Writing Guidelines

  1. Base your articles on factual information and write them as if you were a neutral third party. Instead of writing a headline that screams "Our Bioethics Conference is the best of its kind in the world," try a more factual, third-person approach. A better headline would be: "2007 Pediatric Bioethics Conference Attracts Global Audience." Also, when you insert opinions into your stories, make them into quotes and attribute them to the proper people in your organization, just like a newspaper would.
  2. interaction Research Newsletter adheres to Children's Hospital Marketing and Communications standards (PDF 72KB), which are largely based on Associated Press (AP) writing and editing standards. If you have a grammatical question that can not be answered from MarComm standards, please revert to AP standards.
  3. Keep articles short. Main feature articles should be no longer than 500 words in length. Supporting articles should run between 200 - 400 words in length.
  4. Spell Out Acronyms. When you use acronyms (RPM, OSR, etc.), don't assume readers know what they represent. List them out in first reference, for instance, Research Project Management (RPM) and the Office of Sponsored Research (OSR). Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center and Seattle Children's Hospital Research Institute are never referred to with acronyms.
  5. Write to express, not to impress. The purpose of a newsletter is to communicate, not to literate. The following tips may help you get your point across more quickly and concisely:
    • Eliminate Redundancy. Redundant words and phrases distract readers and should be removed. You should revise common redundant phrases such as the following:
      • adequate enough (adequate)
      • all throughout (throughout)
      • green in color (green)
      • another additional (another)
      • join together (join)
      • assembled together (assembled)
      • brief in duration (brief)
      • mix together (mix)
      • completely finished (finished)
    • Limit Sentence and Paragraph Lengths. Keep your information short and to the point. The longer the sentence or paragraph, the more difficult or intimidating it can be to your reader. Keeping it short will allow your reader to quickly and easily obtain pertinent information without frustration.
    • Add Bullet and Numbered Lists. Look for opportunities to reformat any series in a text to a bullet or numbered list. This will keep your paragraphs short, and will help readers absorb information quickly while adding a nice, graphic element to your article.
  6. Include a "Grabber." No longer than 400 characters, a grabber is a short paragraph placed on the front page of the newsletter. The purpose of the grabber is to draw the reader in and should be written in an interesting style that will intrigue the reader enough to open the newsletter to your article.

* All articles must be submitted to the managing editor by the submittal deadline in order to be considered for publication in the upcoming month. It is at the discretion of the president and editor-in-chief the articles that will be published and in what issue the approved articles will be included.