Submit An Article To TeachThought
by TeachThought Staff
What You Need To Know Before Writing & Submitting
We are hugely interested in your ideas and how they can grow teachers and are excited to begin experimenting with publishing select submissions from educators. With that in mind, you can find some rules, tips, and submission form below.
- First and foremost, the content simply needs to be non-promotional, useful, and/or compelling for innovative teachers. That’s really it.
- we believe that teachers are the best source of innovation in education. You don’t have to be a ‘writer.’ Most contributing writers at TeachThought aren’t ‘published authors,’ but rather passionate teachers that want to share an idea or resource with colleagues.
- Anything submitted for publication is subject to revision and editing. This includes minor language mechanic issues or significant addition/deletion/reorganization of content. If you only want your submission to be considered as-is and completely intact (unchanged,) please include a preface in bold font above the title of your submission.
- Any submission must adhere strictly to the TeachThought Style Guide. Any submission not meeting the requirements of the Style Guide cannot be published.
- Submitting an article is no guarantee that it can be published.
- Promotional content, content created for the purpose of ‘backlinks,’ and other thin/unuseful content will not be considered for publication.
- Original content that has not been published elsewhere (by the submitting author) will receive stronger consideration, though previously-published content can be considered when the submitting author retains property/publishing rights. It hopefully goes without saying that all content must be well-written, useful, free from plagiarism, and written with and for the purpose of growing innovative teachers.
- Any reader content published by TeachThought must be CC-licensed appropriately for commercial use.
- All links embedded in posts must be approved by TeachThought. All non-approved links will be removed.
- Submitting an image (sketchnote-style, a kind of infographic, charts and graphs, etc.) isn’t necessary, but makes the article/submission stronger and more likely to be published.
- All images must be Copyright-free and owned by submitting author or otherwise appropriately CC-licensed.
- All images must be 4:3 in shape (rectangle/landscape). The ideal sizes are 756 x 567 and 1000 x 750. Images larger than this cannot be submitted.
Other Tips For Success
- It sounds simple, but ‘have something to say.’
- Before writing, ask yourself, ‘Would I read this and/or share this with colleagues? Would this add anything to my teaching or the learning of my students? Does this idea represent new thinking, or has it already been ‘said before?’ If your honest answer to each isn’t a resounding yes, your idea likely needs more reflection. You can email me and I can help.
- What other articles/media have I seen about this topic, and what can I learn from them to bring to this article?”
- Every article should have a clear audience and purpose and thesis/theme.
- Have a useful, colorful, and/or informative graphic that helps readers make sense of or use ideas in the article.
- The best articles are 1) written about compelling topics 2) useful for practicing educators 3) well-written 4) insightful–new thinking about existing ideas, or new thinking about new ideas, for example.
TeachThought General Style Guide Recommendations For Reader Submissions
2024 Style Guide For Web Content
Updated Sept 2024
Contact [email protected]
The best ‘Style Guide’ is likely existing TeachThought content. That said, not all of our content has been created with style guide best practices. Here are three can be used to guide you.
Why You Should Be Asking More Questions In Your Classroom
Learning Is The Ultimate Disruption
126 Bloom’s Taxonomy Power Verbs For Digital Learning
General recommendations
The use of an ‘ideal reader’ that you keep in mind while writing can help guide your ideas and improve the ‘accuracy’ of your post.
If you want to email me to ask about angles, ideas, and other suggestions on content, doing so before writing can save both of us a lot of time. To that point, any time spent pre-writing (doing research, organizing ideas, etc) makes your writing better and quicker (less need for revision).
Have someone else read your post before submitting to find typos. (I am the king of typos—this is how I know.)
Consider reading your writing out loud so that you can more easily identify clunky sentences, unclear ideas, etc.
Most posts should have a clear thesis. This can/should appear once towards the beginning, be reiterated (or evolved) in the conclusion, and can also appear (re-worded) in the title itself.
Titles
All titles will be written/revised/approved by me (Terrell Heick), but the closer they are in tone/aesthetic to TeachThought content, the less they will need to be revised
All words are capitalized
Should be insightful and/or compelling; clarify the utility or benefit of the content without misleading reader; if you wouldn’t want to read the post based on the title, change the content and/or title so that you would : )
Headings/subheadings
Headings and subheadings should make reading easier by organizing the main points while also allowing readers to skim and find what they’re looking for more easily
All headings/subheadings use bold font
Writing Style/Length
Use one space between sentences.
Avoid uninteresting and emaciated language (e.g., ‘a lot’…’very’..’.big’). Use interesting words without sounding like you’re trying to use interesting words.
Do not indent paragraphs.
Use transitions (e.g., ‘On the other hand,’ ‘With this in mind…’Beyond that…’….’Alternatively…’
In most numbered lists (ask me if uncertain), use periods at the end of itemized content (a tip or strategy, for example) if it’s a complete sentence, but don’t if it’s not.
Use of contractions is fine. In general, try to make the writing as readable as possible without sacrificing voice/quality.
Tone: This depends on the context being created, whether it’s an editorialized essay, list of tools and resources, news-like content, etc. In general, the tone should be somewhere between plain and intellectual without being haughty.
Paragraphs should generally be 3-5 sentences, though shorter or longer can work as a matter of writing style.
Posts should be long enough to be useful/insightful/compelling/informative. This can be as few as 500 words and as many as 1200 or more.
Words & Phrases
- Write words for numbers 1-10, numbers for 10+
- Use American-ized versions of words (e.g., flavor not flavour)
- Hyphenate terms and phrases that necessitate it, including ‘projects-based learning, word-of-mouth, etc.
- eBook, eLearning, UbD, internet
- Use licensor spelling when available (e.g., iPad, iOS, facebook, PayPal, etc.)
Linking
- All posts should link to at least one related TeachThought post
- Do not link to anything from the ‘Archived’ category
- For all links to TeachThought content, products, and services, bold the anchor text
Citations
- Citing current or exemplary/relevant research is highly encouraged
- Cite the source of anything you didn’t think or write yourself
- Use the (Author last name, year) format when citing, then link to source in footer. ‘Example: UbD offers an explanation for inquiry in the classroom.’ (Wiggins, 1994)
Images
- Use only CC-licensed images, or images you have rights to. Always link to source of licensed image
- Images should be sized 4:3; usually, this means 756×567, but for larger/quality graphics where reading small text is necessary, 1000×750 (or even larger at times) can work
- Compelling images are as important as the content itself. Spend the time to create useful/compelling images—the long-term success of the post will make it worth it
Punctuation
- Always use the Oxford Comma and avoid comma splices.
- Use a single ‘quote’ mark when using a word or phrase ironically (…this is the ‘best’ solution when using multiple-choice assessments…), and “regular quotation marks” when quoting a person, text, etc.
- Use only one ‘s’ with an apostrophe after word ending in ‘s’ to indicate possession (Jesus’ vs Jesus’s); use as correct elsewhere (to indicate possession by plural nouns—e. g., the cats’ paws left prints on the frosty windshield)
- The period goes on the inside of quotations
- Use Ampersands in Titles, headings, subheadings and social shares if it makes the text more readable
- You’re encouraged to use em-dashes, semi-colons and related punctuation, but do so sparingly
- Ellipses = three dots, unless it ends in a period when four are used.