Submission Guidelines

 

 

General Guidelines for Submissions to Inside Higher Ed

Inside Higher Ed welcomes articles and proposals for pieces from our readers for our Views, Letters to the editor, and Careers sections. 

For Views, we are particularly interested in articles that have a strong point of view and that give our readers recommendations for new policies, strategies, actions or ways of thinking about issues in higher education. We welcome pieces from all perspectives; we definitely have no party line. We are looking for articles that cover new ground, challenge current thinking, and explode myths. We also like first-hand narratives that explore, through the author’s experience, an issue or aspect of higher education in ways that would appeal to a wide range of readers.

In the case of the Careers section, we are primarily looking for articles that provide concrete advice for college and university faculty members and administrators, as well as graduate school students. Topics include searching for a job, managing and reporting to others, publishing, the graduate-school experience, and other subjects related to careers in higher education.  We are also interested in pieces about teaching and the experience of working in the classroom or online with students today.

Letters to the editor have long been a traditional part of news media, and we admire that tradition. Letters to the editor can provide our readers with new views on key issues. It is our hope that the significance of letters to the editor will encourage thoughtful and civil submissions; if readers disagree with an opinion expressed in an article, they may submit a letter to the editor to respectfully challenge that point of view. We will aim to publish letters that add to the debate on an issue and say something different from what’s been said to date. A letter that simply repeats the points made by previously letters may not be printed. A letter should reference the article or opinion piece it is about.

In all cases, we will only publish pieces that have not appeared in another publication, either print or online, except for personal blogs with relatively limited readership.

We strongly prefer that authors be willing to cite their name and organization for publication, although we are occasionally willing to publish pieces anonymously to protect the author’s career or safety.

Our articles tend to run between 1,000 and 1,500 words, but we accept and publish those that run both shorter and longer. 

We don’t use footnotes but rather encourage authors to include links to sources of further information in their pieces. Our readers like seeing such source material, and we use it to help check the facts in each article we run.

We are willing to review brief proposals or short outlines instead of the completed article. That said, we will ultimately still have to see the entire piece before we make a final decision about publication.

We prefer to receive any submissions in an attachment, with the author’s name, title, organizational affiliation and contact information on that attachment. It usually takes us at least a week and sometimes two to review and discuss a piece or proposal among ourselves, and then get back to let the author know whether we plan to publish it or not. 

Please submit articles and proposals for pieces to editor@insidehighered.com. Letters to the editor may be sent to letters@insidehighered.com. As always, you are welcome to communicate with the editors (without anything being published) at editor@insidehighered.com.

To contribute to Student Success news hub, guidelines can be found here.

Thank you for your interest in Inside Higher Ed. We look forward to hearing from you.