Editing Guidelines
What I Look for As a Publication Editor on Medium
How to get your article published in a publication
This article lays out the process I go through when appraising an article for placement in a Medium publication.
Currently I hold the role of editor in my own very small publication, but also in a rapidly growing publication called ILLUMINATION.
The philosophy of ILLUMINATION includes the values of diversity, serendipity, innovation, fusion and synergy. As such, the community is very inclusive so (almost) anyone can be a writer and (almost) any topic is fair game.
That said, there are still pitfalls that will keep a person from getting published there. As it turns out, those pitfalls are pretty much the same for any publication, so I am presenting them to you so that you can get published anywhere, including ILLUMINATION!
This article is laid out as such:
- The 6 things I look for before publishing your story
- My philosophy, or the ‘Why’
- What I don’t consider
- Extra bonuses when I edit your piece
The 6 things I look for before hitting “Publish”
Does the article meet the Medium community rules and guidelines?
Medium welcomes “thoughtful and civil discussion on a broad spectrum of viewpoints” and warns against threats of violence, hate speech, harassment, spam and deceptive conduct among other prohibited behaviors.
My first overview of your piece will be to evaluate for any of the topics or behaviors not allowed on Medium. If the article violates Medium’s rules, I won’t publish it in the publication.
Does the article meet the ILLUMINATION community guidelines and philosophy?
These don’t deviate a whole lot from Mediums guidelines, except that there might be a bit less room for extremely controversial topics.
In short, ILLUMINATION is a place for generating synergy through positive energy. Negative commentary for the sake of being negative or potentially destructive might still fly under Medium’s guidelines, but not make it with ILLUMINATION.
If I interpret your article to be in that category, I will set it aside in the article queue and engage some of the other editors and Dr Mehmet Yildiz for their opinions on whether to move forward with publishing inside the publication.
Spelling, grammar and general formatting
My third priority is to screen for major spelling, grammar and format issues. With spelling I will make corrections if I see them, unless the piece is inundated with issues. If there are massive spelling, grammar or formatting issues I may send it back to you, but I will also extend an offer to help.
I don’t mind a few little fixes, but I don’t want to significantly alter the voice of your article. It is yours and I don’t want to change that.
Photo credits
Medium asks that you, “Double-check to make sure you’re not violating copyright or licensing with your images.” The BEST way (and apparently this cannot be emphasized enough) is to add a caption to the photo citing its source.
Unsplash is the ‘easy button’ for this as using the link in the Medium editor screen will automatically caption your picture and credit the artist. If you don’t already know, the magnifying glass icon will take you there.
If you use Pexels, Pixabay, Adobe Stock, Wikimedia or any other source for your photos, be sure to indicate that in your picture caption.
If you created the picture yourself through photography, painting or drawing please note that in the picture caption. Something like “Illustration by Author” is all you need.
If someone else took the picture for you, it is nice manners to mention that. “Photo by author’s daughter” or similar language works great.
If you don’t have a photo credit, I am likely to kick it back to you to put one in place. If it is obvious clip art or plainly clear that it is your work, although not annotated, then I will probably reluctantly let it through.
Tags
Use five tags on every article. This helps Medium best with their distribution and will get you the best exposure. For ILLUMINATION the tags Innovation, Business, Personal Development, Poetry, Fiction, Philosophy, Diversity, Fusion and Serendipity are always good fall backs if you can’t think of anything more specific.
I will publish, even if you don’t have tags. Although, if I think you meant to add them, but probably forgot, I will likely add a private note to remind you.
Overall look
This is one of those areas where the overall presentation is part of your writer’s voice and the message. However, I know what looks appealing to me. I read a LOT of stuff on Medium, and while I am only one person, I happen to know what makes me click away from a story before I finish.
It’s this:
There are lots of articles out there about best practices for presenting your stories. One great tip is to keep paragraph length short and break up the article into sections. You will note that I did that here.
I will still publish, even if the overall look is less-than-stellar. If I think the input might be welcome, I will send a private note suggesting some edits. But not always. I try and make all my articles have the same overall look, so I use the same system every time. I outline that here:
My philosophy
I believe that my role as an editor on a publication is to support and advocate for the publication community on the whole.
I try to look through the overall lens of the publication. For ILLUMINATION that is all the values I spoke of before. My role as gatekeeper is to maintain and support those values. Therefore, if I get to a, “what should I do here?” moment, I will always revert to the overall philosophy of the publication.
Being an editor has nothing to do with me, and everything to do with supporting and uplifting the community it represents.
On ILLUMINATION that philosophy leans heavily to doing all I can to publish your work in the publication. If I am unsure about whether your piece is too controversial or extreme, I will always default to consulting the other editors and Dr Mehmet Yildiz for a group consensus.
What I don’t consider
As long as your piece meets community guidelines, you can be sure that I will not censure or hold back on publishing based on content, topic, style, layout etc.
I don’t consider general grammar or English language use.
Generally, I keep my personal opinions and style completely out of the consideration. I believe that is my job as editor.
Extra bonuses when I edit your piece
If the article is brand new, I will be the first to clap and highlight. The only real renumeration I get for serving as editor anywhere is that I get to read your articles. I consider this to be a privilege and I also firmly support the ILLUMINATION philosophy of supporting and building a community through synergy.
I will also post your article on my Twitter feed on the newly created ILLUMINATION Twitter feed, and (if I remember, I am not as good about this one) on my Pinterest page. All will link back directly to your article.
Before you get too excited, my social media following is still in the early growth stage, but you will get whatever boost I can give.
Closing thoughts
This article has been bouncing around in my head for a few weeks. At one point I posited on the ILLUMINATION writer and editor Slack channel that perhaps we should develop a set of community editing guidelines. For lack of any other progress, this is my first contribution.
For writers I am offering you this as a glimpse into my process when I look at your stuff. My involvement is pretty benign aside from policing for gross Medium and ILLUMINATION community policy breaches.
For the other editors, please accept this as an opening comment if we were all sitting around in a circle with beverages talking about our process and philosophies for editing.
If yours are different (or even the same) I would love to get your feedback. This is simply what I am doing in the right-now for lack of any more specific guidelines. I see the ILLUMINATION community involvement as an evolution. I am completely on board for working on and adapting to community guidelines as we all grow.
I am going to link in the list of writers and editors as a start to this conversation.
Happy Illuminating to all!
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Timothy Key spent over 26 years in the fire service as a firefighter/paramedic and various fire chief management roles. He firmly believes that bad managers destroy more than companies, and good managers create a passion that is contagious. Compassion, grace and gratitude drive the world; or at least they should. Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, and join the mail list.
