but after writing them read them again - do you care, could you guess? If not take it out.

WE DO NOT NEED OR REQUIRE:

We have done almost every possible variation of these types of question.

Login using your username as selected by you and the password we sent to you.

This is where you write your quiz question. Ideally the question should be as short as possible - the more words you use for your question, invariably the less appropriate it becomes. We ideally need questions that fit on a Trivial Pursuit card - not those read out on University Challenge.

See above - Questions should be original, interesting and factually correct.

Before writing a single question read the above section headed What we do not require. We do not require these type of questions for ANY writing job. This type of question will always be rejected. It is lazy, money for old rope and no fun to answer and we will not pay for them!

This list is not exhaustive and from time to time you will get other comments back on style etc.

For clarity - the question may be used in a multiple choice database or a straight question and answer database so people should be able to answer the question by hearing just the question - the incorrect answers are only there to help or put doubt in the mind. See also Question Type

There should only be one answer to your specific question

Research your facts - i.e. In which year was the film 'King Kong' released is not a valid question for our purposes. There was an original version in 1933, there was one released in 2005 and there were other films of the same name in 1962, 1966 and 1976. In this case better to phrase it - In which year was the film 'King Kong' originally released (Answer 1933) or In which year was the film 'King Kong', starring Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange released (Answer 1976).

Which German footballer was known for his diving? - Although Jurgen Klinsmann is probably the required answer - in fact this really 'could' be anyone - better to add a year of birth, and/or a couple of other facts so it could 'only be him.

Which footballer played for X, Y and Z - usually will narrow down the answer to one player, however are you absolutely sure that only one player ever has played for those exact three clubs? Better to add a year of birth or the years he played for at least one of the teams, or who he started his career with etc.

Who is known as 'The Boss' - Probably Bruce Springsteen - but I'm sure many Premiership footballers sees Ferguson or Wenger as same. I guess Alan Sugar's employees may call him that - etc. Better written as Backed by the E-Street Band, who is known as 'The Boss'? or Which American rock star is known as 'The Boss' etc.

Don't rely on your round subject helping to clarify the question - it may be pulled out as part of a General Knowledge round.

Take care with film titles - some have different names in different countries - use sources such as www.imdb.com or Halliwell's film guide to check facts.

When writing about number one hit singles, top 5 hits, top 10 albums etc - they are written like that - not #1 No.1 etc. Similarly, make sure that when writing about number one hits etc. cite which country if there could be any doubt (Who had a U.K. number one single in 1997 with ....)- what was number one in the U.K. may not have been number one in the U.S.A. and vice versa and may not have been released in Norway etc. - See also Column K - Suitable for.

Take care with abbreviations - It's B.B.C. not BBC It's U.S.A. not USA - only exemption from this is that it's TV (not tv)

For decades use 1960s not '60s sixties etc.

Most important - All questions should be timeless - i.e. Should still be valid in 20 years time.

i.e. If your question includes the phrase "Who is the current......" it's not acceptable.

"Who is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom" - is not acceptable - Whereas "Who became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in....." is acceptable. See also Expiry Date.

 

In this column you should input the correct answer to your question. Invariably this will be no more than 3 words and where possible should be one word. If your answer is "Because he was the only right handed player in the team" it's probably not a good question....

In this column - ensure that your answer is the right answer and is the ONLY POSSIBLE ANSWER to the question that you asked and forever will be the ONLY POSSIBLE ANSWER! barring warfare, new discoveries hitherto unthought-of of or natural disasters.

i.e. What is the smallest planet in our solar system - Pluto - would have been OK 5 years ago.

Every word in every answer should begin with a capital letter - except for the word 'and' in partnerships etc. of of in countries etc. i.e. Answers should be Aviator Sunglasses, Gilbert and Sullivan, Port of Spain, etc.

In all answers, film titles, books etc. should NOT be in inverted commas

In all answers quotations should be in speech marks - i.e. "The Lady's Not For Turning" - as above note that this quotation used in a question is in sentence case, in an answer is in Title Case.

 

Difficulty is subjective which is why every question in our database is asked of at least 100 people before being put on sale - so you don't need to assess your own dififculty levels. We do need a broad mix on all jobs unless specified - so if we think there are too may 'Easy' or 'Hard' etc. we will let you know either way. Sometimes jobs will ask for you to write easy or hard stuff and we will give guidelines for these.

 

See above for Correct Answer - same conventions apply.

In these 5 boxes you should put 5 alternative, credible but incorrect answers to the question that you asked.

You can use some humour here - subtle humour, not crude or rude and if in any doubt whether it's 'funny' or not or would be 'funny' if it was the right answer, then don't use the 'funny' version, bear in mind that questions may be seen by children so subtle innuendo only....

Occasional spelling mistakes as possible answers is fine but using this as the option all the time is lazy - i.e. What is the capital of England - answers London, Lendon, Lindon, Lundon will almost certainly be rejected if this style is used too often!

 

In here insert your assessment of the main subject category of your question choosing from the 11 options below.

In other words, what round in the list of 12 would this question appear in during a normal pub quiz night

 

In here insert your choices of sub-category.

In short, if this question were used in a 'Mastermind' specialist quiz round then what would the title of the round be? Or if you heard this round in a pub, what would the one or two word title of the round be

i.e. A question about the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher coming to power in 1979 would be in the main category Politics

Tags could be - Prime Ministers, History, 1979, Margaret Thatcher, General Elections,

 

A World Cup 2010 football question would be in the main category Sport

Tags could be - Football, World Cup, 2010,

You have a free choice in this box - we need at least 3 comma separated tags in this box with each word's first letter capitalised.

