How to Submit a Blog Post
Email all blog submissions and/or queries to Diane Bunn at [email protected].
- Include “blog post submission” in your subject.
- Attach your blog post as a Word document (.doc or .docx).
- Attach photos/images separately in the highest resolution possible (preferably JPG and at the maximum quality). Do ensure that you have the appropriate permissions to share the images in this way.
Brief Guidance for Authors — full guidance can be found here
- Title: consider the best way to describe your research topic and hook people in — what would encourage people to click on your blog post? Ideally your title should be a maximum of 25 words.
- Tell us a bit about yourself: include your job title/position at the top, and 2–3 sentences about yourself. If you have Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok details, you can include them here. However, you may want to be careful about sharing personal information about yourself or others as this is a public forum.
- Word count: aim for around 500–800 words to talk about your topic.
- Style: aim to be informative, yet informal, and feel free to write in your own voice and using the 1st person (i.e. I, me, my, we, our).
- Images: pictures tell a thousand words! We welcome and appreciate accompanying pictures. The Centre for Ageing Better has an age-positive image library, available to download for free (see their website for full terms and conditions). Alternatively, we may use a stock photo for your blog post instead. Please attach any images as separate high-resolution images (the highest quality you can) when you email us your submission, rather than inserting them into your Word document. Do ensure that you have the appropriate permissions to share the images in this way.
- Acronyms/abbreviations: please explain these the first time you use them, even relatively common or obvious ones such as EOLC (end-of-life care) and ACP (advance care planning). Better still, try to avoid using them, or too many of them.
- Bullet points: please indent these.
- Full stops: use single spaces after these.
Before we publish a blog, our moderators will proofread it and possibly suggest edits. Our moderation process aims to ensure that blogs are respectful, and we ask that bloggers:
- use preferred language, such as: ‘older people’ or ‘older adults’, and ‘people with dementia’/’people living with dementia’/’people experiencing dementia’ (as opposed to “suffering” from a condition). For further guidance, see Age Platform Europe or the Centre for Ageing Better.
- please don’t:
- use offensive or inflammatory language or inappropriate/outdated terminology.
- promote any commercial products, services, or publications that are not relevant to the discussion of your research.
- break the law (this includes impersonating or falsely claiming to represent a person or organization, libel, condoning illegal activity, and contempt of court).
To get an idea of what our blogs are like please look at previous posts here or contact us at [email protected].
You don’t have to be a member of the BSG or the Care Homes Research SIG to submit a blog. So, please feel free to ask your friends and colleagues if they have something they would like to blog about!
Moderation Policy
Our moderators are members of the BSG Care Homes Research SIG Committee. Blogs and comments are pre-moderated to ensure they comply with the blog participation guidance. If blogs and comments don’t comply, they will not be published.
This is a brief outline of how we evaluate comments:
- Does the comment comply with the blog participation guidance?
- Is it on topic, does it add value to the discussion?
- Is this person asking for information or details relating to the SIG, or any research or projects discussed — for example, is it a content query? If so, we’ll pass the query on to the Committee or relevant author and ensure it is dealt with as quickly as possible. We will update the user on progress.
- If the comment concerns an issue with the blog/website (such as reporting a bug or performance problem), we will ensure that it is dealt with and feed back on the progress of the issue.
All images on this site (unless otherwise stated) have been sourced from The Centre for Ageing Better’s age-positive image library.
