1. Thematic focus

The overall theme of Kidney Warriors Trinidad & Tobago (KWTT) is living your best life with Renal Failure and educating persons about the illness and everything that goes along with it. We are interested in the causes, progress and prevention of Renal/Kidney Failure, its impact on both the person with the illness as well as their loved ones, and the ways in which they can continue living while on dialysis. Our goal is to offer as much information to our readers as possible so they can fully understand what they are going through. We emphasize unique perspectives and approaches in our posts.

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2. How to submit your blog piece.

All submissions to KWTT should be made electronically, in MS Word (no PDF’s), e-mailed as an attachment to kwttsubmissions@gmail.com. Your e-mail should be clearly marked with the words ‘Blog entry’ in the title. Please send an accompanying image with your text, if possible. Images are not to be inserted into the text but are to be sent as a separate attachment. If the image is from the internet, then please send a link as well. It's best to use stock images, which are royalty free for personal and in some cases commercial use. Please read the Images section below for important copyright information. A brief author’s biography of no more than three sentences is also required. If you would like to consult about topic selection or to propose a specific topic, you can forward your questions or suggestions to the editorial team at the email above. Though, please note, we do not require a topic to be pro-approved and we accept submissions on a rolling basis.

Your article will be returned to you with feedback from our editorial team. If your article is selected for publication, then it is your responsibility to review those comments and ensure you send back a ‘clean’ version of the article which is ready to publish with no tracked changes remaining. If any track changes do remain in the returned document, then we will assume that those changes are meant to be accepted and will accept all; the piece will then be published as is. Note, while we do our best to avoid them, we take no responsibility for any content mistakes or errors that may be present in the piece as a result of the document being re-submitted for publishing with track changes still present.

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3. Ethics

Accuracy

Contributors are responsible for the factual accuracy of their work.

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Plagiarism

Unattributed use of other people’s work is unacceptable and harmful not only to the author but also to the reputation of the blog. Responsibility for any plagiarism will rest with the author.

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Comments

Comments and replies will be moderated. However, feel free to report any offensive or unwarranted behavior.

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Rights

All text published on KWTT’s website will be under a Creative Commons license, whereby work can be quoted or reproduced elsewhere as long as it is properly attributed and linked back to KWTT, and as long as it is not reproduced for commercial use. (For details on CC licensing, see brief summary and Legal Code.). Unless otherwise informed, we assume that submitted articles are offered for exclusive publication in KWTT and that no piece accepted for publication will be published elsewhere simultaneously in any form without our knowledge.

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4. Conventions

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Size

Blog posts should be between 800 and 1,500 words in length. In general, most articles should aim to be between 1,200 and 1,400 words. 

Book reviews for the blog should normally be under 1,400 words. 

Information to be submitted with your text.

• Title of the article, set in bold.

• Your name directly below the title.

• A brief writer’s profile.

• A link to your social media (optional)

• Two or three keywords.

• A caption for your image.

• The source of your image and any copyright information in brackets.

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These should be separated from the text by two carriage returns.

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Images

Contributors are strongly encouraged to provide one or more illustrations for their post. This may be photographs, graphics or a cartoon. Pictures should be in png, jpg or jpeg format. Please note, the editorial team reserves the right to curate which images are, or are not, included on our website.

Additionally, it is also essential that we have permission to publish the image, either through a Creative Commons license or through explicit written permission from the copyright owner. Please provide a link to the source of the image if the image is from the internet, with evidence of its free to use status. You can find stock images at Burst, Pixabay, Unsplash and Pexels to name a few.

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References

There are two ways of making references on the blog: links and endnotes.

Links: In general, if you are referencing from something which exists online, it is preferable to use in-text links. Links should be descriptive. Avoid using the word ‘link’ in brackets after a sentence or linking from the word ‘here’, where an alternative is possible. For example: Here are some ways in which you can add nuts to your renal diet.

In all cases, contributors should double-check the relevance and validity of links before submission.

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Hints and Tips

Post Title: Capitalize only the first word (i.e., like a normal sentence). No full stop is necessary at the end. Catchy titles are great, but make sure that they directly indicate what the post is likely to be about. Try to keep post titles short.
(Please note that editors may change the post title.)

Opening paragraph: The opening paragraph is an invitation to the busy reader to read further. A good way to open your text is to engage with your topic immediately, preferably making clear from the opening sentence what you will be talking about.

Style: As you know, writing for a blog is not the same as writing an academic essay. Above all, your writing should aim to be clear, concise, compelling, direct and accessible to a broad, global audience. Short sentences are better than long ones. Short words are better than long ones, too. 

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Content: Opinion and commentary is welcome, even if provocative, but this is not an excuse for inaccuracy or distortion of facts.

Please note, KWTT reserves the right to allow its senior editors to make any small adjustments to the final articles at the time of publication which may be deemed necessary. These small changes would never involve substantive content alterations, without the authors’ approval. Any alterations made would be limited to purely stylistic or format-based changes and would be done in the interests of improving the piece by making it more presentable in an online format, or by bringing it more in line with the stylistic conventions of our existent body of publications. The author will always be notified of any adjustments made after he or she resubmits a final draft, and the author retains the right to request that such modifications be reverted to their original state.

 

Disclaimer

The views expressed on this blog are attributable to their individual authors writing in their personal capacity only, and not to any other author, the editors, or any other person, organization or institution with which the author might be affiliated unless explicitly stated so.

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Please remember that these guidelines are intended to give the blog some consistency; they are not meant to quash your individual voice. For further questions please contact us via our Contact Us page.