Note - The tags of questions should not give away the answer.

e.g. What would you end up doing, if you accepted an invitation for Canasta? - Could be Games, Pastimes, Words, Activities etc. but NOT Card Games

From which area of activity does the expression "breaking your duck" come? - Could be Expressions, Quotations, Birds etc. but NOT Sport or Cricket

Don't make up 'Pub Quiz' round titles - a tag of Hearts and Minds, or Body and Soul, or Myths and Legends is no good - better to have single words - e.g. Myths, Legends, Fables, Mythology etc.

In this manner if someone needs questions on Myths and Legends - we can search for the comma separated tags - Myths, Legends

Tags will be used by our Quiz Creator website - Click here to see it.

On this site, pub landlords and quizmasters devise their own quiz by typing in the names of the rounds they require. These relate to your inputted tags. When entering your tags think of two things;

1) What would a 'normal' pub landlord or quizmaster expect this round to be called -

'Cooking' NOT Culinary Terms
Japan - NOT Japanese Culture
Formula One, F1, Motor Racing - all 3 are possible
Television, TV - both are possible

etc.

2) Will a quizmaster ever want or need a quiz on 'Dawn French' or 'Post-impressionist painters' or 'Gwent'?

Keep tagging simple - but try to get at least 3 tags per question - if a question doesn't fit into 4 categories in total - it's not that interesting.....

 

We will notify you if this needs to be ticked.

If we need a really specialised database - or a big one that one skew our main database we would label this - i.e. If we asked for 2000 questions on James Bond films, this would heavily skew the Entertainment section.

Leave this unticked unless told otherwise.

 

There are 2 question types - one that can only be answered having seen the answers (Multiple Choice) and one you can answer having heard the question alone (Both)

Occasionally we may ask you for multi-choice question - "Which is the biggest...." but normally this dropdown will be BOTH.

You will need to manually change this dropdown on every question - it's a failsafe check for you to ask yourself - "Do I need the answers to answer this?"

 

On 1st January each year, we look for questions with an expiry date of the previous year and reassess their suitability. Although your questions need to be written timelessly, you may want to give them a sell-by date - i.e. Who resigned as Real Madrid coach in September 2004? remains a valid question forever, however in 2/3 years time becomes a 'Who Cares?' question - in this case an Expiry Date is desirable to allow us to reassess.

If you have a date in this column, you may want to reassess whether the question is in fact suitable. We would prefer every question to be ticked "No"

 

Here we want to know the source of your question - ideally using web addresses so we can check your source.

Our questions may be proofed by proof-readers who are NOT quizzers... so don't assume that they know that Jenson Button is an F1 driver, that Paris is in France or that Alfred Hitchcock made 'Psycho'.

Please link to the exact page where you found your information out - this makes proofing quicker and you get paid quicker!

 

www.bbc.co.uk/news - or most national news sources

http://www.rcls.org/deskref/ - for most other stuff - obviously the links on this page don't just link here!!!

Wikipedia is untrustworthy - but reasonably good so can only be used as a secondary source - the information you use there should be footnoted and the footnote be correct and use a proper source as above.

I once researched a question about UK celebrity Kerry Katona and was surprised to see her Wikipedia entry listing some very special 'talents' she had - the reference for a couple of these 'talents' was a fan site - "Bob's Kerry katone' (sic) tribute page and a couple that contained mind-boggling photos - so take care using this type of combo - we will reject them.

"I read it in a book" or "The Sun 21st February 2010" or "Album sleeve" are not acceptable sources as we can't check them - strange as it may seem we won't accept "I was there" as a source or even "It is me!!!!!" - we need two reputable web links we can click on to check facts. Remember people proofing are there to proof and may not be quiz goers or writers.

 

In this dropdown you should note which countries each question is suitable for

i.e. A question about a British TV soap opera will only be suitable for the U.K. whereas a question about widely distributed American soap opera such as 'Dallas' will be suitable for All.

Similarly a question about a soap opera shown only in Tibet will be suitable for All - but will probably be rejected as too hard.

If your question cannot be categorised in this column as suitable for UK, Australia or USA or any combination of them, it is not acceptable.

Ideally every question you write should be 'All' unless otherwise directed.

 

This applies once you have been approved as a writer and have access to our full range of jobs - this becomes visible once your status has been approved following submission and acceptance of 50 questions.

Please make sure you read the brief in this section including what tags etc. MUST Be included, any required style and content etc.

From the dropdown list, which job featured on the right hand side is this for?

This will take one from the required number meaning you're not writing questions about stuff we no longer need and also means you get paid the right amount of pay for the right job!

We buy questions from freelance writers to sell on to companies who may use them for cash games, widely available quiz games etc. - as a result we and they expect quality questions.

 

And Finally - The Legal Stuff.

All questions that you enter into our online system remain your property until we have accepted them and approved them. At this point, we will pay you for them and reserve the right to resell them or reuse them as we wish.

By accepting payment you pass rights to us to use the questions as we see fit.

By inputting questions into our system, you agree that they are your own work and you have the right to resell same to us.

If you do not agree to this please do not enter questions into our online system.

NOW GET WRITING.................