As Editor for Fire Society, one of my jobs is to go through our many submissions and choose articles and petitions to publish on the site. It has become increasingly commonplace to find different “immediate rejections” in the queue.

I'm writing this today to help you keep from making the same mistakes others have made.

1. IF THE ARTICLE IS IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS I will send it back to the drafts for revision. As you can see, this is very difficult to read, especially if it's a regulation size article.

2. If the article is in all bold letters, then I will reject it immediately. You can avoid this mistake by selecting all the text in the article, and then using the format tools available on the article submission page to format the article as “Paragraph” using a single font, and font size. Using bold to highlight key phrases or quotes is acceptable.

3. I will also immediately reject an article that is just a direct paste from another site's article or an email sent around the internet. Commenting on an email you received and using quotes from the email are fine.

4. I will send back any article filled with smilies. Overuse of new fonts, colors, sizes, etc. is also discouraged as they make the articles difficult to read.

5. Articles not submitted in paragraph form will be rejected for formatting issues. This can also be avoided by using the formatting tools as above.

6. The set size for articles and petitions is 400 words minimum, if your articles is less than this, then please post it as a Forum comment. If you need help figuring out where best to post this comment, then please send me a private message or email and I will assist you.

7. Petitions are to be broken into 2 set blocks. Background and This Petition States. Please use the titles to let people know when you're transitioning between why you're starting the petition, and what you want the receiver of the petition to read.

8. Petition submissions should include at least 2 links to articles for more information and background.

9. When submitting a petition, the minimum length is also 400 words.

I hope this will help you as contributors to Fire Society avoid making some of the same mistakes previous contributors have made. This will allow us to help get your article published quicker and your petitions signed faster.

Sean Ivy
Fire Society Editor