Guidelines for Publishing in Voice
Guidelines for Writing Editorials in Voices (Tomorrow’s Leaders~Today’s Issues)
Voices (Tomorrow’s Leaders~Today’s Issues) welcomes written submissions from 17-25 year olds from around the world. The readers of our publication are interested in your views and concerns but if your first sentence doesn’t immediately grab attention, your “words of wisdom” are not apt to be read. Listed below are some basic concepts in journalism that will help you put your ideas into an interesting piece that your peers will want to read.
- Read the editorial pages of past issues of TeenSpeak Today for the Leaders of Tomorrow (www.teenspeaknews.com) and Voices (www.voicesoftomorrow.org). Typically editorials appear in the front of each publication. This will give you an idea of the kind of editorials we are interested in publishing.
- Editorials published in Voices are tightly focused opinion pieces that are argued as you would a point in a debate. They are no more than 400-500 words and can be about any issue domestic or international that confronts your country or our world (human rights, gender rights, war, ethnic diversity, non-violent conflict resolution, introducing democracy to the Middle East, birth control, religion, etc.) or it can be about youth issues (educational concerns, globalization and cultural change, entertainment, sports and the arts, travel, etc.) ANY topic that concerns you, a new development that impacts your life in your country, or comparing life in your country to your observations of life in another country are some ideas.
- GETTING STARTED – What is it about your opinion that will likely interest your peers who are 17-25 years of age? Refine your argument/position – perhaps pretend that you are the reader – what aspects of your argument are you most interested in?
- DO NOT SUBMIT AN ESSAY – Your editorial should be written in more of a conversational in style – as if you were talking to a friend – WITHOUT run on sentences. Every sentence can be edited to bare-bones, yet hard-hitting language that will make what you write an interesting piece.
- People appreciate stories about other people or things of interest. You can illustrate the message you want to convey by telling a story about someone or something in your first paragraph. This is a very good way to get the reader’s attention. A personal connection to what you are writing about always helps because it infuses your editorial with passion
- Photographs/and illustrations are a necessary component to your piece BUT they cannot be taken from any source that you have not gotten permission/photo credit. In other words, you cannot take photos and illustrations off of the web they need to be original artwork or artwork for which you are crediting someone who has given you permission to use his/her work. Artwork is to be sent as a jpeg attachment.
- Identify yourself as an alumnus of the Ben Franklin Transatlantic Fellows Inititative