How you
can contribute:
Many contributions will come from
academic experts, but certainly not all. If you are not an academic but have
significant professional or practical expertise in your field, don’t hesitate
to submit your great ideas! We also strongly encourage younger and emerging
scholars from diverse backgrounds to pitch ideas to us, even if you don’t have
much experience in writing for publications such as ours. We love working with
enthusiastic and provocative writers who can bring exciting new ideas, and we can
offer advice on your journey to digital print if you so wish. We have even
produced a helpful guide to writing your first piece, available upon request.
To become part of this
“NeuroConversation”, you can submit an article (along with your abstract) at
any time. Your written article may be of any length, but we recommend somewhere
between 500 and 5,000 words – long enough to construct a bold argument, to make
an effective point, or to deconstruct an existing dogma, but concise enough to
keep your readers’ attention. You will be writing for a potentially diverse
readership, so you may want to include visuals and infographics. We will make
sure that our in-built reader will be able to translate your text to speech, so
please include alt text with any graphical content.
A well-defined structure, with
signposting and a clear pathway through strong argumentation, will support your
bid to be published; as will a robust methodology, persuasive evidence, a good
grounding in established research, and the use of sources and references to
support your case.
Original work is welcomed, along with
original applications of existing research. For emerging academic contributors
new to publishing, you may wish to submit a re-worked bachelor’s dissertation, Masters thesis, or PhD chapter.
A successful article:
• may explore a subject of longstanding interest, meaning that it can be read at any time, rather than being linked to a topical news story;
• may however explore subjects limited to current or contemporary interest, but resonate with wider concerns, so that it remains relevant even when those current questions have moved on;
• is broad or even universal in scope, so that it can be read anywhere in the world;
• addresses issues that have previously remained under-explored, so giving your article a strong USP; and
• aligns with our values of pluralism and inclusivity.
A successful submission:
• clearly, boldly and briefly outlines your argument or vision;
• makes the case for why your submission will be worth reading;
• may show that you have an original angle on a topic, or that you are speaking for previously under-represented voices;
• demonstrates your expertise in the subject and a real passion for what you’re going to write about; and
• may take a “design-based” research approach to investigate practice and relate to a theory, in order to develop recommendations for action.
