Either you think--or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you.
Writing Guidelines for The Austin Javelina - Previous Collective
1. Mission Statement: The Austin Javelina is a bi-weekly newspaper providing news and commentary
not available from the mainstream media. The Javelina supports community, autonomy, dignity, sustainability and mutual aid. The Javelina opposes authoritarianism in all its forms. We are a non-hierarchical consensus-based collective.
2. The Javelina comes out every other Wednesday. Deadline for article submissions is the preceding Wednesday. Deadline for calendar submissions is Friday. Articles received by deadline will be "consensus" edited-an editor will go over the story with you for changes. Articles received after deadline may be accepted, but we can't guarantee you will be part of the editing process. Deadlines can be extended for articles about events that happen after the Wednesday deadline has passed.
Send articles to: Submit
Send calendar submissions to: Event Submissions
Contact the editorial collective at: Contact
3. The Javelina publishes different types of articles with different formats. If you aren't clear what type of article best suits your material, please talk with an editor before writing. We print articles in English and Spanish, but prefer original material in either language rather than translations. We do strive towards some basic quality standards, so try to write well.
A. News stories are timely, informative, and generally between 300 to 800 words. Begin each news story with a lead. The AP Guide to News Writing states that "a good lead makes a clear statement of the essential news point and when possible includes a detail that distinguishes the story from others of its kind." You might also try looking through the AP Guide for tips and using good news articles you've read as references. The editorial collective isn't a group of "experts," but we can share our writing experiences to help you if the format of news articles seems difficult.
B. Feature stories have a more flexible format and can be more than 800 words, depending on space constraints. Please contact the collective about longer articles before writing. While features don't need a lead, they still require an introductory paragraph that explains the main idea of the story that you'll be developing in the rest of the article.
If your story is appropriate to a section, then the section editor or section editorial group can make the decision on running the piece, so you can address her/them instead of the collective before writing.
4. Please structure all articles into paragraphs and sections, with each section as a grouping of paragraphs focusing on one particular aspect of a story. Although it may remind you of high school, an outline is a useful tool for organizing your thoughts and information before you start writing. When you can't find a way to make three sentences work together it's probably because one of them is in the wrong paragraph. If your story is in by deadline, the editors would love nothing more than to help you with this.
5. Shorter, denser stories are better than longer, wordier ones. Let the quantity of information, not the extent of your passion, be the guide for length. Alternately, let your passion push you to dig up more relevant background data, if you think your article lacks depth.
6. Most of us have strong political ideas that we hope will inform our writing, editing, and choices about subject matter. However, being guided by principles and repetitively restating them are different. Heavily "spin-doctored" news is less informative than well-informed opinion. Show people the evidence, rather than simply telling them what conclusions to draw. This applies to writing style as well as to entire articles-please respect the intelligence of your readers and keep spin to a minimum.
7. If you're just starting out, concentrate on writing clear simple prose. Don't try too hard to adopt the style of another writer-remember, your own style will develop with time and practice.
8. Try to avoid using jargon and be cautious when utilizing overused concepts like "the people," "resistance," "the masses," "grassroots," "globalization," "movement," "community," etc. If you use these words, make sure your use is concrete and appropriate to your material.
9. Please keep your audience in mind while writing. They may not be informed on the issue that you're writing about, so it's up to you to explain it. They may not be like you and your friends, so it's crucial to keep any insider references and codes to a minimum.
10. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do not imply that the world is divided into well-informed activists and slothful, TV-obsessed morons! It's called reification-fight it. Reality is always more complex than these simple binaries. We can push otherwise open people away if we treat them like idiots.
11. Finally, none of the editing changes or suggestions are meant as personal criticism. We're all involved in this learning process in order to make our writing and communication more effective. We hope that the Javelina, as a community resource, will benefit from all of our efforts.
Photo, Comic, and Artwork Guidelines for The Austin Javelina
1. It is best if the photograph is delivered to a member of the Javelina collective. If this is not possible, the photo may be scanned and sent to Submit. However, photos must be scanned as a Tif file. No Jpegs, Gifs, or files that have been converted from Jpegs or Gifs.
2. Artwork and Comics should be delivered to a member of the Javelina collective.