Editorial guidelines for submitting your article to the Forum
The Forum welcomes contributions that are evidence-based and relevant to public policy issues in the MENA region. Some key guidelines to note are that columns should be:
- Up to 1,000 words in length in English (not counting references, footnotes, or tables)
- Start by mentioning a current policy debate or concern
- Cite someone else’s work before your cite your own work
- Written at an analytical level that is more evidence-based than a newspaper op-ed piece, but far more accessible than an academic journal article
- No regression tables or equations in the text; they are too much detail for most readers and not enough for the specialists; just give the results in words or charts and direct readers to the underlying research for details
- Graphics and, especially, references are welcome to illustrate the research basis of the analysis, commentary and opinions expressed
- Put the references in as in academic papers, not as in blogs
- Please provide a short title (for the front page of the site) and a long title (for the top of the column), which may be the same if desired.
- It’s helpful if authors suggest a two or three sentence ‘teaser’ summarising the column (written from the editors’ perspective); but the piece itself should be written in the first person
Finally, please supply a photo and two or three paragraph biography for your author page on The Forum. Also, please submit it as a Word file (to ease HTML generation); and send xls, ppt or high quality pdf files of figures.
Please use this form to submit your article: