1. Thematic focus
The overall theme of Strife is human conflict, broadly defined. We are interested in the causes, consequences, progress, prevention and resolution of armed conflict, its impact on society and culture, as well as the clash of interests and ideas relating to it. We are also interested in the artistic representation of conflict. We emphasize unique perspectives and approaches in our posts.
2. How to submit your blog piece.
All submissions to Strife should be made electronically, in MS Word (no PDF’s), e-mailed as an attachment to [email protected]. Your e-mail should be clearly marked with the words ‘Blog entry’ in the title. Please send an accompanying image with your text, if possible. Images are not to be inserted into the text, but are to be sent as a separate attachment. If the image is from the internet then please send a link as well. Please read the Images section below for important copyright information. A brief author’s biography of no more than three sentences is also required. If you would like to consult about topic selection or to propose a specific topic, you can forward your questions or suggestions to the editorial team at the email above. Though, please note, we do not require a topic to be pro-approved and we accept submissions on a rolling basis.
Your article will be returned to you with feedback from our editorial team. If your article is selected for publication, then it is your responsibility to review those comments and ensure you send back a ‘clean’ version of the article which is ready to publish with no tracked changes remaining. If any track changes do remain in the returned document, then we will assume that those changes are meant to be accepted and will accept all; the piece will then be published as is. Note, while we do our best to avoid them, we take no responsibility for any content mistakes or errors that may be present in the piece as a result of the document being re-submitted for publishing with track changes still present.
Please note, we will only accept submissions from undergraduate level students who have cleared their second year, and/or who are submitting a piece which has been recommended as matching our standards for publication by their personal tutor, graduate teaching assistant, lecturer, or module convener.
3. Ethics
Accuracy
Contributors are responsible for the factual accuracy of their work.
Plagiarism
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.
Comments
Comments and replies will be moderated. However, feel free to report any offensive or unwarranted behaviour.
Rights
All text published on Strife’s website will be under a Creative Commons license, whereby work can be quoted or reproduced elsewhere as long as it is properly attributed and linked back to Strife, and as long as it is not reproduced for commercial use. (For details on CC licensing, see brief summary and Legal Code.). Unless otherwise informed, we assume that submitted articles are offered for exclusive publication in Strife and that no piece accepted for publication will be published elsewhere simultaneously in any form without our knowledge.
4. Conventions
Size
Blog posts should be between 800 and 1,500 words in length. In general, most articles should aim to be between 1,200 and 1,400 words. Articles over 1,500 words will not be accepted without prior consultation with the editing team and must be an outstanding work.
Book reviews for the blog should normally be under 1,400 words. In most cases, longer book reviews will be considered for publication in the Journal. In special cases, like review requests by publishers or editorial review suggestions, the permitted length of book reviews might be extended.
Information to be submitted with your text
- Title of the paper, set in bold.
- Your name directly below the title.
- A brief writer’s profile
- A link to your twitter or college profile (optional)
- Two or three keywords.
- A caption for your image.
- The source of your image and any copyright information in brackets.
These should be separated from the text by two carriage returns.
Images
Contributors are strongly encouraged to provide one or more illustrations for their post. This may be photographs, graphics or a cartoons. Pictures can be in gif, png, jpg or jpeg format. Please note, the editorial team reserves the right to curate which images are, or are not, included on our website.
Additionally, it is also essential that we have permission to publish the image, either through a Creative Commons license or through explicit written permission from the copyright owner. Please provide a link to the source of the image if the image is from the internet, with evidence of its free to use status.
Spellings
- UK spellings for all articles, wherever the author is based. See the style guide below for further details.
- Strife prefers ‘First World War’ to ‘World War I’, and ‘Second World War’ to ‘World War II’.
- Organisations keep their own spelling. If in doubt, have a look at how The Economist refers to organisations.
- Strife follows English conventions for toponymics (e.g. Spain, not España, Calcutta, not Kolkata).
- Imported foreign terms (e.g. mestnichestvo) and expressions in Latin (e.g. ad hoc, de facto) should be italicised.
- Spellings in quoted texts should not be altered. If they are obviously incorrect, insert [sic].
- Quotations inside a narrative sentence should close with a full stop after the speech marks. Sentences which start and finish inside a quotation should be punctuated in the normal way, followed by speech marks. For example: Jill said, ‘It was a nice day’. BUT: Jill said, ‘it is now raining. It was a nice day.’
Speech/quotation marks
Strife prefers single speech marks for quotations, and double speech marks for quotations within quotations.
References
There are two ways of making references on the blog: links and endnotes.
Links: In general, if you are referencing from something which exists online, it is preferable to use in-text links. Links should be descriptive. Avoid using the word ‘link’ in brackets after a sentence or linking from the word ‘here’, where an alternative is possible. For example:
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott recently claimed that The Islamic State were akin to Nazis and Communists.
In all cases, contributors should double-check the relevance and validity of links before submission.
Endnotes: Please use numbers (not Roman numerals) in superscript placed at the end of a sentence, behind all punctuation marks. This will happen automatically if you use the ‘Insert/Footnote’ function in Word. Please remember to then select ‘Endnote’ and to change the number format (in Options) from Roman numerals - i, ii, iii - to ordinary numbers - 1, 2, 3.
Once these superscript numbers are transferred onto our website they will appear as numbers within square brackets - [1], [2], [3].
Strife prefers the Chicago style of referencing. For example:
Most of the jobs in the oil industry were already held by Venezuelans so nationalisation meant a change of control, not personnel.[1]
[1] Daniel Yergin, The Quest: Energy, Security and the Remaking of the Modern World (London: Allen Lane, 2012), p.113
It is important to remember that the interests of warlords often shift during conflict. In Somalia, warlords who had made a fortune out of the Civil War began diversifying into legitimate businesses like real estate and telecommunications.[2]
[2] Ken Menkhaus, “State Failure and Ungoverned Space,” in Ending Wars, Consolidating Peace: Economic Perspectives, ed. Mats Berdal and Achim Wennmann (Oxford: Routledge, 2010), p.180
For an example of an article that uses both hyperlinks and endnotes click here.
Hints and Tips
Post Title: Capitalise only the first word (i.e. like a normal sentence). No full stop is necessary at the end. Catchy titles are great, but make sure that they directly indicate what the post is likely to be about. Try to keep post titles short.
(Please note that editors may change the post title.)
Opening paragraph: The opening paragraph is an invitation to the busy reader to read further. A good way to open your text is to engage with your topic immediately, preferably making clear from the opening sentence what you will be talking about.
Style: As you know, writing for a blog is not the same as writing an academic essay. Above all, your writing should aim to be clear, concise, compelling, direct and accessible to a broad, global audience. Short sentences are better than long ones. Short words are better than long ones, too. Avoid the passive voice. If in doubt, consult The Economist’s style guide.
Content: Opinion and commentary is welcome, even if provocative, but this is not an excuse for inaccuracy or distortion of facts.
Please note, Strife reserves the right to allow its senior editors to make any small adjustments to the final articles at the time of publication which may be deemed necessary. These small changes would never involve substantive content alterations, without the authors’ approval. Any alterations made would be limited to purely stylistic or format based changes and would be done in the interests of improving the piece by making it more presentable in an online format, or by bringing it more in line with the stylistic conventions of our existent body of publications. The author will always be notified of any adjustments made after he or she resubmits a final draft, and the author retains the right to request that such modifications be reverted to their original state.
Disclaimer
The views expressed on this blog are attributable to their individual authors writing in their personal capacity only, and not to any other author, the editors, or any other person, organization or institution with which the author might be affiliated unless explicitly stated so.
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Please remember that these guidelines are intended to give the blog some consistency; they are not meant to quash your individual voice. For further questions please contact us via our Contact Us page.