Have a story you’d like to have featured on the site? Below are the criteria for submissions.
- Stories should have a Chicagoland news peg. The Columbia Chronicle focuses on South Loop and campus news. For ChicagoTalks, however, we encourage submissions that go beyond the Columbia campus and venture out into other parts of the city.
- Fact-check your work, especially proper nouns (names of people, places, things, etc.) and numbers (addresses, ages, etc.).
- Submissions should be a minimum of 350 words. This includes photo stories.
- Include a photo. All submissions are required to include an accompanying image that correlates with the story. A photo taken with your smartphone will be fine.
- Original photos are preferred–either ones you took yourself or that were provided to you by a person who has copyright for the picture. Include a photo credit regardless of who took it. Do not use an image without the permission of the person who took it or who holds copyright for it.
- Write an informative caption that is a full sentence. See other stories on the site for examples.
- Go here for an example of how to write a caption for a photo you took. If the writer had gotten permission to use a photo taken by someone else, the caption would read like this: Several attendees gathered in Jonquil Park for the Growing Boys’ set at 4:15 p.m. at the Grant Slam on May 10. Photo provided by (insert name of person who has copyright for the photo and gave you permission to use it).
- If you’re struggling to find an image, you can use a copyright free photo from sites such as pexels.com or unsplash.com.
To Submit:
- First off, you don’t need to log in or register to submit a story, so please ignore the yellow button on the right side of this page.
- Send an email to Betsy Edgerton at bedgerton@colum.edu with all required materials. Attach your story in a Word document. You can paste pictures into the Word document or attach photos separately to the email. Include captions in the Word document and make sure it’s clear which caption goes with which picture.
- No PDFs, Google docs or Google links, please!
- Structure the subject line as, STUDENT SUBMISSION: Title, First and Last Name
- If we think your story is a good fit for ChicagoTalks, our faculty advisor, Betsy Edgerton, will look through your piece and leave suggestions on the document while editing. If necessary, you will be asked to take the suggestions and edits into consideration and rewrite portions of your piece.
- After your piece is edited, Betsy will work to get the story published. Once published, we will share the link to your story!