NFM Blog Submission Guidelines

We welcome submissions to the NFM blog from contingent faculty and supporters. Here are our Editorial Submission Guidelines to help you craft and submit your post.

1. Thematic Focus: The focus of the blog is implicit in its title – stories, reflections, and information pertaining to contingent employment of the majority of higher education faculty—and how we do, can, and will remake the academy. Posts to our blog will reflect the mission of The New Faculty Majority: NFM is dedicated to improving the quality of higher education by advancing professional equity and securing academic freedom for all adjunct and contingent faculty.
2. Target Audience: Our target audience is contingent faculty nationwide, including non-tenure track and adjunct faculty, as well as tenure track faculty, students, parents, administrators, legislators, and the general public who want to know more about The New Faculty Majority and the important issues in higher education today.
3. Content Criteria: Our blog will feature contingent faculty and allies writing about adjuncts’ experiences inside and outside of the classroom, advocacy efforts, issues, organizations, struggles, and successes. This is not a forum for complaints but a place to bear witness, exchange tactics, and plan solutions. Content may include:
   • Essays on current higher education issues as they relate to adjunct faculty
   • Essays on the relationship between K-12 education issues and educators and higher education
   • Analysis of current reports, trends, and data in higher education that relate to adjunct faculty
   • Responses to articles on adjunct issues published elsewhere in the media
   • External cause-related news/events (with commentary from the organization)
   • Activism tips/opportunities/actions/resources
   • Organizational news and announcements
   • Research and funding opportunities
   • Calls for Papers
   • Teaching and survival tips
   • Profiles
   • Book reviews
   • Videos
   • Interview Q&As
   • Photo essays
   • Personal stories about adjunct faculty experiences, especially how adjuncting affects your ability to be the best teacher and scholar you can be.
   • We are also adding the following regular features for which you are encouraged to submit content:
     • Check-ins from adjunct unions/caucuses re bargaining wins/actions/problems
     • Education legislation watch: state & national
     • What to Do If… An advice column drawing on adjunct organizer/activist expertise from across the country
     • The Gallery of Fame and Hope: tell us about victories in the use of collective power to secure ever-better policies and contracts. Feel free to acknowledge courageous and principled colleagues, administrators, students, trustees, and others who can inspire by example.
     • The Gallery of Shame: send us photos or descriptions of the most exploitative, egregious institutional policies and contracts you’ve encountered.
4. Style and formatting: Because we have a broad online audience, submissions should be written in a simple, journalistic style. Aim for clear, concise, compelling writing and follow these tips:
   • Keep your post to a length of between 500 to 1,500 words (bigger pieces may be serialized).
   • Write in short sentences.
   • Break up large blocks of text with headings.
   • Bullet your major points.
   • Use subheads.
   • Write a brief title that will generate interest. Capitalize only the first word. For tips, see How to Master the Art of Exceptional Blog Titles and How to Write Compelling Titles for Blogs & Content.
   • Provide one or more illustrations. These may be charts, photographs, graphics or cartoons. Pictures can be in .gif, .png, .jpg or jpeg format. We must have permission to publish the image you submit, either through a Creative Commons license or through written permission from the copyright owner which you provide.
   • Credit your sources: Use links and endnotes that follow the citation style used by your academic discipline.

5. Links: You are encouraged to include hyperlinks to external blogs and websites as long as they support our thematic focus and guidelines.
6. Ethics: Contributors are responsible for the accuracy and integrity of their work. All quoted work should be properly attributed. Contributors are responsible for any plagiarism. If any ethical violations, including plagiarism, are discovered, the offending piece will be removed from the blog and the writer banned from further contributions.
7. Comments: Comments and replies will be moderated. However, contributors should feel free to report any offensive or unwarranted behavior. Trolls will be aggressively dealt with and blocked.
8. Rights: We will only consider work that is previously unpublished. All content published on the NFM blog will be under First Non-Exclusive Electronic Rights. The posting may be shared and cited in other electronic media only with proper attribution to New Faculty Majority and to the author and links to New Faculty Majority.
9. Republishing your content: All rights return to the author one week after publication on NFM’s blog. One week after publication on the NFM blog, you may republish your post elsewhere, as long as you credit the NFM blog as the original source of your piece and link to the NFM story.
10. Promotion of your content. We will promote your submission through our social media accounts. We request that you also promote it through your social networks with appropriate links to NFM.
11. Content review process: We will review your query or finished submission and send you a reply within one week of receipt. If minor revisions are necessary, we will make them and send the revised version to you before publishing it online. If more extensive revisions are necessary, we will return the draft to you with comments and ask that you make revisions and return it to us within one week of receipt.
12. Submitting your query or finished content:

Query:We recommend that you submit a query that includes your topic and a one-paragraph summary before submitting a finished piece. Submit your query to Lee Kottner via email at MajorityRuleSubmissions@gmail.com

Finished content: Submit your finished content as a Word document to Lee Kottner via email at  MajorityRuleSubmissions@gmail.com. Include the following information at the beginning of your document:

• Title of the paper in regular type.
• Your name directly below the title.
• Your email address. This will be kept confidential.
• A link to your Twitter handle or college profile (optional).
• A brief one-paragraph bio of approximately 60 words.
• Two or three keywords.
• A caption for your image.
• The source and any copyright information in brackets.

 Download the NFM blog guidelines as a PDF here.