Submissions

If you would like to submit material for publication at American Thinker, email it to editor@americanthinker.com. We accept material only via email. We do not pay for submissions, and our editorial content cannot be used as a disguised advertisement. Your chances of getting an article or post accepted for submission greatly increase if you read the guidelines below.

GENERAL INFORMATION

Blog posts and articles

American Thinker is divided into two sections: blog posts and articles.

We publish 5-6 articles a day and 15 blog posts. The primary distinction between the two is their length. Articles are 800–1,200 words, and blog posts are 400–800 words. Articles can cover topics in more depth, whereas blog posts are geared more toward breaking news and lighter topics.

Original material

We will publish only original material. If what you’ve written has already been published elsewhere, even in a widely circulated X or Facebook post, we no longer consider it original.

Once your essay has been published at American Thinker, you are free to publish it elsewhere. We require that subsequent publishers credit American Thinker as the original source, including a hyperlink.

Quoted materials or borrowed ideas

Please keep your quotations short enough to fit within Fair Use copyright guidelines. In practical terms, this means keeping quoted material under two hundred words per item quoted and substantially less if the original item is short. We will not reproduce images of any kind unless they are clearly in the public domain or licensed for our use.

Respect the intellectual property of those who provide the grist for your own thinking. If you rely on the original reporting of others, credit them by name and include a hyperlink to the source(s) you used.

Part of presenting original material is that we frown upon recapitulations of what has been published elsewhere unless you have an original point to make and the recapitulation is necessary to that point. We do not like exhortations or polemics, preferring analytical or informational material.

Open letters

In general, we do not publish open letters. Exceptions can be made when the author has special standing in a particular issue (e.g., as a defendant in a legal case).

Parodies and satire

We do not try to compete with the Babylon Bee. A piece intended to be humorous or satirical must be exceptionally witty to pass muster. Indeed, we reject more satires than any other type of submission. We are not interested in parodies, rewrites of historical documents, or alternative words for popular songs.

If you make up a satirical quotation within a serious article, it must be patently obvious that the quotation is fabricated as a hypothetical or for humor’s sake.

MANUSCRIPT GUIDELINES

Introductory e-mail

Put SUBMISSION (all caps) in the subject line of your e-mail.

Put the title, your name, your e-mail address, and the submission date at the top of your manuscript.

A brief note should accompany the e-mail submission. The note should state (in two sentences or fewer) an outline of the content of the submission.

Form for submissions

You may submit your material either as MS Word files or within the text of the email itself.

Word count

Again, blog posts generally should be 400-800 words. Articles should be 800 to 1,200 words.

Graphics

If you have charts, graphs, pictures, or other visual materials, attach them to your e-mail as .jpg files. Please note that we cannot publish copyrighted material, including news service photos, without permission from the owner.

Quotations

The only time to use quotation marks is when quoting someone accurately while providing a hyperlink to the source. The sole exception is when a quote is well-known (e.g., “Give me liberty or give me death”). Block quotes should be in boldface.

If you alter or delete content within the quotation, be sure to note that. Mark any elisions with ellipses (...), and mark changes (for example, to capitalization or spelling) with brackets. For example, Patrick Henry’s line, if abbreviated, would be rendered as “Give me liberty or ... death.”) Truncated sentences should be marked by closing punctuation in brackets. If you omit words from the beginning of a sentence, you can indicate that you’ve changed a lowercase word to an uppercase word. For example, “[T]he earth was without form, and void[.]”

If you are omitting an entire paragraph, internet convention says that you place “[snip]” where that paragraph would have been.

Tables

If you have any tables in your work, please use the table function in Microsoft Word. Do not use the spacebar to create tables.

Links

We require hyperlinks, not endnotes. Provide hyperlinks for all quotations and any important factual claims that are not common knowledge. (Here are instructions for creating hyperlinks in MS Word and in Gmail.)

When you use hyperlinks, don’t apply them to an entire sentence or just to one word. As Goldilocks learned, you want a happy medium, which is usually 2-6 apposite words. If you are linking to quoted material, do not put the link in the quote itself. Instead, the hyperlink should precede the quotation.

If you find yourself unable to create a hyperlink, then just paste the URL immediately following the sentence that would contain the hyperlink.

Endnotes

If your source is not on the internet, you may use an endnote. The endnote should contain (at a minimum) the work’s title, author, and publication date, along with the relevant page number.

Do not use the MS function to create endnotes. Instead, insert the superscript reference characters manually into both the body and the notes.

Author’s credit

The writer may include an “author’s credit” that will appear at the bottom of the article if the submission is accepted for publication. This credit may include a link to the author’s website, blog, or e-mail. Brevity is best.

Factual verification

Writers should source, verify, and then double-check all facts in their submissions. Wikipedia, something you heard on the radio, and nearly all bloggers are not definitive sources. Do not write speculatively about factual information. Do not guess or approximate unless you have expert knowledge.

Style

Write in clear and direct sentences whenever possible. If Andrea is your editor, she despises passive voice which clogs writing. You should avoid it unless the sentence demands it. Also, don’t be afraid of the apostrophe possessive. Would you rather read “The ball of the boy was played with by the dog,” or “the dog played with the boy’s ball”?

Avoid run-on sentences. Focus on fact and logic more than on your own opinions. Unless otherwise indicated on this page, grammar and punctuation should conform to The Chicago Manual of Style.

Bombast and illegalities

Avoid overstatement, clichés, and emotionalism. In general, less is more when it comes to rhetoric. If there is humor, it should be original and witty.

American Thinker will not consider material containing anything that could be construed as a threat or a call to violence, revolution, or any other illegal activity. Our mission is in the realm of civil discussion.

Pronouns

Writers need to avoid larding their writing with too many pronouns, which confuses readers.

Here is an example of an improperly affirmed antecedent:

“Jane and Mary watched the cars. They were racing.” Notice that the reader is left wondering who or what is racing. The writer forces the reader to guess what is meant by “they.” You can get wordy to fix it:  “Jane and Mary watched the cars. The cars were racing.” Or you can reframe your sentence: “Jane and Mary watched the racing cars.”

People with XX chromosomes are “she” and “her.” People with XY chromosomes are “he” and “him.” Objects and unsexed animals are “it.” Plural references are “they” and “them.”

Do not be afraid of using “I” when appropriate. Remember, though, that you don’t need to say “I think.” You’re writing it; of course, it’s what you think.

Also, if you include a personal anecdote, ensure it’s closely tied to the subject matter and keep it as short as possible.

Focus on the reader

To be an effective writer, you must think about your audience. Assume that readers are impatient and have a world of choices a click or two away. Start your essay with a short introduction telling your reader what to expect in your essay. Then, fulfill that expectation.

Be organized

Most essays fail because they are chaotically disorganized. People have good ideas but cannot convey them because they cannot present their ideas and arguments in a way that flows logically, keeping the reader anchored to them. There are two primary ways to organize an essay: (1) chronologically or (2) by subject matter. Outlines are your friend. If you dislike the traditional linear outline you learned in school, try a “whirlybird” or non-linear outline. This article will explain both.

Use technology.

MS Word has a built-in editor function. Alternatively, check out Grammarly, which offers a free service. Don’t follow either slavishly because doing so will make you sound like a bland AI bot. However, they are invaluable when it comes to catching typos, common grammatical errors, and lardy, pompous, and convoluted sentences.

Thank you for your interest in writing for American Thinker.