Step by Step an Editor Needs to Do For Easier Reviewing a Story - Updated December, 2022

How Be Open Editors Reviewing Each Submission

For non Medium Membership, you can read this page through this link!

This instruction’s page is specifically addressed to our Be Open editors, however any Medium editors can also follow these simple steps to make reviewing submissions easier. not so confusing, orderly done and save the time.

Some of editors who're recruited or requested to be editor of Medium publications may not be an actual professional editors (like me). They send application or accept the invitation to become an editor may just because of a curiosity, want to give help and beneficial contribution to a publication they love, or even a spontaneous decision without knowing their tasks and responsibilities detaily.

These newbies when finally required to do the editorial job might get confused about what to do first. Moreover, some publication may have its specific requirements that must be accomplished by the editors as the part of their editing duties.

I made this step by step editing job (especially for Be Open’s editors) to assist them for easy accomplishing their duty. If the editor will check these items sequentially, before finally go into the substance of the piece, editing will become almost like a checklist approach easily remembered.

Dear Be Open Editors,

Thank you so much for the volunteer editor you want to do for our publication. Really asppreciate your sincere contribution! :-)

And, in this page, you will know some crucial aspects of Be Open editors works: Our style of editing, step by step reviewing/editing the submission plus implement your much simpler editors duties.

The aims of choosing this our general editing style and the step by step editing task below is to to save the time, avoiding too much back and forth communication between editor and its writer, also to avoid offensiveness and misunderstanding between editor and writer.

So, you can check things you need to know and do below. Please observe them carefully. Ask me if you need more explanation. :-)

Be Open editing style

I want our Be Open editor team be more flexible! What’s to be flexible means here? Not too strict with any writing rules we’ve gotten at school or college, and build warm and polite relationship/communication with the writers.

Here are the more specific explanation about our Flexible Editing style:

• Give writers the freedom to write as they are. Not asking writer to add header/sub header, Not ask poet to follow standard literature writing, let them writing their pieces freely (example: it’s okay they write each passage line per line). Not asking writers to change their tags. Don’t suggest or even without permission adding or removing some words/parts in writers’ story, etc. There are only primary areas that all Be Open’s writers must follow (you can find them below in step by step editing task).
• Avoid rigid communication. I want our editors to communicate with writers (asking correction, give suggestion, etc) in friendly way, informal, warm and polite. To look more friendly, please add emoji smiley :-) when communicate with writers in your private note.
• Thanking their submission. Praise them, especially if you really like their work through private note or comment.
• Clapping their story at least 30 claps after published. You can also comment and highlight some parts of their story.
• Don’t make a judgment to the writer’s story (like telling: this story isn’t quite good!).
• Don’t give vague editing (like telling: I found so much error in this paragraph!). If there is a part needing correction, you must be clear which part it is.
• Help writer by making correction yourself (like: typos, grammar error, Title and subtitle format, wrong meaning phrase/words (mostly made by the non native English writers, you can change them to the proper/matching words), etc). And then politely private note them the part you have made a change. Note: For things that only writer themselves who really know what to correct, ask the writer to correct it by themselves.
• To not overwhelm writers, don’t give too much link references/citation (I saw some of our editors informed links: how to create subtitle, kicker, medium guidelines, our submission guidelines, our formating stories, etc). Do it only if the writer doesn’t seem to read/know our guidelines and our story formatting or truly blind about Medium rules, how writing title, adding image, etc. :-)
• Let writers creative with their content. They can add gifs or videos in their stories.
• Give freedom to the writer in styling their links added within the story. They can make it as preview card, text hyperlink, image as link or a real URL.

Step by Step reviewing/editing submission

Note: This list is for our Be Open’s editors, for other non Be Open’s editors may have to make any adjustment based on their publication requirements.

You will find these sentences in the instruction below, and here’re their clear meaning:

*Edit it by yourself = Make initiative to Edit the story by you as the Editor.

*No need to give suggestion = The particular case doesn’t hinder the story to be accepted. Editors can still publish the story though there are one or more areas that not meet our story formatting requirements. No need to ask for correction or any changes for the writer whose story is being reviewed by editor.

So, here are the reviewing steps:

1. To see the available story submissions, you can check them from the notification tab or email. However, it’s better to open it from this link: https://medium.com/be-open/stories/submissions from notification tab! Note: If you open the story from notification tab/email, sometimes the story you click may have already been published by other editor or the submission is canceled by its writer.

2. First to do in story draft is: Write a note under subtitle (or under the title if the story doesn’t have subtitle) which stating that you’re handling that story.

You may write something like this: To Be Open editors, I’m currently reviewing this story, (your Medium name). This note will be removed in the published story. Reason: It’s to avoid multiple editors grabbing the same story submission. Don’t forget to delete that note before publishing the story!

3. If the author of that submission is your first time editing, you may need to introduce that you are one of Be Open editors.

I want you said it in informal and friendly way, like: Hi, Nina, I’m one of Be Open editors. This time I’m reviewing your submission. I'll private note you if there's issue/your story needs correction :-) Reason: It’s to avoid misunderstanding with the new joined author.

2. Check for proper Kicker (optional), Title (written in Title Case . a must), and Sub-title (in Sentence case).

Make sure the writers follow the format of Title and Subtitle properly as below!

Cases:

• No have Kicker: It’s okay. No need to give any suggestion!
• Title is not in Title cast: It’s okay, but make sure the first letter is Capitalized (edit it by yourself). No need to give any suggestion
• Subtitle is not in Sentence case: You can edit it by yourself. Private note the writer that you made a little change and suggest the writer to make it as Sentence cast in the future submissions.
• Title and subtitle aren’t in the appropriate font format as shown on 2 pictures above: Edit it by yourself. Private note the writer that next time do as required.
• No have Title/Subtitle: You can still publish it. However ask the writer to create it in the future submission through private note.
• Grammar error and typos in Title and Subtitle: Edit it by yourself and notify that you have made a little change to the right words/grammar. Note: Don’t make any change to the title/subtitle that could change its purposes.

