We appreciate your interest in Seattle Study Club Journal. Published case studies, reviews, partner profiles, and other featured articles reach more than 6,000 study club members across the globe, making the Journal an ideal vehicle for reaching a very specialized market segment. The intent of these guidelines is to help you format submission materials and make publication easy and efficient.
Types of Content Accepted
Our goal is to provide cutting edge information and resources club members can use to improve business operations and elevate the care they provide. Let’s face it, we’ve all been told to take care of ourselves before we can take care of anyone else, but how many of us actually do that? So we are excited to announce that the Journal now includes articles, tips, travel recommendations, and interviews that address wellbeing and self-care.
Articles should be well researched and substantiated. Please include references to support your materials. Please do not submit press releases—articles are accepted for their educational value and must not contain promotional content in the article title or body. We will not publish articles that contain negative content toward any product, company, individual or group.
Article Length
We recommend you provide clear, well-paced stories. Long form content, typically posts of 1,800 words or so, generally gets more shares. It allows you to report in greater depth and is more suitable for scanning, which is how most people are reading news posts today. Structure your content with headers, subtitles, short paragraphs, lists, photos, and block quotes to improve the reading experience.
Grammar, Punctuation and Capitalization
Commas – With lists of three or more items, do not use a comma before the coordinating conjunction when the list items are simple. If the list items are more complex or multi-word, use a comma before the conjunction.
Numbers – Spell out all single-digit numbers (0-9) and use numerals for any number 10 and higher.
Abbreviations – The challenge here is that readers may not recognize or understand an abbreviation, which means your story doesn’t get fully delivered. Avoid using abbreviations when possible.
Acronyms – Spell out an acronym title the first time you use it with the acronym following in parentheses, and then use the acronym on every proceeding reference.
Capitalization – Avoid over-capitalization: job titles and department names are typically not capitalized.
Quote Marks – Reserve these for actual quotes you attribute to a speaker. They are commonly misused with publication names—instead, italicize these titles.
Punctuation – We’ve all gotten a little casual in the age of social media, but emphasizing a sentence with three exclamation points doesn’t work here. We also encourage you to avoid over-using commas.
We don’t expect you to be grammar experts, so we will review, make grammar and style edits, and approve each piece before publishing.
Style and Tone
The AP Styleguide provides a framework for phrasing and usage that improves consistency and readability.
Tone deals with how content is written rather than how it appears. The Journal aspires to be:
-
-
- Conversational
- Inspirational
- Progressive
- Thorough
- Engaging
- Academic
- Educational
- Sophisticated
-
Formatting
Use different font sizes to indicate headings—larger for main titles, slightly smaller for section headers, smaller still for sub-sections, and a standard size for the body. This creates a visual hierarchy and helps structure content for the reader.
Please include accurate and complete URL links that are relevant to the content.
Images
Resolution isn’t super critical with images published online, but be sure your image quality is clear. Ideal image size is 2000 pixels wide. Provide keyword descriptors, captions and photo credits for each image you submit.
Article Synopsis
The site is searchable and articles will be posted with title, author name and a brief summary. All submitted articles must include a 1-2 sentence synopsis.
