A LITTLE HEADS-UP ON THE WRITING & EDITING COLLABORATION PROCESS
Thank you for taking the time to write a 600-2,000 word article for my newsletter community of 900+ teachers, students, school counselors/psychologists, school leaders/administrators, parents, and specialized therapists working with schools.
Please see below my prompts and guest writer article guidelines, and send your draft over to eleni (at) elenivardaki.com when you are ready. I will then upload them onto my Guest Writer blog articles template and we will agree on a date to publish and start promoting your article to our audiences.
Before publishing, I’ll send you screenshots of what the first draft looks like when it goes live so that we can look to see what could help it to look and read even better for a more polished final draft. As the Editor of my Guest Writer’s article, I may offer advice and suggestions, in case of interest. But ultimately the final decision (i.e. of what examples you want to include, what diagrams/images you may wish to include, what you want your title to be) is up to you.
PART I: THE ESSENTIALS
This is a checklist of items I need from you to put together your Guest Writer’s article over on my blog:
- How you would describe the educational issue your article addresses, and the purpose of your article (2-4 sentences).
- Who your article is for (Teachers? Parents? School age students? University students? School
leaders? School Counselors? EFT Practitioners?), so that I can categorize it accordingly on my blog. - The content for each section (practical examples/photos of you teaching or leading a group exercise or talk/insights/success stories/
links to research) - The link to your professional LinkedIn account, or a social media that account you want people to visit, if they decide to click on your name at the start of the article (so that I can link what you most want to promote, at the start of the article, when I introduce you).
- The word count is flexible – anywhere between 600 words and 2000 words works fine. Whatever conveys your message, and what you want to say most effectively.
- If you are an educator/mentor/mental health professional: a photo of yourself teaching, or otherwise working that I could use in the article header (I like to bring articles to life with real photos of professionals in action as much as possible, rather than us just using a head shot for the header)
- A second photo of yourself that you’d like me to use in the bio at the end of your article.
- A short bio for the end of your article (3-4 sentences), along with your website link (if you have a website that you want me to hyperlink into your bio).
PART II [OPTIONAL]: IDEAS FOR some NICE-TO-HAVE'S
Here are some optional ideas for how you can visually illustrate the points you make in your article, if you feel like getting a bit creative, and/or acknowledge the research and people who’s work you refer to:
- A 3-7 word title that you would like to me to use for your article (if you don’t mind what the title is, I’ll come up with one for it).
- The subheadings (3-5 words per subheading, ideally) that you want me to use for each section (you’ll notice that they’re the ones in purple, over on the blog). I can do that for you, if you’re unsure what you want them to be.
- Some screen shots or pictures of a sample of student work that demonstrates the impact of your intervention (if you are a teacher/educator/coach/mentor etc)
- One or two quotes that you think work well to introduce a point, or to place what you are about to say in context.
- A diagram that you think will help readers understand what you are referring to in your article.
- A reference list at the end of your article, to acknowledge to the authors and people who’s work you mentioned or referred to in your article.
BLOG TONE & STYLE
Some words to try and keep in mind, as you write your article draft: informal, pragmatic and context-specific points/claims.
- INFORMAL: Try to write like you talk (let us hear your ‘voice’ in your writing. I believe diversity is the spice of life, and I want to keep that human ‘touch’ in the articles I share). So aim for an informal conversational register, as if you were talking to a friend or a colleague.
- PRAGMATIC: As my blog and Guest Writer articles all have a practical, problem-solving tone to them, see if you can think about how you can spell out what the practical educational issue is that you want to speak to, in your article, and to give practical examples from your own work to illustrate your points.
- CONTEXT-SPECIFIC POINTS/CLAIMS: To help the reader understand the context of your work and what is influencing your point of view, consider placing your article in the particular context of your life or work, in some way. Here are examples of how previous Guest Writers have done this:
EXAMPLE 1: If you are a teacher of EFT Practitioner who is bringing tapping into schools with great results and feel ready to contribute a why, how and with what results kind of article for my Guest Writer series, you can check out this article by a primary school teacher for inspiration: https://elenivardaki.com/eft-in-greek-schools/
EXAMPLE 2: If you are a middle school teacher introduced mindfulness through mandala meditations into your classroom, you can clarify for your readers what the context is (i.e. what subject you teach, to what age groups, in what school, is your work part of a top-down student wellbeing initiative led by your school leaders, or is this a teacher-led, grassroots initiative?): https://elenivardaki.com/middle-school-students/
EXAMPLE 3: You can start the article by placing the practical examples you are about to share within the context of a thought-leader who has influenced your approach to well-being interventions: https://elenivardaki.com/mindfulness-in-mainstream-education/
EXAMPLE 4: If you are a university student, you can clarify for the reader what the context is that you are in, which has informed your interest in this topic: https://elenivardaki.com/black-lives-matter/
EXAMPLE 5: If you are writing an article about how you integrate Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) skills education into your youth mentoring programs, you can include a section where you explain the concept of SEL and how it came about: https://elenivardaki.com/social-and-emotional-learning/
EXAMPLE 6: If you are a primary school teacher who introduced Relaxation Time into your Grade 1 class, here’s an example of an article a teacher wrote with a ‘why’, ‘how’, ‘what were the benefits’, and ‘the science behind…(Relaxation Time)’ kind of article structure: https://elenivardaki.com/primary-school-relaxation-time/
Example 7: If you want to raise a student well-being issue that is not being addressed enough in mainstream education by sharing your story, you can start by sharing your personal story that highlights this issue, and end with your personal recommendation: https://elenivardaki.com/adhd-in-women-and-girls/
Example 8: If you are a school leader who wants to share your thoughts on building pastoral care provision into the middle school classroom, you can start by talking about your role in the school you work in, why pastoral care matters. You can end by sharing your thoughts on the most important social, relational, and communication skills students need to develop to become well-rounded learners, alongside the development of a success mindset: https://elenivardaki.com/developing-the-whole-learner/
ALTERNATIVELY: YOU MAY FEEL MORE DRAWN TO DOING A 10-MINUTE INTERVIEW
If you prefer the video interview format, click through to learn more about my Guest Speaker interview series.
