Write for the School of Public Policy blog

We are always looking for blog posts from LSE students, LSE alumni and LSE faculty. If you’re part of the LSE community, and you’d like to submit an idea, write to the Editor at spp@lse.ac.uk briefly describing what you would like to contribute. Once you have sent an email, we will get back to you as soon as possible. These guidelines will help you to have your post published on the School of Public Policy blog as quickly as possible. Please see our editorial policy for further information about what to expect after submitting your post. If you have any questions about your contribution, please email spp@lse.ac.uk.

Before writing your blog post

Content

• Write about something which is important to your studies, working life, you are an expert in or holds a significant interest for you personally. Our main aim is to provide a voice for the student experience on all of the SPP courses – Master of Public Administration, Executive Master of Public Administration, Master of Public Policy, Executive Master of Public Policy and to facilitate public policy discussions here at LSE.

Audience, writing style and language

• Snappy introductory sentences are always a good place to start. Outline the key points of your article and your argument at the beginning as opposed to the end, and engage the reader early on.
• Use short paragraphs made up of four or five sentences. Bullet points, quotations and Q&A style address are also welcome.
• As with journalistic pieces, ‘lead with the best’. Do not save your main argument or analysis for the end of the post.
• For good examples of blog writing style and presentation, please see the LSE’s family of blogs.

Length and format

• In order to increase readability and accessibility, we aim for our articles to be between 500-1300 words.
• We are also happy to post longer essays if appropriate for the topic. If you are interested, please discuss this with the blog team.
• Please send us your draft entry in Word format.

Titles

• We use narrative titles i.e a single sentence that sums up the main argument of the article. The more descriptive and catchy the title, the more likely the article is to be read.
• Try to keep titles to twenty words or less, if possible.

Biography and contributor photo

• We’re proud of our contributors so we like to give them full attribution. Please send us a three to four line biographical note detailing your academic background and interests.
• Please also send a small colour photo headshot.

Referencing

• We use links rather than citations for references. Please insert a hyperlink at the relevant point of your argument that you’d like to reference or simply place the URL in parentheses where you would like it to be placed and we will link it ourselves.
• Please try to avoid using footnotes wherever possible and integrate material directly into the text.

Our editing process

• All submitted posts will be reviewed by the Blog Team, who will edit the piece to enhance readability to the blog’s wider audience. The blog post will then be sent to the authors for their approval before publication.