Contributor Blogging Guide

About the Blog

The Ms. blog allows us to deliver feminist news and analysis and tell stories related to domestic and global women’s issues and movements. Our readers count on us for smart, thoughtful, incisive and thought-provoking pieces.

We do our best to amplify posts on the Ms. blog. Through social media sharing and our weekly blog digest, we engage millions of readers. We seek to use our blog as a platform for movement leaders and passionate activists to build visibility for the issue they care about and bolster their profile within the feminist community.

Ms. is a 501 C3 organization. We cannot implicitly or explicitly endorse candidates running for office, although we can critique and analyze the decisions of politicians. We can express support for specific policies or pieces of legislation, but we cannot directly encourage lobbying.

Your Role as a Contributor • Contributors will write at least two posts per month, typically in line with a pre-selected “beat” or series of preferred topics that fall under our coverage umbrella. Posts should be submitted via Wordpress. • Contributors will share their pieces on social media when possible.

Editorial Disclaimers, Guidelines, and Tips

• Pieces on the blog typically run between 500 and 800 words. That range is flexible, especially for personal essays and in-depth reporting.

• We are always looking to not only report on issues, but connect our readers with pathways to action. Whether it’s an online petition, an upcoming rally, or a hashtag campaign, include the activism happening around the issues or topics covered in your pieces whenever possible.

• Our blog is also where our community lives. We encourage bloggers to comment on each other’s work and reply to comments on their pieces.

• All blog posts are edited lightly for style before they are published. Major edits will be shown to the author before publishing. We reserve the right to withdraw our acceptance of a submission at any time. We reserve the right to unpublish a post at any time.

• All posts on the Ms. Blog are written on a volunteer basis. As such, bloggers retain full rights to their work with no delay upon publishing. You may seek out the republishing of your piece with other publications or republish it on a personal website as long as Ms. is credited for being the original source.

Types of Pieces We Publish

• Original reporting, news coverage and feminist analysis of current events, pop culture, or the women’s movement at-large • Personal essays that connect back to cultural or political issues and topics—such as street harassment, workplace discrimination, etc. • Posts that dive into—and breathe new life—into feminist history and tell the stories often left behind in mainstream historical analysis • Thoughtful reviews of music, television shows and films, theater productions, books, and other art and media • Interviews with feminist movers / shakers, either as Q&As or features • Lists, quizzes and slideshow posts • Occasionally, we will accept and publish creative work that falls outside of the bounds of these listed styles such as poetry, book excerpts, etc.

Beats / Topics We Cover

• Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights • Violence Against Women • Media & Arts / Pop Culture • Global Women’s Rights / International Policy Issues • Domestic Politics and Policy • Intersectional Issues & Identity • Environmental Issues • Economic Equity & Labor Rights • Education Equity / Title IX

Tone and Style

While the blog can be more conversational than the magazine, it should still adhere to journalistic standards and ethics, as well as AP/Ms. style. The NYT op-ed style guide is a good resource for this particular format.

Professional:

• Contributors are writing as representatives of Ms., so should avoid unnecessarily crude language. • Criticisms of right wing/conservative media, figures, and positions are encouraged, but arguments must be grounded in factual evidence.

Smart and articulate:

• Concise and intelligent arguments. • Always use facts, statistics, and accurate historical review to back up your points. • Don’t assume anything of your audience, and don’t take for granted that they know jargon or the basics of a topic. Do all you can to flesh out a topic and present it to them in accessible language.

Witty, thoughtful, not too snarky

• Ease the blow of the serious, the heavy-handed, or the devastating with humor, sincerity, or attitude, as the situation dictates. • Appeal to readers’ sense of humor or tenderly channel their disdain in a way that compels them to action rather than resignation.

Controversial Topics and Important Concepts

• Productive debate is great, but we like to keep it in the spirit of sisterhood. If you know you’re writing on a topic divisive among feminists, be sure to acknowledge the other side. Ms. works to have a nuanced and thoughtful stance.

• We’re a bit persnickety about the idea of “waves” in feminism. We think they’re too often gross oversimplifications that carry with them sexist, age-related stereotypes. If you’re referencing them, please don’t do so offhandedly—explain why and do so for good reason.

• Ms. has a strong tradition of intersectionality. We believe that being a feminist means fighting all forms of oppression, many of which interact. Bloggers should strive to write from an intersectional POV.

What Makes a Post Popular

• “WTF” Aspect: Covering an event, person or thing so offensive you have to laugh or scream. Something super awesome or super frustrating will get readers engaged, and fast.

• Posing a Question: Opportunities for readers to share stories, add their opinion, or even debate with you or one another are very popular.

• Having an Original Angle: It can be hard not to rehash someone else’s concept in the age of the 24/7 news cycle and a web landscape bursting at the seams with feminist perspectives. We strive to say something new in every piece—and focusing on writing pieces where you have something original to say or add to a conversation will ensure that your piece performs better, too.

Citations / Sourcing

• Always link in the text of your post to any and all sources. Sources that cannot be hyperlinked should be referenced in the text. • If you are using quotes or information from an interview you conducted, be sure to reference the context or timing of the interview in the blog post.

How to Log In to the Blog

The Ms. Blog is powered is by Wordpress (WP). The rest of this guide will walk you through how to use WP according to our format and style guidelines and will help you get acquainted with how it works.

You can log into the blog dashboard at http://msmagazine.com/blog/wp- login.php. Once you’ve logged in, you’ll see your blog dashboard, which has all of the tools you need to create, edit, and publish posts.

