Contribute!

The Advocate accepts contributions in the form of articles, reviews, illustrations, and photos from freelance writers, artists, and photographers who are CUNY students, faculty, and staff. The Advocate also accepts contributions from freelance writers, artists, and photographers not affiliated with CUNY. Submit all queries and contributions to our Editor-in-Chief, Dana Burns, at dburns@gradcenter.cuny.edu. Also ‘cc’ to advocate@cunydsc.org.

We pay between $100 and $150 for articles between 1,000 and 3,000 words. Payment for artwork and photos is set by the Editor-in-Chief. Contributors are welcome to draft articles on a wide range of topics, including:

  • Investigative Articles covering GC/CUNY issues
  • First-person essays on teaching and graduate life
  • Feature articles on the politics, culture, and art of New York City
  • Nontechnical articles on science and technology
  • Provocative or polemical essays on international, national, and local issues
  • Interviews and transcribed discussions or debates
  • Book, film, theater, music, and art reviews
  • Experimental work

Letters to the Editor

We accept but do not pay for letters to the editor.

General Guidelines for articles:

  • All articles are to be submitted in Microsoft Word format (.doc or .docx) with 12pt. Times New Roman font, double spaced, with no tabs, or line breaks before or after paragraphs.
  • On the first page of the document, include a suggested title, your full name, your legal address, your Banner ID (or you Social Security number if you do not have a Banner ID), email address, and telephone number.
  • Do not add photos or images to your articles. If you would like to suggest your own graphics please send them to us in a separate file.
    Save files with the (short) title of the article followed by an underscore and your surname (i.e. Articletitle_Smith.docx).

Style Guidelines

  • Use United States spelling. For example: labor (not labour), civilization (not civilisation), though for organizations or groups, use the actual spelling (i.e. Jamaican Labour Party).
  • For groups or organizations not using English names, use the original name in italics. For example, use Frente de Libertação de Moçambique, not Mozambique Liberation Front.
  • If you are referencing a group or organization and the name is not originally in Roman script, transliterate instead of translating. Example: Монгол Ардын Нам should be typed as Mongol Ardiin Nam (Mongolian People’s Party).
  • If the English translation of the name is not clear, write an English translation in parentheses after the mention of the group or organization.
  • Use serial commas. For example: Stalinism, revisionism, anarchism, and liberalism.
  • Write the full name of countries. For example: United States or Soviet Union (not US or USSR).
  • Avoid the demonyms “Americans” or “American” to reference people or institutions in the United States. Instead use United States citizens, Citizens of the United States, people in the United States, the United States government, etc.
  • Use Abbreviations and acronyms for groups and organizations throughout your article. At the first mention, write out the full name (i.e. North Atlantic Treaty Organization), after which use the abbreviated form (i.e. NATO). There is no need to put the abbreviation in parentheses if it is clear what it is referencing. For non-English named groups or organizations you may use the English abbreviation where appropriate.
  • Use the following date formats:
    – 8 March
    – 26 July, 1953
    – January 1804
    – the 1960s
    – 1733-1810
    – religion in the fifteenth century
    – nineteenth-century revolutions
    – ninth century BCE
    – fourteenth century CE (not necessary in articles that do not involve discussions of events both before and during the common era)
  • Use the following number formats:
    – Whole numbers between one and ninety-nine should be written out when denoting amounts. Higher numbers are subject to the author’s discretion.
    Decimals should be written numerically. For example: the town has 1.7 cars per person.
    – Percentages should be written numerically. For example: 20 percent. If you consistently reference percentages you may use the “%” symbol.
  • Use the following currency format:
    – Currencies should be written numerically, followed by the currency code. For example: $4 million USD or £7 GBP or ₳40,524.03 ARA
  • Interviews should include a parachute paragraph of 200 to 1,000 words at the beginning to establish the context for the interview.
  • Use the following interview format:
    – The first question and answer should denote the full names, in bold, of the interviewer and interviewee, for all subsequent questions and answers, the names can be abbreviated, though still in bold. See example below:“’…Diversity in the abstract,’ they wrote, ‘as a bureaucratic checkbox is a fiction that must be superseded by diversity as an actual social and political linkage between the academy and society.’ Indeed. This sentiment is shared by many in the Graduate Center student community and the following conversation—between me and two other doctoral students, Chris Eng and Melissa Phruksachart This conversation serves as a reflection on a particular initiative on critical diversity work at the CUNY Graduate Center: the Mentoring Future Faculty of Color Project…MFFC set into motion vibrant discussions about the professional and political lives of students of color…Kristina Huang (KH): Both of you are among the collective of students who helped in spearheading the Mentoring Future Faculty of Color initiative a year ago. Can you provide a bit of background for this initiative? How did it get started? Chris Eng (CE): Well, basically the Diversity Project Development Fund was being offered and advertised two years ago, in the fall…We also reflected on the various formal and informal relations that we’ve built in our graduate careers thus far. Collectively, we seemed to identify mentoring as a desirable and desired practice that we wanted to further foster, particularly in relation to questions of race and diversity…Melissa Phruksachart (MP): We decided we’d invite three to four scholars per semester to have lunch with a small group of students to talk about their experiences navigating academia as a scholar of color. Afterward, they give a public lecture about their current work.KH: Can you talk about some highlights of what MFFC has done so far?MP: One of the highlights has been getting to know scholars in an informal setting and hearing about their own struggles in getting through graduate school, the job market, and the early career stages. Most people did not have it easy, and no one could predict that they’d end up in a fabulous position at such-and-such school. I appreciate how frank people have been and how they let us know how difficult it can be for anyone to pursue work in academia.KH: Yeah, what I’ve found super interesting too is the idea that one’s personal, graduate student journey is part of an institutional history…CE: To build off of what Melissa and you have been talking about, the reason for inviting these scholars who are amazing and produce all this cutting edge work is to get a chance to sit and talk with them about questions around race and diversity…”

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