1. General hygiene factors
- DO NOT PLAGIARISE. ALL CONTENT YOU SUBMIT ON CYNERGI CONNECTS MUST BE 100% ORIGINAL. Any plagiarised content will be summarily rejected (editors will check!) and the writer sent a written warning. After 3 such warnings, you might be permanently banned from Cynergi Connects
- DO NOT USE COPYRIGHTED IMAGES and try to pass them off as your own. The editors will use online tools to verify that any image you include is not copyrighted. If it is copyrighted, you will be asked to remove it and replace it with a non-copyrighted image. If this happens more than 3 times, you might be permanently banned from Cynergi Connects
- Provide references where appropriate (in-text or at the end)
- Write content in the form of:
- Articles
- Stories
- Case Studies
- People profiles
- Interviews
- Videos
- Blogs
- Analyses
- Essays
- Events
- Curated news or reports
- All content is subject to editorial review and may be rejected if it fails to meet the guidelines in this document
- Content that is abusive, pornographic or unnecessarily provocative (religious, political, racist, etc) will be summarily rejected and the writer sent a written warning. Personal attacks will also not be tolerated. After 2 such warnings you will be banned from Cynergi Connects. Such decisions will be taken on a case-by-case basis at the sole discretion of the editor.
- Content that provides incorrect information or information deemed immoral or unethical (at editor’s discretion) will be immediately rejected. After 2 such warnings you will be banned from Cynergi Connects
- Before submitting a piece, go through the Terms & Conditions and confirm your acceptance
2. Audience and writing style
- Write for real people first, then for search engines
- Use a compelling title and article headers where appropriate
- Start with a powerful intro. Ask yourself, ‘Why should the reader care to read my piece?’
- KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE (businesspeople, managers, entrepreneurs) and write accordingly.
- Use jargon sparingly unless absolutely necessary
- Avoid the use of slang unless relevant to the topic
- Provide examples where appropriate, but only if they add value
- Avoid repeating points or using ‘fluff’ words/terms that add no value to the reader’s experience
- Divide your piece into meaningful,
well-organised paragraphs. Try to include at least 1 key takeaway in each
paragraph (otherwise text becomes ‘fluff’ – see above point)
- The takeaway could be a thought-provoking idea/suggestion/question or valuable piece of information or news
- Break the monotony of longer paragraphs with bulleted or numbered lists
- Include relevant tags for your article to make it ‘findable’
3. Language, tone
- Keep the language simple, direct and conversational. More importantly, the language should reflect you as a person, not just you as a writer
- Maintain consistency in spellings
- E.g. Don’t use email and e-mail in the same blog
- Write in active voice as much as
possible
- E.g. ‘She announced a tax cut for SMEs’ instead of ‘A tax cut for SMEs was announced by her’
- Use exciting action verbs in the narrative (but strategically!) – rocketed, transformed, orchestrated, pioneered, etc
- Use British or American English, but be consistent. Don’t mix up spellings – it’s very jarring to a reader
- Write in 3rd person (1st, 2nd person for interviews or blog posts is okay)
- Check grammar, spellings and sentence
construction before submitting
- Free tools to check grammar include Grammarly, Gingersoftware and Grammarcheck
- Poor grammar or spellings may lead to rejection of your article!
4. Format
- Check general text formatting before
submitting
- Paragraphs
- Indents
- Bullet points
- Font and size consistency
- Incomplete sentences (missing verbs, incorrect punctuations, etc)