How to Create Your Author Profile

Click on “Profile” on the lower left side of the screen. This will take you a screen where you can—and should—fill out your personal details. Please enter your first and last name and select your full name as your display name in this section. You aren’t required to enter your social media information or add a link to your website, but it’s recommended to build your profile as a writer. You can add contact info and change your password here as well.

When you’re done, please email a full-color, professional headshot to [email protected] with a copy of your bio.

How to Set Up Your Screen Options

Go to “Posts” on the left and hit “Add New.” Then, click “Screen Options” in the upper right. Make sure the following boxes are the only ones checked off: • Excerpt • Editorial Comments • Notifications

How to Create, Edit, and Save a Post

To create a new post, click on the “Posts” button and then click “Add New.” To edit an exiting draft, click “Posts,” and click on your post title.

The WP editor is, by and large, self-explanatory. To edit in rich-text mode (think Word), use the “Visual” tab. To edit or insert code, use the “Text” tab.

In “Visual” mode, you’ll see the following buttons:

Hit “Kitchen Sink” if you see it to get these functions:

Using WP Functions According to Ms. Format and Style

• Block Quotes: Add “block quotes” when quoting something longer than a couple of lines. To insert a block quote, create a new paragraph with the quoted text alone, highlight the text and press the block-quote button.

• Links: To add a link, highlight the word or phrase that you want to link and then press the link button and paste the full url of the link— including “http://”—and select “open link in new tab” when you see it listed as an option.

o When linking, be as specific as possible. If you are linking to a report from the World Health Organization, for example, you should link the phrase “World Health Organization report.” o When linking a quote, link the intro phrase ("said to The Nation," "asked her students," etc), or to a description of the content, not to the person's name or the actual quote, i.e. “Gloria Steinem, founder of Ms. magazine, said to Patt Morrison ‘that community is all-important…’ o To remove a link, highlight the link in your post and click the “unlink” button – which is to the right of the “link” button and looks like a broken chain.

• If your post has sections, please use hierarchal organization for your subtitles. You should not use headings unless you are writing an in- depth piece with specific and necessary sections. Never use Heading 1 in a post. Your first series of subtitles in a post would be in Heading 2. Subtitles within them would be Heading 3, and so on.

Other Style Notes for Blogs

• Please include a headline idea, although it may be changed. Capitalize all nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives and prepositions of four or more letters. Lowercase all prepositions of three or fewer letters, except when they appear as the first or last word. • Separate paragraphs with an empty line. Do not indent. • Always italicize Ms. Don’t: WRITE IN ALL CAPS, overuse italics, use bolded font, put two spaces after a period. (Just don’t do it.)

Saving a Post

While you are working on your post, you can save your work in the top right at any time using the “Save” button in the “Publish” box. (Please be careful not to hit “Publish!”) It is advisable to compose your post in WP if you have a secure, reliable Internet connection, but technical errors can happen and work can be lost. Always copy the text or code of your piece in full before you save or file a draft to prevent loss of content.

Adding an Excerpt

When your draft is complete, add a short summary of or quote from your piece in the “Excerpt” field. This is the text that appears on the front page and on websites like Facebook under the title of your post.

How to File Drafts and Revisions

The Ms. Blog uses post “statuses” to keep tabs on where each piece is in the editorial process. These are our editorial statuses:

• Author’s Draft: This is a work in progress and is not ready for an editor. Use this to save your work. This is the primal stage for any post and is what WordPress will automatically file a post as. If your post is filed as an Author’s Draft, we will not know to look at it for edits, proofing, or posting.

• Ready for Edits: When you feel your draft is ready for an editor, file your post to this status.

• In Revisions: If your post is moved to this status by an editor, it means they’ve left you an Editorial Comment (see later) and have feedback or notes for you to follow-up on. When a post is “In Revisions,” an editor does not know to review it or prep it for publishing. When you are done making revisions, file your piece as “Ready for Edits” again.

• Final Prep: If your post is in here, an editor is working on the finalization of your post’s formatting. Do not file to this status.

• Evergreen / On Hold: Do not file to this status. An editor will file a post here and will have a plan for it when they do so.

Changing a Status

To file a draft, you must:

1. Go to the Notifications box and check off “Editorial Team” 2. Use the “Publish” box to change your post status. 3. Hit “Save As ____.” Your editor will receive a notification about your post’s new status.

Do not go through this process until you are past the Author’s Draft stage. Once you have checked the “Editorial” box, you will not have to check it again and your editor will continue receiving notifications about your post.

Using Editorial Comments

In order to keep communication organized and prevent email overload, your editor will utilize the “Editorial Comments” widget in WP for back-and-forth with you about your post. Once you have submitted a post for edits you should only communicate with your editor through this widget.

In order to submit a comment, you must: 1. Make sure “Editorial” is checked off in “Notifications” 2. Hit the “Add New Editorial Comment” button on the widget in the WP editor for the post in question 3. Enter your comment and click “Submit.”

You will receive an email when an editor replies to your editorial comment. Do not reply to the email—instead, log in to WP and reply via another comment.

Please send the following to your editor via Editorial Comments: • Any sources that you were not able to directly link in your post. • Any images that you want to include (either the URL or an attachment) with the appropriate attribution. • Questions and comments related to their edits or your revisions to a post. • Confirmation that a final draft, when applicable, is good to go.

Your editor will use Editorial Comments to pass along: • Major notes / edits on a piece or questions about content • The answers to any questions you pose about a piece • A predicted publishing date for the piece in case of an expected delay.