avatarKaren Madej

Summary

An editor from ILLUMINATION publication provides a checklist for writers to follow before submitting their articles to streamline the editorial process and improve the chances of their work being accepted and promoted.

Abstract

The article emphasizes the importance of writers performing a series of checks on their submissions to ILLUMINATION, ensuring that their work is properly formatted, includes a subtitle, features an attractive header image, has correctly captioned images, is grammatically sound, and adheres to Medium's rules. The editor, who dedicates significant time to reviewing submissions, suggests that by following these guidelines, writers can facilitate a quicker acceptance and publication of their articles. The piece also acknowledges the challenges faced by editors with a high volume of drafts to review and encourages writers to join the Medium Partnership Programme for priority consideration. It underscores the value of using grammar editors and the potential for rejection if submissions do not meet the outlined criteria.

Opinions

  • The editor expresses a desire for writers to be successful and to have their work seen and read, suggesting a supportive and nurturing editorial stance.
  • There is frustration with the volume of submissions and the time constraints that prevent editors from fully engaging with each piece, such as reading, clapping, and tweeting about them.
  • The editor shows support for Dr Mehmet Yildiz and the issues he raises about the challenges faced by editors, including dealing with a large number of drafts and the need for writers to adhere to submission guidelines.
  • The article conveys the importance of following Medium's copyright rules for images and the necessity of proper image captioning, which is often overlooked by writers.
  • There is an acknowledgment that not all writers are native English speakers, and the use of online grammar editors like Grammarly or Hemingway is strongly recommended to improve the quality of submissions.
  • The editor advocates for the prioritization of submissions that have been clearly edited and formatted according to the platform's rules, regardless of the writer's membership status.
  • The founder of ILLUMINATION is mentioned as actively involved in the publication process, despite the challenges of managing a high volume of submissions with a limited number of active editors.
  • The article suggests that writers should actively monitor their submissions for feedback from editors and respond promptly to avoid rejection.
  • It encourages writers to learn from top writers on Medium, suggesting that emulating successful formatting and writing styles can lead to better curation and reader engagement.
  • The editor looks forward to a more efficient editorial process that allows for the promotion of well-prepared submissions and the possibility of engaging with writers through claps and tweets.

In Response to The Founder of ILLUMINATION’S STOP BLAMING PUBLICATIONS Article

I agree with him wholeheartedly and am asking all writers to do the following checks BEFORE submitting their precious words.

Photo by "My Life Through A Lens" on Unsplash

As an editor of articles submitted to ILLUMINATION, I want you to succeed. Every writer who sends a draft to our publication deserves to be seen and read. There are exceptions to every rule.

Dr Mehmet Yildiz highlights the main issues he and his team of dedicated volunteer editors experience daily. Sometimes multiple times daily. I won’t be discussing the exceptions, which are the serious issues the Dr covers.

I’d like to show my support to the Dr, here, as well as help new writers do well on this platform.

What an editor at ILLUMINATION currently does.

I’ve been giving an hour of my time every day for the last two weeks. It doesn’t sound like much but for four out of eight of those days, I was on shift for ten hours. Thirty minutes in the morning when my mind is fresh before work and thirty more after work when all I want to do is eat and sleep.

Reading your work, clapping for it, and Tweeting to expose your masterpieces to the world is what I’d love to be doing in those short sessions. That was Dr Yildiz’s original vision. I tried but there were tens and hundreds of articles to check and I wasn’t able to read your work in full. I didn’t have time to clap and Tweet on busy days.

Instead, I was doing the pre-submission checklist for a few of you. Writing private notes takes time. Even when cutting and pasting the same message over and over.

If you’d like to help get your piece of writing accepted and published quickly, for the love of all that is good in this world, check YOU have done the six steps below BEFORE submitting your draft.

1 Properly Format and Write Your Title

2 Add a subtitle, in sentence format — with or without a period is acceptable these days.

Photo by Jeffrey F Lin on Unsplash

3. A header image either above or below your Title and subtitle is the best way to attract readers.

Editors do not ask you to add one because we are being awkward. We want your story to have every chance of being noticed.

4. Medium and Copyright Rules demand your images — all of them — are captioned correctly.

Do NOT be fooled by the ‘optional’ word. Timothy Key gives excellent tips to make sure you know how to caption correctly.

5. ILLUMINATION welcomes writers whose first language is not English.

Some, you only know their native tongue is not English because they tell you! Others get away with a few, almost unnoticeable, mistakes that their online grammar editors don’t pick up. Many make many basic grammar errors which could so easily be avoided if only they’d used Grammarly or Hemingway or any other online editor of choice!

6. You do know that editors have between 500 to 700 drafts to work through per day, don’t you?

We currently only have about twenty active editors and we are not all sitting at our computers ten hours a day. We dive into the submissions queue whenever we time to spare. The heroes are the editors who can dedicate several hours of their time. These are the amazing ones that spend vast amounts of their valuable time sending writers private notes and publishing articles that are as good as they can get them with the few minutes they can allocate to your words.

If it were up to me, I’d leave or reject stories that obviously have not been checked by their writers. I learnt the hard way by trial and error and then reading the rules. It took months to get curated. You don’t have to do it this way.

Linda Caroll, Geetika Sethi, Charlotte Zobeir Ali, Ann Venkataraman, Tree Langdon, Sylvia Love Johnson, Joe Luca, Timothy Key, Kathryn A. LeRoy, Ph.D., Arthur G. Hernandez, P.G. Barnett, Alison Tennent, Chris Hedges, B. A. Cumberlidge., Aurora Eliam, CMP, Bill Abbate are the editors I’ve seen in the editors' channel on Slack in the last two weeks. Plus, our ILLUMINATION founder allocates a portion of his time to jump into the queue to publish work, too.

They all want new writers to succeed, too.

Additional points to consider.

  • You will also be given priority if you are a member of the Medium Partnership Programme.
  • If you are a free member and your piece has clearly been edited, formatted, captioned and follows Medium’s rules, I will publish your work over that of paid-up members who have not used the tips in this article.
  • If your work has been previously published, it will be swallowed up somewhere depending on how long ago it was first published. The founder intends to discontinue publishing pre-published articles.
  • If your notifications are not turned on, you won’t see messages from other editors. If we don’t receive a response within 48 hours your draft will be rejected. Personally, I’d rather reject immediately and not have hundreds of drafts cluttering up the queue. So check your draft submission every few hours for messages from the kind editors!

Do your self a favour and read the work of people whose writing you admire. There are lists of top writers in various tags. Note their formatting. Incorporate what they have learnt into your writing. Bear in mind it is rare to find a perfect piece of work. Even top proofreaders won’t catch every mistake.

So, to recap the six basic points for action.

  1. Properly format and write your title.
  2. Add a subtitle.
  3. Choose an appropriate header image.
  4. Correctly caption that header in point 3 and all other images.
  5. If English is not your first language, and even if it is, help yourself to keep your reader engaged. USE A GRAMMAR EDITOR.
  6. Make sure your work is published ASAP by being a member of the MPP or a free member who follows the basic rules above.

There you have it. I am so looking forward to reading your words before publishing your correctly formatted and proofread story quickly and efficiently. I can then carry out my favourite activities of clapping and Tweeting. I might even have time to respond to your hard work. 💛

Writing
Self Improvement
Advice
Illumination
Editing
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