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Are you considering writing a blog post? Here are a few tips on how to approach this task – how to write a blog post in 11 easy steps and should I write a guest post.

Below you can find our detailed editorial guidelines – if you are writing a blog for us, we ask that you follow these.

Our audience

The aim of this blog is to encourage dialogue and exchange for anyone interested in parenting, children and digital media, in particular:

  • Those with a personal responsibility for children’s welfare (e.g. parents, grandparents or other carers, relatives and mentors)
  • Professionals who work directly with parents and children (e.g. teachers, informal educators, librarians, childcare professionals, clinicians, social workers, etc.)
  • People and bodies who plan policy, products and services for parents and children (e.g. journalists, parenting experts and advisors, on- and offline parenting groups, media regulators, policy-makers, content developers, etc.)
  • Researchers with an interest in parenting, families and digital media (e.g. students, academic researchers, media consultants or think tanks, etc.)

Length and format

  • Each post should be between 800 – 1000 words, in Word format.
  • Please use subheadings and short paragraphs to make the post easier to read online or on a mobile device.
  • Choose an appropriate and catchy title. It can highlight your main argument or key finding, or you can phrase it as a provocative question – but only if you can provide an insightful answer to it in your post. Please keep titles short but clear (as they will become the content for readers who click the ‘tweet’ button).
  • Please focus on solutions and highlighting best practice, not only on challenges or problems.
  • Posts should not be promotional, but should be focused on sharing expertise or knowledge.
  • It’s best if your post can signal the main focus or question, and also the main conclusion, right in the first paragraph.
  • Please make sure your claims are based in evidence and link to good quality research sources.
  • Ensure your post has a clear conclusion – a strong statement, provocation or question.

Writing style and language

  • Do not use jargon, acronyms and technical abbreviations.
  • Write in everyday language – posts should be easily understandable by an informed, non-expert public audience.
  • Use bullet points to highlight or summarize key points.
  • Don’t assume prior knowledge from your readers, write your post as a stand-alone piece.

Links

  • Provide evidence for your claims, linking to source material. If you are not citing your own research, link to the appropriate source, using footnotes for offline/pay walled sources and hyperlinks for online sources.
  • Please hyperlink key words in your text to direct readers to additional context and research (e.g. reports, policy documents, academic research, news items, other blog posts etc.). Where possible link to open access sources.
  • Please do your best to only link to sources you trust.
  • We appreciate if you can link to previous blogs from our site, where relevant.

Visuals

  • Each post has to be published with a visual.
  • If you are able, please provide a photo, image, graph or chart if you a) own the rights to it or b) are legally allowed to republish it with attribution.
  • If you do provide a visual, please add a caption and let us know if it needs a credit.
  • When selecting visuals see our current posts for general style – ie, children and/or adults using media.
  • Please bear in mind that we try to include diversity in our images, particularly in terms of race and gender, and family or extended care giver networks.
  • If you don’t provide a visual, the editors will pick one with an appropriate Creative Commons license.

Content review process

  • All articles will be reviewed by at least one of the members of the Parenting for a Digital Future research team and approved for publication.
  • We may edit the piece to make it more readable and accessible to a wider audience. Edits may include shortening or summarising of text, and adapting to our house style.

Contributor biography and photo

  • For each guest post, we will add a short introductory paragraph that includes your affiliation and introduces your post.
  • Please also send us a headshot photo of yourself (jpeg or tiff), plus a short (2-3) sentence bio (with links if desired) that we can post alongside the introductory paragraph.

Ethics

  • All posts, including guest contributions, are the opinions of the individual author and not of the LSE, the MacArthur Foundation or the Connected Learning Research Network.
  • Contributors are responsible for the accuracy of their work.
  • Unattributed use of other people’s work is unacceptable and harmful not only to the author but also to the reputation of the blog. Responsibility for any plagiarism will rest with the author.
  • All posts are published under a Creative Commons license, and other blogs and publications are free to use them, without editing for content, with attribution.