Except for our specific stories: example for About Me story, the standard format for Be Open version is: Be Open (More About Me) — Author name (You can change their title as required).

Also, We may have writing/prompt challenges that require writer to use the same personalized title. So, you must check their proper title when getting the submission of writers’ responses to our writing challenges.

3. Check the featured image for proper format size, alt-text, and caption proving right to use the image.

Set the featured image to this preferred size and positioning:

For smaller featured image, we tolerate these sizes below:

Example of the tolerated image sizes:

Note: Any sizes smaller than the moon picture above is too small for featured image but still okay for images in the body of the story!

Cases:

• The story doesn’t have featured image: You can add it by yourself that matching with story’s topic/message. You can search it from Unsplash, Pixabay or Pexels. Or you can ask the writers to add the featured image themselves and advise them to add a featured image in the next time submission.
• No have alt text: It’s okay. You can still publish the story. No need to ask them to add it, but private note the writer that it’s good SEO to add alt-text to any picture in their stories as their stories will have greater chance to be indexed by Google and other search engines.
• Caption is blank: It's okay, you can still publish it, you can add caption: Image credit unknown. But private note them to add it in the next submissions. Example of caption format: Image by Daniela Podaca from Unsplash. Note: However, any caption styling is accepted as long as the writer mentioning the image source. But private note the writer to next time, using our standard format above.
• The featured image is not under Title/Subtitles: Locate it to the proper place. Our format is: Title-Subtitle-Featured image-Story body. If the featured image is in the body of the story, place it to the the proper place.
• Featured image is too small than the preferred and tolerated sizes above: You can enlarge it by yourself or ask the writer to upload the proper size. Note: - Any other images in the body of the story should be smaller than the preferred featured image size above (The top one). - Writers are allowed to use gif and video for featured image and in the body of the story.

4. Check for the story length. Be Open only publish ±100 to ±1,500 words’ pieces) However we tolerate the length of 70 words minimum and 2000 words at maximum.

Cases:

• Story length is less than 70 words: Ask them to add a few more words.
• If more than 2000 words: Still publish it, but suggest the writer that for the next time’s submission they must follow the requirenent of ±100 to ±1500 words. Note: You can check word amount in the draft and submission page under each story’s title.

5. Check tags.

Cases:

• If no have tags: Ask them to add it.
• If less than 5 tags: Add it by yourself with tags that matching the story topic. You can add “Be Open”, (but it’s okay if there is no “Be Open” tag in their already completed 5 tags). Note: Make writer to be free with their tags. No need to give any tag suggestion (However they must have known our preferred tags in our Submission guidelines)

6. Examine article fully for proper paragraph formatting. No long, difficult to read block paragraphs. Note: I/We will let writers to have freedom to write with their own styling.

Cases:

• Long paragraph. It’s okay. But if it’s too long or almost all paragraphs written long, you can split them (without changing any sentences). But you need to inform the writer that you make a little change to their paragraph as telling that long paragraph would make readers feel overwhelmed.
• Poems written line by line in one stanza (one line written as one paragraph): It’s okay. You can still publish them. No need to give any suggestion.
• Typos: You can edit it by yourself. But highlight the corrected words through private note, so that the writer can notice it.
• Grammar error: You can edit it by yourself. Notify/highlight the corrected passage through private note.
• The untidy heading, subheadings or paragraphs (Sometimes writers forget to use same different amount of line spacing for each subheading or paragraphs): You can make it neat by yourself. Note: Once again, Don’t too interfere writers with their content and how they write. Example: by asking them to add subheading, or ask them to add your opinion to their story, or changing their opinion, etc.
• Quotation without “ mark: You can add it by yourself. Let writers be free with their quotation styling.

7. Check the content itself. Be Open don’t publish pure erotic, racism, hate speech, sexism.

Case:

If you find those elements in the content (partly or entirely): Private note the writer politely that we don’t publish such kinds of writings. Note: Inform this also in the private note: that For erotic, Be Open still accept softcore (implisit sex scene) and they can still link their pure erotic stories in any of their non erotic/softcore stories submitted to Be Open.

8. (UPDATE: It's no more required!) Ask writer to do reciprocity (featuring 1 other writer’s story in their piece):

Please commit to keep sending that private message to each submitted story that still not feature/shoutout other writer’s story in their piece. Hopefully it will become a habit for all Be Open writers to do this reciprocity action. :-)

Other importance notes:

• Immediately publish the story after writers make any correction required.
• I will take over the reviewed stories that are too long staying in draft and submission list (more than 3 days).
• If the writer doesn’t respond to your note/make any needed correction, email me to ask the decision.
• If after reviewing a writer’s story thoroughly, you still can’t make a decision (make a correction or not, publish it or not), you can email me for any suggestion or letting me to take over the story. Inform me the link of the story and its author name. My email: [email protected]
• I only expect you to review submission at least 1 story each day (so glad if you take more! :-) Also remember that maybe not everyday you will get a story to review as there’s possibility other editors have reviewed/published the submissions. Just remember that if in 2 weeks I don't see you do any editor's work, your right as Be Open's editor will be revoked. :-)

So Be Open editors! That are things you need to know and apply. Hope the step by step tasks above will help you in doing the editor duties.

I know for the first time editors, you may shock with the long list to do above. But actually simple once you practice it. Trust me! :-)

A Shayens Abran