Contribute

We welcome contributions that are research-based and meet our guidance for contributors. Potential contributions can be discussed in advance with the editors via a short ‘pitch’ sent to: discoversociety@outlook.com

 

Guidance for contributors:

The target audience is the informed, interested general reader, rather than a subject specialist – so avoid writing in the style of journals, and instead write as far as possible in an engaging, accessible way

The first two paragraphs are especially important for capturing the reader, and encouraging them to read on

The first paragraph needs a ‘hook’ that gets the reader’s interest, followed by the ‘angle’ in the second paragraph (approach, preliminary findings, challenge, etc) to show what makes the piece significant and what will be developed in the rest of the article

A brief statement about the study/authority for claims made can come in the second or third paragraphs, with more detail in a paragraph at the end of the article (after the author bio) giving further links to the project or publications

When submitting your piece, use single-spaced 12-point Calibri (without any special formatting) and list any references at the end (don’t use Endnote or other embedded reference systems)

If using footnotes, do not embed them with superscript, but use a bracket marker in the text (1), (2), at end of sentence, with the notes at the end of the article

Keep references to a minimum. The preference is to have references with a link (other references /further reading can be put at the end of the article)

If putting in links to publications try to link to versions that are taken out of paywall protection (eg on academia.edu) if you are able to do so

Use hyperlinks where possible for references. Insert them in the text (for example, using CTRL + K) and bold the hyperlinked part of the text

The word limit is 1500 but we realise that some research/issues are may be difficult to capture within these limits. We want the majority of pieces to conform so that readers are not daunted by the length of every piece. Most other blog posts are 700-1000 words, so 1500 words is already more than most people are used to reading online

Please provide an illustrative picture (in ‘landscape’ orientation, rather than ‘portrait’) that is copyright enabled, with details of attribution. Note, that google images is not fully reliable, even on advanced search. Use of your own photos is encouraged. You can also usually access free to use images from the following sites: New York Public Library

Please provide a brief author bio, together with a hyperlink to your webpage

 

DISSEMINATION – twitter

Each article will be disseminated to the 10K+ followers of Discover Society on a regular basis in the month of the issue your article is published, as well as subsequently. It is also tweeted & retweeted by the Social Policy Association and the British Sociological Association and countless others.

We tweet the article’s title and then require a further 5-6 tweets from you which could be catchy quotes or questions from the article.

It’s important to have a catchy title for your article of no more than 100 characters (the Tweet limit is 140 characters, including hashtag and space for the inclusion of a partial url in order to indicate the link).

Provide your twitter name if you have one or an institutional twitter account (e.g. university department, organisation, etc) for inclusion in the tweets.

If you have a twitter account, retweet your own and other DS tweets!