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Submission Guidelines

The Hellenic Observatory blog encourages submissions from LSE staff, academics, researchers who are normally studying at least at doctoral level, as well as practitioners and policy makers who have significant professional expertise in the subject they are writing about. In exceptional circumstances we accept contributions from students. These will be selected based on their quality and on the level they satisfy the blog’s guidelines.

We are interested in submissions covering a wide range of topics with a focus on Greece and/or Cyprus: economy, society, politics, foreign relations, current affairs. We are keen to include tables, charts, relevant figures and images where appropriate.

To submit an article for consideration, please e-mail it in a Word file to hellenicobservatory@lse.ac.uk . Please, also include Excel files for figures and charts so that these can be modified.
All submitted posts will be passed to the relevant Editor for approval, comments and editing, to enhance readability to the blog’s wider audience.

Style guide

To help authors with the submission process, we’ve compiled a list of some of the main style issues to keep in mind when drafting an article for Greece@LSE.

Length and format

To make our articles as readable and accessible as possible, we usually aim for a length of between 800 and 1,200 words. We are happy to accept longer posts if appropriate for the topic. ‘Snap’ contributions of around 500 words are also welcomed, particularly if they are timely.

Audience, writing style and language

Blogs are written in a more conversational style than traditional academic papers. The blog aims to reach a relatively wide audience, including policy-makers and other non-academics, so we recommend that you avoid overusing acronyms and academic terms or specific terminology that may not be well known outside disciplinary circles. Active, concise, natural language is preferable.
Avoid introductory phrases like “In this paper I will…”, or “This paper aims to…”, and go straight into your discussion of the topic.
Use short paragraphs made up of a few sentences. As with journalistic pieces, ‘lead with the best.’ Don’t save your main argument or analysis for the end of the post.
Write your article as a standalone piece, even if it summarises material in a longer paper or journal article. Try to present all of your argument and evidence within the text and avoid relying too heavily on information contained in external sources.

Referencing

We use links rather than citations for references. Links should direct readers to more detailed reports or other pieces of research, news items or other blog posts. Open access sources are preferred to those behind paywalls.
Please insert a hyperlink at the relevant point of your argument that you’d like to reference: e.g. “Joe Bloggs has said…” Please try to avoid using footnotes wherever possible and integrate material directly into the text.

Titles

We use narrative titles – a single sentence that sums up the main argument of the article. The more descriptive and catchy the title, the more likely the article is to be read. Try to avoid questions or general topics and keep titles to twenty words or less, if possible.

Graphs and charts

We encourage the use of charts and figures. Graphs and charts are preferable to tables, as they are easier for readers to interpret quickly. In all cases, please send us the raw data of your chart, table, or figure in Excel format.
Each chart needs a clearly labelled heading, labels for the X and Y axes or histogram bars, including units of measurement and a readable scale or background grid.
There should be a clear legend distinguishing multiple data series from each other and a brief note on sources. Lines must be thick enough and distinctively coloured. Charts should use a numerical progression to make comparisons more visible.

Biography and contributor photo

We’re proud of our contributors, so we like to give them full attribution. Please send us a three to four line biographical note, with your academic position and research interests.
Please also send us a small colour photo headshot.

Our editing process

In most cases submitted articles will be reviewed speedily by the editors, who will edit the piece to ensure it reaches as wide an audience as possible. Once these edits are complete, we will send you the final version of the article, and give you an opportunity to make any corrections.
All articles on Greece@LSE should be evidence based. With this in mind, editors may double-check the factual accuracy of certain points, or ask you for links to supporting information.

Greece@LSE house style

• Minimise use of bold, underlining, and italics for emphasis.
• We use British spelling – e.g. “organisation” instead of “organization”.
• Use ‘per cent’ instead of %.

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