How It Works

The Apollos is submissions-based. Any student, staff, faculty, or alumni is eligible to submit content for any of our sections. Also, we welcome contributions from the broader community. In order to be published, submissions must either address a topic or take an angle that is relevant or meaningful to the Paul Smith’s College community, and submissions must be vetted according to our publication guidelines, and will go through our editorial process.

Publication Guidelines First and foremost, The Apollos is a space for grounds-up community expression and communication. We aim to host as wide a range of topics and angles as accurately reflects the interests of our community. As a shared space, however, and as the face of our community to the world, we are also committed to tenants of respectful and honorable public discourse. As such, here’s the basics that we all have to adhere to:

• Clear distinctions between accepted facts and interpretation or individual experience

To ensure this, claims that are or could be interpreted as statements of fact must reference the source(s) supporting and substantiating them. This can be done by hyperlinking to sources of information or by in-text attribution to interviews or other sources. Statements of opinion don’t need to be qualified as such if the context they are in clearly implies it. The Apollos avoids publishing footnotes or references pages – please incorporate your attributions and sources in-text. The Apollos does not ensure the accuracy of information included in articles – accuracy is authors’ responsibility. However, it is up to the discretion of The Apollos staff to decide when information has been sufficiently sourced and attributed.

• No libel

All opinions are welcome on The Apollos – however, not all expressions of opinion. The Apollos will publish reasonable critiques of process, procedure, action, or activity, but not attacks on individuals or character.

• No explicit swear words, or derogatory language

Curse words and derogatory language should be avoided, but if used (as in a quote, or to illustrate a point) they should be modified with asterisks. The Apollos will publish slang and colloquial language – if said language is used intentionally and serves the author’s purpose.

• Clarity and cleanliness of text

We do our best to ensure that all pieces appearing in The Apollos are clear, well-written, and grammatically clean. Towards that end, all pieces submitted for publication go through our editorial process.

Editorial Process The Apollos is committed to publishing as many submissions as possible, but we cannot guarantee publication, nor promise publication by any particular date. The Apollos editorial team reserves the right to decline submissions and request editing based on our assessment of what is appropriate. All pieces undergo: Content Editing: Pieces are assessed for clarity of message, effectiveness of delivery, and adherence to publication guidelines. At this stage The Apollos editors work with the author to help the author hone the piece to the best of his or her ability, as appropriate to topic, timing, and authorial voice. Copy Proofing: Pieces are edited for sentence clarity and grammatical cleanliness. Copy proofing edits do not change the author’s tone or message, therefore The Apollos editors make copy proofing changes without author input.

Ready to submit? Excellent. Here’s how: If you’d like to discuss an idea, or submit a piece for consideration, please contact any one of The Apollos staff by email, or write to apollos@paulsmiths.edu. When you send us your piece, please keep in mind: We are a bulletin board…we don’t publish posters! Please put your announcement or information in paragraph-form. Every piece needs to be ‘by’ someone – so go ahead, be an author. Take some ownership and some pride in what you submit – your name will be on it! Attribute your facts and data! We cannot publish claims of fact that are not traceable. Let us know how you know what you do. One option: link your information to the source where you got it – we’ll make sure that link transfers in publication. Everyone loves a visual. If possible, please include photos or art with your text.

A few more specifics: Please do not indent paragraphs in your word document. Attach photos separately than the text! (Do not embed!) Videos and audio are best shared if they are on YouTube Send us your ‘contributors’ bio’ information: your full name, your year or anticipated graduation date, and your area of study, and a photo! You may also include anything else you would like (titles, activities, likes and dislikes).