I have been bombarded with emails this morning from people asking me how they can contribute and what they can contribute to the e-Magazine that I am putting together. I came up with some tips and rules to easily guide you into the direction I want this magazine to take. I want it to be different, fresh, new, and interests a large population of Arabs and even non-Arabs, in this case, generation X. The e-Magazine is NOT a blog! Although I will be using some articles from bloggers, but it will be distributed as a personal account in an e-Magazine. It will be edited by University students and grads, professionals in the specified field they are writing about, and strong opinionated individuals who express themselves well about problems that other Arabs experience every day.
I want it to be the first international professional Arab e-Magazine that is created by the general public for the general public to read.
Writing style
1. Don’t write a college essay or news item. Your profs barely read them, you think someone else will? Your target audience is very broad, and you have to grab any of their attention.
2. You can write about issues that affect Arabs, or inform others of Arabs’ lifestyle and issues that they suffer from, or go through every day.
3. You can write about your personal perception of a certain situation. You can follow my writing style on my blog and see how I express a simple idea or question and explode it into 4 or 5 paragraphs.
4. Try to include questions in your article. Make the reader think of other possibilities or solutions for a problem that the article addresses.
5. Read your article 2 or 3 times and ask your self, “will someone be interested in reading this in a year or two?”
6. Don’t worry about grammar that much if English is not your first language. That’s why a magazine has editors, and I have some volunteers, including my self to edit them. As long as you have an idea and you expressed it well, then grammar will not be the primary concern.
7. If you have pictures that are fit to accompany your article, by all means, send them along with the article. You will be on my A list for saving me time.
What I still need
1. So far, there are two editors for the magazine. They will be responsible for certain sections of the magazine, because they have experience in that field education wise, life wise, and career wise.
2. If you can spend an hour or two in a month to edit an article for a certain section, and have your name out there, then email me with your credentials and ideas.
3. If you are chosen as an editor, then obviously you will be asked to write an article at least once a month.
4. If you want to contribute, but not sure what to write about, then tell me what interests you, and I will give you many suggestions.
How long should the articles be?
The magazine will have 3 types of articles.
1. Feature articles: 1200 – 1800 words.
-> It has to be an expressive article, touches on humanitarian issues, and possesses questions with possible solutions.
2. Short articles: 500 – 750 words.
-> It has to be informative about a certain subject of interest that gets to the point quickly.
3. Opinion articles: no limit.
-> If you have strong feelings about a certain issue that you believe must be publicly addressed, then write it with an authoritative tone. It must be convincing and you have to express your dislike or like of that issue in a detailed manner.
My name? Your name?
I do not care if you use your real name, it is not an issue. However, you must provide me at least a two word name. For example: Opinionated Egyptian, or Concerned Lebanese. Anything of that nature if you do not want to use your real name. Or you can use the initials of your last name or even first name.
Any more questions, feel free to contact me. I need all the articles submitted by October 30, 2008 if you want it to be in the first November issue. Otherwise, keep submitting them and they will eventually land their way in next issues. I decided to have the website up and ready with the e-Magazine issue by the first week of November. I want to separate it from my site, and I already bought the domain I will be using.
