Digital Global Traveler Submission Rules
How to get published in DGT
Hello Dear Writers! Since Digital Global Traveler gets bigger each week (and I’m crazily excited about it), we also get more and more submissions.
We — the owner of the publication, Gerald Sturgill, and I — thought it would be a suitable moment to talk a bit about the rules here in DGT.
This article may change over time, so be sure to check it out once in a while to see if there’s anything new.
Last update: 20 June 2022
Table of contents:
- Topics in DGT.
- Article formatting.
- Spellcheck.
- Crediting images.
- Titles & subtitles.
- Tags.
Topics in DGT
We’re looking for everything related to geography, culture, language, traditions, and travels. If you have anything you’d like to say about your country, hometown, or languages you’ve learned, it’s a place for that!
I’d like to have writers from all over the world come together on this publication and write what they know about the places they’re from or places they are very familiar with. I will try to bring a writer from nearly every region of the globe to come to write here.
I’m Thinking of Starting a Travel/Geography Themed Publication by Gerald Sturgill
If you’re not sure if your story would be a good fit for DGT, don’t hesitate. Submit.
Article formatting
Please, make a cut in your text every once in a while. Getting through a wall of sentences makes it easy to lose focus and not know what you’ve just read.
I would advise each paragraph to be no more than around five lines long. Believe me, it will only make your stories more enjoyable for the readers!
Spellcheck
Always do proofreading before submitting. Look for typos, missing braces, periods, and commas.
I use two free tools:
- Grammarly to spellcheck an entire article at once after finishing.
- ProWritingAid Chrome extension to check my story word by word — during the writing process, and also once I’m done creating and going to the proofreading phase.
It doesn’t take much time, especially if you check the hints directly as you type.
Some writers also read their articles out loud before publishing. That can be a good habit as well.
Crediting images
First and foremost, make sure you have the right to post the picture in your story.
Images must be cited like all other resources.
If you use an image you did not create, you must provide a citation, even if the image is very small, or in the public domain.
Photos taken by you and your friends
- Since we can’t be sure if you took the photo you’re posting when there’s no caption, please just mention it if it happened.
Example: Photo taken by the author. - The same goes for your friends and family. If your friend took the photo and gave you permission to publish it, mention it.
Example: Photo taken by my friend. Attached with their permission.
Another example: Photo taken by John Smith. Attached with their permission. — if they want to be mentioned with their name.
Images taken from the web
If the image was taken from the web, check its license. Usually, we don’t have the right to use images posted by someone else on the Internet, especially when it comes to commercial use.
If you’re sure that particular website allows for using their photos for personal and commercial use, you may use it, but paste the link to the license in the caption.
Also, always paste the link to the original source of the image.
Example: Stanisław Wyspiański, Motherhood, 1905, National Museum in Warsaw. License: Public license.
Images taken from Unsplash and Pixabay
That’s why so many writers use websites like Pixabay or Unsplash — because those photos are free for personal and commercial use. And they even give you ready-to-use captions for your articles once you download the photo!
Once you paste the image, mention the author and the website you’ve taken it from in the image's capture.
Unsplash example: Photo by aboodi vesakaran on Unsplash
Pixabay example: Image by Ilona Ilyés from Pixabay
Images crediting key point
Just make sure you have the right to use it and let the world know about it.
For more on crediting images, you can read owner Gerald Sturgill’s story about it in The Press Box.
Titles & subtitles
Our proposal would be:
- Use subtitles when writing your article.
- Use the Title Case when composing a title, and the Sentence case when creating a subtitle of your article.
I use a free tool, Capitalize My Title, when trying to capitalize my titles.
This is only a suggestion, though, so not following those titles & subtitles rules doesn’t mean we won’t publish your story.
Tags
One tag always has to be Digital Global Traveler.
Try to add five tags to your story. This is the maximum that the Medium allows for. If you’ll add fewer, we’ll find some that’d fit your article and include them.
Summary
We hope that putting these principles together will make Digital Global Traveler a more enjoyable place for us all to write. If you have any comments, ideas, or proposals, please let us know in the Responses section.
You can read more about our publication and apply to be added as a writer in Gerald Sturgill’s story:
We can’t wait to see your next story in Digital Global Traveler!
Sincerely,
Editor Team: Gerald Sturgill, Lauren Michaels, and me
