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Southern Breeze News Writer’s Guidelines
Southern Breeze News
Writer’s Guidelines
Updated July 2014
What’s Expected of You
1. Write an original[1] article of interest to writers and/or illustrators of children’s books. Your article may present general information or relate your personal experience. For example, a story about a workshop you attended could be an objective review of what was taught, or it could be a first-person description of how the workshop inspired you or affected your work.
Types of content we will consider are:
· Instruction / advice / helpful hints
· Recaps of conference sessions, workshops, or other SCBWI events
· Reviews of craft books (those that teach writing / illustrating only)
· Reviews of technology / software used in your writing or illustration work
2. Write in journalistic style. As a rule, your article should begin with the most important point(s), then follow with greater detail or additional information. Journalistic writing assumes that many readers will read only the first paragraph or two of a story. Readers who scan SBN should be able to glean the essence of your story from the first few paragraphs.
For example, if you were writing about the keynote speech at a conference, you would open your article with the one or two central themes or lessons that were presented in the speech. In later paragraphs, you would include details supporting those major points, and/or minor points the speaker touched on; however, you would likely omit some points that were tangents away from the main message. In journalistic writing, you are summarizing the main messages of the speech, not listing everything that the speaker said.
In most cases, you should not write your article in a narrative style, which presents information chronologically. To compare to the example above, if you wrote about a speech in narrative style, it would be a retelling of the remarks, starting with the speaker’s introduction, working through all the points covered, and ending with the speaker’s conclusion. This is generally inappropriate for newsletter writing, as it often hides the core information from readers who scan only the first paragraph or two.
3. Adhere to the rules in the Chicago Manual of Style and the SBN Stylebook. SBN follows Chicago when it comes to general rules like abbreviations and punctuation. We also have our own specific style guidelines. Is it wik or WIK? Should you capitalize “associate editor”? What’s the proper formatting for book titles? You’ll find all of these answers and more in the style guide that is included with these writer’s guidelines.
4. Keep your article brief. SBN prefers that articles be relatively short, for layout considerations and to be sensitive to the time constraints (and large to-be-read stacks) that many of us face in our daily lives. Most articles should be 300-350 words. Member profiles may be 400-450 words.
5. Write a brief bio to run with your article. Your bio should be just one or two sentences. Typically, it will include a bit about the type of work you do. You may wish to say where you live and give other small, personal details. If you have published works, you can mention those as well.
6. Proofread your work before you submit it. This includes fact checking of:
w Phone numbers (by calling them)
w Web addresses (by clicking them)
w Proper spelling of people’s names
w Addresses
w Dates of upcoming events
7. Submit your article in Microsoft Word format to the managing editor of SBN by the deadline.
Summer issue April 15
Winter issue October 25
Deadlines may be adjusted to accommodate production and programming schedules. If you get delayed, inform the managing editor.
8. If you’re asked to revise or rewrite your article, resubmit by the new deadline. Just like the editors of a book or magazine, the SBN editorial team may decide that your article needs to be longer, or shorter, or have a different focus. Please do not take a revision request as a rejection. We simply have to consider how your article will complement the other content in the newsletter. If you can’t meet the deadline for your rewrite, inform the managing editor.
Southern Breeze News
Stylebook
General style rules
SBN will generally adhere to the style rules in the most recent edition of the Chicago Manual of Style. Below are additional style rules specific to SBN—some of which depart from Chicago style—and reminders of some of the most commonly used style rules from Chicago.
Titles of works
· Short story or magazine article In quotes
· Book All caps
· Name of a magazine All caps
· Book series Italics
· Newspaper title Italics
Examples:
Mary Farmer’s short story “Last Train to Albuquerque” appeared in the July 2011 issue of CRICKET.
Jackson’s YA novel APPLES TO ORANGES spent fifteen weeks on the New York Times best seller list.
People’s names
· Names should be printed in upper and lower case.
· If a person uses their initials as their familiar name, put a space after each initial. Example: E. B. Lewis (not E.B. Lewis)
· On first mention, the full name should be used.
· On second and subsequent mentions, use first name only.
Examples:
Award-winning author Kirby Larson delivered an inspiring keynote address.
[Later in the same article] Kirby advised writers to write the stories that capture their hearts.
Southern Breeze Abbreviations
· Fall conference (WIK). First reference should be the full conference title, including the two-digit year, e.g., Writing and Illustrating for Kids ’12. Subsequent references use wik(2-digit year), e.g., wik12. Note the use of lowercase letters, the absence of an apostrophe, and the absence of a space between wik and the year. If referring to the conference in general, use WIK, in all caps. Example: Gina was the conference chair for WIK from 2007 to 2010.
· Spring conference (Springmingle). First reference should use the full title, including the two-digit year, e.g., Springmingle ’13. Subsequent references use SM(2-digit year), e.g, SM13 (all caps, no apostrophe, no space). If speaking of the conference in general, use Springmingle – use of SM alone is discouraged. Example: Terry says she never misses a Springmingle.
