YOUR GUIDE TO THE CLARION
Hey there! Thanks for writing for The Clarion. The goal of this guide is to give you a brief rundown of what goes on throughout the week. The Clarion Guide also has information regarding general deadlines, grammar and other formatting tips. If you have any questions, send an email to Editor-in-Chief Aubrey Cox at duclarioneditor@gmail.com.
IMPORTANT WEEKLY DATES AND TIMES
Monday AT 6 P.M. – Clarion meetings are at 6 p.m. in the Anderson Academic Commons, room 301. Stories are assigned during the pitch meeting, and writers should start gathering contact information for sources. If you can’t make the meeting, that’s okay! Just send an email to one of the editors and we’ll get you a list of available stories for that week. Too busy or stressed? Take a week off and join us again when you can!
TUESDAY TO FRIDAY – Conduct interviews, write stories and contact your section editor ASAP if there are any problems so they can help.
FRIDAY BY MIDNIGHT – Stories must be sent to your section editor for first edits. This is done by creating a Google Doc and sharing it with their Clarion email (found on the pitch list). If your story is not shared with your section editor by Friday at midnight and there are no factors meriting an extension, your story will not be published for that week. We are happy to publish it next week; we just have to abide by our deadlines.
SATURDAY BY MIDNIGHT – Stories will be edited by your section editor(s).
SUNDAY BY 4 P.M. – Your Executive Editor and Editor-in-Chief will edit your stories. Take a look at the edits we made in the Google Doc. Please know that we are making edits on your work to ensure that it makes sense and meets the standards of The Clarion. If you have any questions regarding edits, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
MONDAY BY NOON – Complete the suggested edits. Updated versions of stories must be completed for section editors, ready for the paper.
TUESDAY – The paper from the previous week is available for viewing online here at duclarion,com. It will be shared on social media throughout the week.
GENERAL INFORMATION
PITCHING – We are always seeking great stories for The Clarion. If you have any ideas at all, send them our way.
SECTIONS –
There are four sections you can write for. The sections are as follows:
- News
- Sports
- Opinions
- Arts & Life
- Unify (Our new section devoted to uplifting minority voices!) Email duclariondiversity.unify@gmail.com
There are also photography opportunities available with the Clarion. Email duclarionphoto@gmail.com to learn more about those opportunities.
CONTACT LIST
| Ana Júlia Rodrigues Alves
Editor-in-Chief |
Riley Laub
Executive Editor |
|
News Editor |
George Murray
Sports Editor |
| Annabelle Kiely
Opinions Editor |
Anna Neumann
Arts & Life Editor |
| Avery Young
Photo & Video Editor |
Andrew Matranga
Faculty Advisor |
SUBMITTING STORIES
Remember that your stories must be submitted no later than Friday at midnight!
FORMATTING –
Headlines for The Clarion should concisely describe the story. The first word should be capitalized while others should be lowercase unless it is a proper noun. Here’s an example of a headline: “Students back to the grind at Beans”
- Always include your name and your position (for new writers, the position title is Contributing Writer) under the headline. For example:
Headline
Writer’s Name // Contributing Writer
- Articles must be about 350-800 words. Try your best not to exceed 800 words unless needed.
- Do not indent paragraphs like you would with an essay. All text should be flush with the left side of the document.
- Do everything in Google Docs! Please title your Google Doc with First Letter of Section Name: Date of Publication (The upcoming Wednesday) Article title. For example:
AL: 9/12/2018 RIP Summer Playlist
THOSE ARE THE NECESSITIES. SEE BELOW FOR WRITING TIPS, AND ALWAYS FEEL FREE TO ASK QUESTIONS.
WRITING TIPS
GRAMMAR AND AP STYLE:
AP STYLE – Everything we do is AP style because that’s the newspaper standard. As DU students, we have access to the AP stylebook database through the libraries website. If you have questions, please get in touch with us.
EXCLAMATION POINTS! – No matter how much you want to, never use exclamation points. We wish we could, but that’s unfortunately just how the style of newspapers works(!).
OXFORD COMMA – When listing things, avoid using the oxford comma (the last comma of the sequence). See below for an example. This is for sure our most common grammatical mistake. Again, it’s simply just how newspapers work.
Right: “DU is a great place for students, teachers and the surrounding community.”
Wrong: “DU is a great place for students, teachers, and the surrounding community.”
MAJORS – When including a student’s major (a common happening at The Clarion), use lowercase letters
(business major instead of Business Major, unless it’s a proper noun like English major or French major).
TIME – When including specific times in an article, use a.m. and p.m.
[lowercase a.m. (3:30 a.m. or 3 a.m.) instead of something like 330 AM or 3:00 A.M.]
DATES – Abbreviate months, and only put the number of the day when including a date, no “nd”, “th”, “st” etc.
(Sept. 1, 2014) instead of (September 1st, 2014).
NUMBERS – Numbers are tricky, but here are a couple of general rules.
- In general, spell out numbers one through nine, use numbers for 10 and up (… eight, nine, 10, 11)
- However, spell the number out if it’s the very first word of a sentence.
(“Ten students attended” instead of “10 students attended”)
- Spell out amounts over 1 million.
($26.52, $100,200, $8 million)
States/Cities
- Spell out state if used alone, but abbreviate if used after a city
- He was in Colorado.
- He was in Breckenridge, Colo.
- Always a comma between the city and state and after unless at the end of a sentence.
- After visiting Honolulu, Hawaii, they then continued north to see their relatives.
- Use a semicolon if making a list of cities.
- She has worked in Baltimore, Md.; Miami, Fl.; and Houston, Texas.
- Always spell out these states
- Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Ohio, Texas and Utah
- Do not use postal code abbreviation
QUOTES:
Refer to old Clarion articles to format your quotes. Looking at examples is the best way to learn how to properly format quotes. Here are a few examples of how to properly quote:
FORMAT – “I’ve been interviewing a lot of people. I’m focusing on portraits of people in their environments,” said Hamilton. (never use “says”!)
CREDITING – When quoting a student from DU, include their year, major and hometown. See below for an example.
Short quote: “David Stewart, a senior film studies and production major from South Lake Tahoe, California, chose to focus on a theme of cinematography.”
Long quote: “I really like the new Subway,” said Smith. “It’s near my classes in Sturm and is very convenient when I need to grab lunch on the go. I plan to go there at least a couple times every week.”
PHOTOS:
- We encourage writers to take photos to accompany their stories! If you have a good photo you would like to use, email it as an attachment to your section editor. Always avoid grabbing images off of the internet for copyright issues.