What does a great article look like?
- It’s 800-1200 words long
- It gets straight to the point - there’s no pointless scene-setting
- It’s something new or fresh or thought-provoking - it’s not something we’ve seen a thousand times
- It’s made for reading online - no huge chunks of text but light paragraphs with extensive use of subheadings
- There’s real insight - it’s not just pushing forward towards a particular course of action
- There are clear next steps - what should a reader do after reviewing the article?
Some other style points:
- Article titles: Should not be submitted with upper case letters for each word.
- Statistics: All statistics and claims MUST be hyperlinked to the source.
- Full stops: Please ensure that single spaces are used after full stops only.
- Job titles: Job titles have initial caps only when the title is next to the name, in whatever order e.g. "Vice President John Doe" compared with "John Doe, who will be appointed vice president next year, commented on the matter.
- Numbers: One to nine should be spelled fully, 10+ should be numerical
- Percent: All percentages should use the symbol e.g. 50% except at the beginning of a sentence where the number should be spelled out fully and the word ‘percent’ used e.g. Forty percent.
- Speech markets: Double speech marks should be used ONLY for direct quotations. Otherwise, use single quote marks.
- Paragraphs: Should be kept SHORT - 45 words is good to aim for
- Sub-headings: Must be used to break up the flow - no more than three paragraphs prior to using a sub-heading. Only the first letter of the first word of the sub-heading should be capped up.
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