BCTELA

If you are considering submitting an article to English Practice, or have already done so, please take a few moments to review the information below. We, your co-editors, are also teachers, and if you can follow the guidelines below you will make our volunteer job as editors that much easier. In the end, it will also save you time with the revision/editing process. Thank you for both your article and your time spent on this process; both are significant contributions to the quality of English Practice-winner of an Honorable Mention for Affiliate Journal at the 2008 NCTE Annual Convention.

General Information

1. Submit all pieces in Microsoft Office Word (PC or Mac). Attachments should be in Word or PDF. If you want to attach photographs, please contact an editor first.
2. Please title your piece with your full name, such as JoannePanas.doc. This helps us with organizing. Revisions will be titled JoannePanasRev1.doc, JoannePanasRev2.doc, etc.
3. Use 12-point Times New Roman as your font, and single-space your article. Paragraphs will need to be indented rather than having spaces between them.
4. Use APA format for citing references within articles and in your reference list. If you are unfamiliar with APA format, there are many online sources; we recommend the Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/.
5. If you are using footnotes, follow APA format (see OWL website), but single-space them.
6. Longer articles (2 or more pages) should be divided into sections with headings. As well, try to avoid many very long paragraphs.

Writing Guidelines

1. The tone of your writing should be one of openness, wondering and/or sharing; avoid didactic writing, chastising, or absolutes.
2. Unless you are quoting a source, please refer to your own experience rather than making generalizations. Rather than "Formative assessment benefits the learning of our students and also informs and guides our practice as teachers," we prefer "Formative assessment benefits the learning of my students and also informs and guides my teaching practice."
3. Whenever possible, refer to "students" or "my students," not "the students."
4. Whenever possible, introduce or lead into quotations; use the shortest possible quotation for the point you are making.
5. Avoid "educational-ese"; define academic or highly specific terms on first use (e.g. in situ, epistemology, socio-constructivist). Define abbreviations on first use.
6. Use the active voice over the passive. Rather than "A rubric was created by my students," we prefer "My students created a rubric."

Style Details

1. Italicize titles of books and journals (vs. underlining). Titles of shorter works such as journal titles, poems, and short stories should be in quotations.
2. Avoid contractions in formal or academic pieces.
3. Be consistent in your choice of American or British/Canadian spelling of words such as "colo(u)r" or "hono(u)r."
4. Bold main headings, and italicize sub-headings; both should be on the left margin.
5. When using bullets, use square black bullets for main points, and round hollow bullets for sub-points.
6. Dashes should be two hyphens together which touch the words at either end-like this, not a single or double hyphen that "floats" between words - like this, or -- like this. 
7. Longer quotations (40+ words) need to be inset, without quotation marks, and introduced using a colon.
8. Leave a single space between sentences and after colons (traditionally, writers have left two spaces after sentences and colons, but this is no longer necessary with current word processors and fonts).
9. We use the comments/track changes feature in Word when we review your pieces; please send back your revised version with our original comments/changes intact. You can respond within the body of the comment boxes or create your own. This will speed up and simplify the revision process.

Some Tips, or Things We Like to See

1. Consider integrating quotations from students into your article.
2. Include a few student samples and/or key handouts/organizers you used (these may need to be limited or shrunk for space). 
3. Acknowledge your perspective/where you're coming from.
4. Make connections to the new English Language Arts K-7 and/or 8-12 Integrated Resource Packages.
5. Create an interesting title that will draw in readers; please keep it relatively short.

Finally...

With your submission, provide your contact information, including your email address, phone number, and mailing address (we mail each contributor a copy of the journal). Please create a biography, written in 3rd person. Feel free to be creative with your biography, but keep it within 35 words (don't include your last name in it). A sample for "Sam Lee" is provided (32 words):

Sam is a grade 6/7 teacher at Midtown Middle School in Prince George, and has a Masters in Literacy. Sam's passions include learning to support the wonderful diversity of students at Midtown.