Scriptus

So you’ve decided to write for Scriptus! Good for you. Some important guidelines to consider:

1.  Answer the good old Five W’s. Who, What, When, Where, and Why. Basically, if your article answers these questions, it’s fundamentally done its job. But it’s up to you to bring your own wit, style, and personal flair to it.
2. Conciseness is vital!  Don’t throw unnecessary expansion in that you usually use when writing academic articles. They’re not needed. Also, avoid repetition. Being concise makes it easier to get your point across.
3. Make your article easy to read! Read your article aloud to check whether it actually makes sense, or whether you still need to work on your grammar. The easier, the better for the reader to understand you. Do not use jargon, and if you have to because you are writing a science article, try to explain it.
4. Check SPELLING and GRAMMAR!
5. Structure your article, try to give it a beginning, middle and end. Try to come up with a logical structure.
6. Check your information, we do not want to mix reality and dreams that you once had. If you use facts, make sure they are the right ones.
7. Avoid bringing up questions and then leaving them unaddressed, it’s annoying and screws with the logic of your article.
8. Send in the document with the title and your name!
9. Pictures? Include a black and white picture of the highest resolution to accompany it (preferably original, but if not please source it)
10. Contact us about the word-count. One page pieces are around 750 words long (longer in cases of short stories, shorter for other pieces). If you are over it, it’s fine, it’s easier to cut down than to add things. If your article is too short, send it in anyway, we might need it as an accompanying piece.

Things to think about when writing a review (book, movie, games, tv-series, theatre, opera, etc):

1. Make it interesting; you want your readers to feel the need to watch/read/play the thing you are writing about and that their life would be incomplete when they do not do it
2. Keep it short and simple; except when you are discussing something and analyse it in detail (something that you will have to talk about with your editor), keep the language active and engaging. Address the reader more than expressing your own opinion
3. Don’t explain crucial story details, people might want to still watch/read/play it and would like to be surprised. Don’t get lost in explanations about the plot, people will find out themselves.
4. Depending on how long your article is (we do 500 words and 200 words), try to include some background knowledge/trivia about your piece, to make it more accessible.
5. Include a good picture of your choice, directly from the source. Usually a picture from the movie, book cover, screenshot etc.
6. If possible, provide a link to amazon to buy the book, an event screening the movie or something alike.
7. If you feel you did not have enough space to convey all the information you wanted about your piece, we are currently thinking about making accompanying videos to the articles.