Pitching for first-time guest authors

  1. If you would like to make a guest submission to FII, please email us at info@feminisminindia.com with a story pitch and short write-up (100–150 words) explaining what intersectionality or intersectional feminism means to you. Please reflect on your social position and support your reflections with concrete examples from your life. Further, share a writing sample with us, preferably a published piece.
  2. Please send us a story pitch, which is a summary of the article you intend to write. Do not send a complete draft.
  3. Your pitch should be a detailed 100–200-word proposal that thoroughly explores the article you wish to write and how you intend to approach it. 
  4. Before submitting your pitch, please go through our website to ensure that we have not already published an article similar to the one you are proposing.
  5. If your pitch is time-sensitive, please mention this in the subject line. For example: ‘Time-Sensitive Pitch: What Does the Gap in Vaccine Rollout Say About India’s Healthcare System?’ Time-sensitive pitches include stories tied to current news events, as well as film or book reviews of recent releases.
  6. Please do not send us submissions that are currently under consideration by other publications.
  7. Every draft should include your full name, exactly as you would like it to appear in the byline, as well as your email address (this will not be visible to readers). Attach a brief 2–3 line bio written in the third person at the end of the draft as well.

Pitching for regular contributors

  1. Regular contributors only need to send us a highly detailed story pitch.
  2. Your pitch should be a detailed 100–200-word proposal that thoroughly explores the article you wish to write and how you intend to approach it. 
  3. Please also include a link to your FII author profile.

Styleguide

  1. Use British English and British English formatting.
  2. The draft must be submitted as a Word document or a Google Doc. Please do not send PDF copies.
  3. All articles must be divided into sub-sections for easy readability. Please include relevant subheadings for each section.
  4. If any of the following are mentioned in an article — news events, findings from research papers or studies, or social media phenomena — please add a hyperlink to a relevant source in an appropriate place within the article. For example, in the sentence, ‘Even short-term PM2.5 exposure of 24 hours is linked to early mortality and an increase in emergency hospital visits’, the relevant phrase should be hyperlinked to a credible paper or study that supports this claim.
  5. For references to events currently in the news, please ensure you hyperlink to a reputable and trusted news source.
  6. Ensure that any studies or papers cited are peer-reviewed and published in reputable journals.
  7. If any books are referred to in the writing of a piece, they may be listed at the end of the article under a ‘References’ section. Please follow APA style for book citations.
  8. Do not include footnotes. 
  9. Unless you are writing a personal essay, please avoid using ‘I’ statements.
  10. Please be mindful of the language you use. Do not use colonial, stigmatising, or derogatory terms to refer to groups of people, health conditions, events, or places.

Publishing process

  1. We usually inform writers whether their pitch has been accepted or rejected within five working days of receiving it. If your pitch is rejected, we will communicate that to you. However, due to the high volume of submissions we receive, we are unable to provide individual feedback on rejected pitches.
  2. Once a pitch is accepted, the editor and writer can mutually decide on a timeline for submitting the first draft. Please note that the first draft will also be subject to editorial review and may require revisions in accordance with our editorial standards and requirements.
  3. Our editors reserve the right to change the headline of a submitted piece, include images they deem appropriate, and make any necessary edits to ensure clarity, accuracy, style, and consistency with our editorial guidelines.
  4. We are a small team. Unless your article is time-sensitive, please expect the review and publishing process to take at least 15-20 days.
  5. We reserve the right to reject any article under review at any time throughout the review process. While we respect and value the time and effort our writers invest in their work, FII is currently unable to offer a kill fee.

AI policy

  1. FII strictly prohibits the use of AI at any stage of the writing process, including for grammar checks, proofreading, or formatting.
  2. All drafts submitted to us are screened for AI-generated content.
  3. If a draft is flagged by our detection software as AI-written, we require the writer to revise and resubmit the piece.
  4. While we recognise that current AI-detection tools are not 100 per cent reliable, our current policy is to reject any draft that is flagged by our software as containing 15 per cent or more AI-generated content.
  5. We reserve the right to reject any pitch or draft that we reasonably suspect involves the use of AI to any degree.

Plagiarism

  1. Plagiarism is a serious offence. If a writer is found to have plagiarised content, they will be blacklisted from writing for FII.
  2. Any text quoted directly from research papers, studies, reports, or other sources must be enclosed within quotation marks and accompanied by a hyperlink to the original source. Any such text used without quotation marks or proper attribution will be considered plagiarised.

 Ground reports

  1. All group-report interviews must be recorded and preserved, either in written form (for email or text-based interviews) or as audio recordings (for telephonic or in-person interviews).
  2. The full names of all interviewees, along with their email addresses and/or phone numbers, must be included at the end of the draft. This information is required for our records.
  3. Consent must be obtained from all interviewees for the publication of their quotes. Additionally, as a best practice, we encourage writers to share the final version of the quotes with interviewees and obtain their approval before publication.
  4. If an interviewee is a minor, consent must be obtained from their parent or legal guardian before conducting the interview. The final version of the quotes should also be shared with the parent or guardian for approval prior to publication.
  5. We encourage the use of pseudonyms for minors in articles. However, with the explicit consent of a parent or legal guardian, first names may be used in certain circumstances.

Published articles 

  1. Once an article is published, we do not take it down or anonymise the submission.
  2. Once published, articles will not be edited, and no stylistic changes or new information can be added.

We look forward to hearing from you!

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