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10 do's and don'ts on Helium and should be used as a mental reference during ratings.

1) Every writer knows not to plagiarize, but may not realize he/she cannot submit the same article under two similar, but different, titles. A moment's thought makes this duplication fault obvious. Laid out in a virtual magazine format, Helium is paying for "exclusive content" with the same requirements as any other magazine.

2) You cannot praise or disparage another person's article within your own. This is simple civility, but it's also an expected part of a writer's professionalism. This is not a blog site or chat room. Helium wants to create a reputation as a classy, quality-formatted magazine.

Helium now has over four million articles in its "virtual library," and most web readers come to read fact-based information. Advertisers sponsor ads related to those topics, and writers share those revenues.

If people come to read fiction or nonfactual-information, which is offered in the non-paying Channels of Creative Writing, Entertainment, Lifestyle, Politics and Religion, they still expect a degree of professionalism.

3) Helium recommends self-contained article with word lengths between 400 and 1500 words. This is Helium's calculated decision based on what web readers want. Sidebars of information seem incomplete; longer discourses become boring. Of course, there are length exceptions for things like poetry and recipes, but Helium's publishing page now requires 2400 characters, which is approximately 400 words.

4) Cite sources. As part of the "no plagiarizing" rule and its desire for authenticity, Helium expects articles to be based on educational experience, professional training, accumulated wisdom, personal experience, or research. Readers want to know that you know what you're talking about. Helium doesn't want footnotes or bibliographies, but a compromising alternative of weaving source material into your articles or mentioning "For further information, look here" are quite appropriate.

Obviously, we are not all knowledgeable about all topics. If the topic is about a rare disease that affects only 10 people on earth, most readers want to know where the information came from. If you're rating paired topics about which you are clueless, and you feel you can't judge which "is more valuable," use the skip button. Helium also offers the "skip" button if the topic utterly bores you so you aren't forced to read and choose one capriciously.

5) Helium expects proper formatting, punctuation,

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