Write for The Guardian: Student Blogging Opportunities
Why Write for Guardian Student Blogs?
Writing for Blogging Students can be an exciting experience. You get your own contributor page on the Guardian site. You learn how we edit a blog to maximise its impact.
Best of all, you get exposure to potentially huge amounts of traffic. Our biggest blog this year had half a million page views, more than 900 comments, and went viral on social media. It’s a powerful way to make a name for yourself online.
Thus far, all our blogs have been written. However, we’d like to broaden our range to include video or audio blogs (no music, due to copyright issues), cartoon strips, and photojournalism. So, if you’d like to experiment with a different format, please do.
How to Get Published: Analyze and Pitch
Step 1: Analyze Existing Blogs
Don’t just fire off an email to us with a half-formed idea. It’s not going to get you anywhere. We receive dozens of suggestions every week, and only the best are considered for publication. So, begin by reading and analysing the blogs we have already published.
Example: A Successful Post
You could start with the chart-topper, What happened when I started a feminist society at school, to see why it was so successful.
Its topic is feminism, which has been written about endlessly. So how has the writer, Jinan Younis, managed to make it so compelling?
Look at the intro: specific, personal, and to the point. There’s a narrative that draws you straight in: “Here’s what happened to me.” And then, like a horror story unfolding, things begin to turn very ugly.
Younis uses a range of techniques to keep the reader glued to the page. See if you can work out what they are.
Common Blog Themes
Have a look at several more blogs. You’ll soon see that there’s a wide range of styles and strategies that can work to involve and stimulate the reader.
You’ll also notice that these blogs are not like personal blogs. They are each focused on a specific area of student life. Common themes include:
- Academic issues: revision, plagiarism
- Health issues: drugs, depression, illness
- Political issues: student unions, tuition fees
- Lifestyle: clubbing, accommodation, music
However, each has a case to make and a clear focus for discussion.
Step 2: Pitch Your Idea
Once you’ve decided what you’re keen to blog about, pitch your idea to Blogging.Students@theguardian.com.
Choosing a Topic
Try to find a subject that has not been written about over and over again – or have something really fresh and surprising to say about an old theme.
The best topics tend to be small and specific rather than huge and wide-ranging. For example, don’t pitch ‘The state of higher education‘; do pitch ‘Most of my course is being taught by other students’.
Structuring Your Pitch
It’s not enough simply to have a topic; you need to have a point to make about that topic. Explain what your argument will be. Tell us who you plan to quote in your piece. It’s good to have a variety of voices with different points of view. What news reports, statistics, surveys, or blogs are you going to link to give your piece context?
If we like your idea – and if no one else has pitched the same thing – then we’ll discuss your pitch with you, make further suggestions as to how you can develop it, and ask you to go ahead and put your piece together.