· Regional Advisor may be abbreviated as RA on second reference.
· Co-Regional Advisor may be abbreviated as Co-RA on second reference.
· Local Liaison may be abbreviated LL on second reference.
SBN standards for specific words and phrases
· nonfiction
· online
· e-zine
· website
· web page
· e-book
· Schmooze (always capitalized)
· YA is acceptable to mean young adult on first reference and need not be spelled out, but should be in all caps, no periods
· SCBWI stands alone, without “the” preceding it. Example: Sanjay joined SCBWI in 1995.
· SCBWI takes the preceding article “an” not “a.” Example: Every time I attend an SCBWI conference, I leave inspired and full of writing energy.
· middle-grade
· Illustrators’ Day
· Illustrators’ Column
· Writers’ Column
· Breezers, to refer to members of the Southern Breeze region
Web pages
· URL is usually not case sensitive. Use upper- and lower-case letters if it helps the reader understand the address. Example: www.WriteBetterToday.com. Verify that the URL works in this upper/lower format as part of your fact checking.
· http:// is understood and does not need to be included.
· URLs should be formatted in black, bold, not underlined.
Postal addresses
· When giving an address in the body of text, use upper and lower case, and separate items with commas. Use two-letter postal abbreviation for state name, and always include ZIP Code. Example: Southern Breeze, PO Box 26282, Birmingham, AL 35260.
State names
· If a state name is used alone, without naming a specific city, do not abbreviate. Example: Bryan’s book tour will include a dozen schools in Georgia and Florida.
· When space allows, spell out the entire name of the state within text. Offset the state name with commas. Example: Jason lives in Decatur, Georgia, where he writes middle-grade fiction and educational books.
· If the state name must be abbreviated, use the two-letter postal abbreviation for the state. Examples: Birmingham, AL; Meridian, MS
· Names of major cities are used alone. Examples: Atlanta; New York; Paris
Names of awards
Award names should use initial caps. If the word “award” is part of the award name, it also should be capitalized. Examples: Newbery Medal, Golden Kite Award
Professional titles
Job titles such as editor, art director and agent should be in lowercase. Example: Jenny Stein, associate editor at Scholastic, is seeking original works about the War of 1812. Exceptions: Use initial caps for SCBWI titles such as Regional Advisor and Local Liaison.
Numbers
· Spell out numbers between one and ninety-nine. Example: Shelly has published three picture books.
· Use numerals for anything greater than ninety-nine, unless the number begins a sentence. Example: One hundred eighty people attended Springmingle, an increase from last year’s attendance of 150.
Serial commas
In accordance with Chicago rules, SBN will use the serial comma or “Oxford comma.” When three or more items are listed, with the last one preceded by a conjunction, a comma should appear before the conjunction. Example: Laura Simon will present a workshop on networking, social media, and school visits.
Dates and times
· Unless necessary for space considerations, do not abbreviate the names of months.
· When listing only the month and year of an event, no comma is used between the month and year. Example: Her novel will be published in December 2013.
· When giving time of day, use a.m. or p.m., unless the text includes the general day part (i.e., morning, afternoon or evening). Example: We started our work at 8:30 in the morning.
· Never use 12 a.m. or 12 p.m. Rather, use noon or midnight.
Quotation marks
· Precede the beginning of a quote with a comma, unless the quote is a short phrase.
· Ending punctuation is placed before the final quote. Exception: If the quote is a statement, but the sentence containing the quote is a question, the question mark follows the final quote. Example: Did you hear Kevin Henkes say, “I never drew a mouse before I turned 30”?
Ellipses
· Ellipses ( . . . ) are used to show the omission of content.
· An ellipsis consists of three consecutive periods, separated by spaces. It should be both preceded and followed by a single space.
· If the partial quote preceding an ellipsis could form a complete sentence, place a period at the end of the last word before the ellipsis, as you would ending the sentence, then use a single space, followed by the three-period ellipsis, a space, and the beginning of the next thought, capitalized as the beginning of a new sentence. Example: “Those two years felt like a lifetime. . . . At times, I thought my book would never be published.”
Apostrophes
· Ensure that apostrophes face the proper direction. Example: ’08
Em Dashes
· An em dash shows an abrupt change of thought or can offset related information. An em dash is a single, long line, not two hyphens. It has no spacing separating it from the words that come before and after it. Example: Her first three books—published by Random House, Dial Books, and Candlewick Press—have sold a combined 36,000 copies.
[1] We prefer that your article be new and unpublished. We will consider using content that has appeared on an author’s or illustrator’s blog or web site. However, content that has been previously published may need to be modified to suit the needs of SBN. After publication, you’re welcome to pursue publication elsewhere.