Article Guidelines For The Zerone 2023
Guidelines Overview
The following are the guidelines that every article submitted to us ought to follow. The ‘Major Guidelines’ listed below have to be adhered to and failure to do so will result in the article being rejected. The ‘Minor Guidelines’ are laxer in that regard but we strongly encourage you to follow them.
The team shall not be liable to inform the author of the article submitted by him/her is rejected.
Major Guidelines
- While the articles submitted to us do not have to be strictly related to Technology, we do PREFER them (this preference does not extend to the Online Article Writing Competition or any other event that has its own theme and things to expect). It has to be said, however, that we do NOT accept deeply technical writings and/or research papers for the magazine. These belong in the Zerone Scholar, a companion piece for the Zerone, to be released later in the year.
- We also believe strongly in art being the vehicle upon which technology reaches the audience it wants to cater to. And so, we accept all kinds of writings including poems, essays, stories, short blogs, and the like.
- All articles must stand on their own merit. No article sent to us with personal recommendations shall be accepted. No articles with any political or commercial agenda shall be accepted.
- Any articles found to be plagiarized or copy-pasted from the Internet and/or elsewhere shall be rejected. However, paraphrasing is acceptable insofar as the article you have written presents the same idea in a different language and you cite the source in any acceptable format. [Preferably, APA with in-line citations aka ‘Wikipedia’-style citations]
- The language of publication for the magazine this year is English. We do not accept articles written in other languages. While small snippets of other languages are acceptable, please provide a translation in a footnote or in a bracket and italicize the word used.
Minor Guidelines
- Article quality
Articles written poorly are easier to reject. Articles that display a blatant disregard for the language will not be accepted.
TL;DR
- ‘Contrary to popular belief, technology and art can go hand-in-hand.’ [Accepted]
- ‘Technology and art can co-exist no matter what is believed.’ [Edited and Accepted]
- ‘Technology n art can exist together no matter what people believe.’ [Rejected]
2. Document format
We prefer that you send us your articles in a .doc or .odt format. If it helps makes things simpler, any document that can be edited from a word processor (MS-Word, LibreOffice Write) and/or Google Docs is acceptable.
3. Photos and credits
If you have used images in your writing, please provide the source of the image alongside the caption within parentheses.
4. Had your article published on The Zerone’s Medium page but not on the magazine?
If the article you have sent us deviates too far away from the sentiment of the magazine, the article may be published on our Medium Page. These may also include articles that are too lengthy to be published in printed media (see point 6). We will inform you of our final decision.
5. Swearing and informal expressions (rants)
We do allow rants as a genre of expression. However, the use of swear words is strongly discouraged. You may use asterisks to obscure the word, retaining only the first letter. Any rants sent to us must be well-thought and well-written.
TL;DR:
- ‘Why the f*** would you include swear words in an article written for a college tech magazine?’ [Accepted if the surrounding context is compelling enough]
6. Are there any restrictions on the length of the article?
There are no hard restrictions on length. Anything that can be read within 5 minutes is acceptable, that is to say somewhere around 1000-1500 words. But it is to be noted that the chances of an article being selected decrease exponentially with the word count exceeding 1500.
Rule of thumb: You can always go lower with the word count. There are no extra points for making an article longer.
7. Do I need to be a student of Pulchowk Campus to submit my articles?
There are no restrictions when it comes to who you are. We accept articles from anybody and everybody who wishes to send us their articles.
