This guide is meant to provide some general advice for writing articles for us. No need to panic — don’t think of it as a checklist where you’ll fail if you forget anything. These are just some tips to keep in mind to help you create a good piece of writing.
Style
Your article isn’t an essay, and we’re not professors. You don’t need fancy words or vague, complicated sentences. “But” is just as good as “however”, and “a reliable professor” is better than “a professor who students can usually rely on”.
Aim to be understood, not to impress, and say what you have to say in as little space as possible, not as much space as possible.
Try to avoid clichés and other shortcuts to writing. Say something the way it sounds best to you, not the way that takes the least effort or that you’ve seen most often.
Headlines are not easy. It’s always a good idea to suggest one—even though it might be changed, it gives the editors an idea of what you focused on in the article.
The various sections are written in different styles. Often, the tone of features and arts articles will be more casual, while the tone of sports and news will be more formal.
Structure
Plan your article before you sit down to write it. This can be as detailed as going paragraph by paragraph, or as loose as “the things I want to talk about”. You’ll find it helps keep the structure tighter.
Put some thought into the lead. The lead is the opening, the hook that will draw your readers in. What’s your article essentially about? Why is it interesting? Your first sentence shouldn’t be “The Erindale College Council held a meeting on Wednesday, February 7, 2012 to discuss the possibility of a policy that will allow students to drop up to 1.0 credits from their academic record.” Instead, write, “The governing body of UTM has reopened discussion of the drop credit policy.” The details can come later—once the reader is interested.
Submitting
We edit your article, but there’s a certain standard we hope for it to be in before it comes to us. You can help us in a few ways.
Don’t worry about the fonts or spacing. All of that will go through a lot of changes before it gets onto the pages anyway. Just hand us the text. That’s the sweet stuff.
Run a spell-check. Confirm all your names, dates, and figures. Never assume you can spell a name by ear, especially non-English names. The last thing we want is to have to call you on Sunday night to ask for the phone numbers of your sources!
Be available to discuss your article with the section editor after you hand it in. You might need to answer a question, confirm a fact, check a name, cite a source, or explain a sentence. These details aren’t a lot of fun, but they are necessary to making a final product you can be proud of.
Save it as .docx or .doc if your word-processing program has them. Avoid .rtf and .txt.