The Opinion

The Opinion is a publication based on Medium. We publish short articles on social and legal subjects, providing an opportunity to the early writers who face trouble in finding people who can review, enhance, publish, and promote their pieces.

We are a collective of students from various institutes across India like RMLNLU, NALSAR, NLIU, DNLU, LU, Amity University, Christ University, Nirma University, LNMIIT & DCBM, who strive to contribute towards our endeavour of free dissemination of knowledge and information.

Submission Guidelines

The Opinion is an online publication allowing new authors to step into the arena of writing. The Opinion accepts short articles from various subjects across social sciences such as:

• International News;
• International Relations;
• National News;
• Politics;
• Law;
• History;
• Sociology;
• Environment;
• Social Movements;
• Economics;
• Entrepreneurship
• Leadership
• Business
• Self-development
• Book Reviews
• Movie Reviews
• Inspiration

1.0. Submission Prerequisites

1. Word limit: 1000–2000 words;
2. Number of authors: Maximum 2;
3. Plagiarism Allowed: Maximum 20%.
4. Due Credits must be given to the references using, preferably, hyperlinks.
5. We reject articles with lack of linguistic and grammatical accuracy.
6. Paraphrasing, if done at all, should be done with great precision.
7. Go through this guide to learn about writing the perfect articles that gain an audience:

How to write good articles for The OpinionAn easy guide to writing a good storymedium.com

To learn more about plagiarism and paraphrasing, click here.Quoting and ParaphrasingDownload this Handout PDF College writing often involves integrating information from published sources into your own…writing.wisc.edu

1.1. Content

1. The sentence structure should be easily comprehensible.
2. The arguments should follow a clear stream of reasoning and should be unambiguous.
3. The work should be unique and creative.
4. Assertions with no reasoning or references are strongly discouraged.
5. The title should be such that it generates curiosity in the minds of readers and the content should sufficiently address the curiosity.
6. Information should not be repetitive.
7. Giving credits to the references is utmost important. Informative, Analytical submissions with negligible or no references will be rejected at the offset.

1.2. Formatting:-

1. Font Size: Title: 18 pts Headings : 14 pts Subheadings : 12 pts Content: 12 pts
2. Line spacing: 1.15
3. Alignment: Justified
4. Quotes: Italicised;
5. The article should be in a proper flow. Paragraphs/ sentences/ headings/ sub-headings (select as appropriate) should be connected with the previous and subsequent paragraph/ sentence/ heading/ sub-heading (select as appropriate).
6. We recommend a higher number of white spaces and of use of paragraphs in the submission; A new paragraph after every 80–100 words is recommended.

1.3. References

1. All the sources are advised to be hyperlinked within the text. All such hyperlinked should be italicised.
2. Wikipedia is not a source! The credibility of the source should be kept with high regards.
3. An online reference to be found for the offline sources, and then be hyperlinked within the text. For example,

Books can be cited with links of the Publisher’s website, or any website that provides all the relevant information about the book. The page number should be removed.

Examples: JSTOR, Amazon, Google Books.

Legislations can be cited with hyperlinks that can refer to PDFs of the cited act or a website that views the legislation online. Sections/Articles can be mentioned within the content using parentheses (ss).

Example: Act 40 of 2019, The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019.

Other newspaper, magazine articles are easily found by simply searching the name of the cited article and the name of the author. The online source should be hyperlinked.

Example: Newyork Times article India’s Most Oppressed Get Their Revenge by Meena Kandasamy

3. In case an online reference cannot be found, the citation should be in Bluebook-Law-Review Format, as part of Bibliography.

1.4. Visual Arts

1. We recommend the authors to use free resources while using adding any image to the article. The authors can use websites that have a huge collection of stock photos such as Unsplash, Pexels, StockSnap, Burst, Pixabay etc. or can try searching images online alongside using the words “free images” and look for results from one of these stock websites.

Click here to learn about using free images for your blog

2. If the images are not being used as an illustration, all the images, including the cover image must be realistic images instead of graphics.

3. Online videos can be used as a source, provided the link of the video is provided alongside the submission;

4. In any image that might be added in the piece, due credits have to given to the source of the image.

Authors are supposed to add links to images, wherever suitable. For example, under different Heads, or sub-heads. Author’s are not required to add image files in this case.

The links to the visual art to be mentioned in the following format:-

Source: *Website-Name hyperlinked with the visual art URL*

Example:

Source: WordPress

2. Submission

Submission shall only be made in .doc/.docx file format.

1. The Editorial Board of ‘The Opinion’ shall have the copyright over the submissions and shall have the right to edit the article. Due Credits shall be given to the author.
2. If you feel the relevance of your article is bound by time then kindly state the reason below. Example: Submission about aids, would be most preferred to be published on 1st December. Note: Such submissions must be made at least 4 days before any such desired date/week of publication.
3. Once the submission is published on The Opinion Blog the same shall not be re-posted on any other platform.
4. In case of any dispute, the decision of The Editorial Board of ‘The Opinion’ shall be binding and final.
5. We strongly recommend the authors to provide a link to their LinkedIn/FB/Instagram account. Such a link shall be published at the bottom of the story.

Submission link is given below

3. Time Limits

1. Acknowledgement of Submission: Best before 60 hours of submission.
2. Publication: Totally depends on the number of submissions prior in line, the relevance of the article. Tentative date of publication shall be mentioned in the ‘Receipt of the Submission’ mail.
3. Link: The Shareable link to the article shall be sent soon after the publication. (Within 24 hours)
4. Certificate: The ‘Acknowledgment of Publication’ mail shall be sent within 6 days of publishing, which shall include the certificate.

4. Podcast Episode Opportunity

The Opinion is now giving its authors a unique opportunity to host their article as a podcast episode on Hear The Opinion, where they will be recording their own voice and send it to us. We then create a podcast episode and publish it.

Sample Episode:

The Podcast is available on 12 Audio Platforms.

The form below will ask you if are interested in creating an episode for yourself. You will always have an option to avail the opportunity anytime before the publication.

The tentative time of the publication shall be 11:59 PM of the assigned tentative date of publication. The submission shall not be revocable from the time when the submission is tentatively due to be published in 4 days. Therefore, once the submission becomes irrevocable, the story must not be under review/published elsewhere.

For Example, if the assigned tentative date is 10th of July, 2020 (11:59 PM), The submission becomes irrevocable after 6th of July, 2020 (11: 59 PM). The Editorial Board of The Opinion shall hold the copyrights over any story that is published with us.

The Editorial Board shall have the right to enhance the article so as to make it reader-friendly. However, no changes shall be made with the spirit of the point of view that the article might be presenting. The moral rights shall remain with the author.

Click here to submit.

In case of any queries, write to us on the.opinion.med@gmail.com.

Keep writing!

For more information visit here https://medium.com/the-%C3%B3pinion/submission-guidelines-31fe98b5a30