ATA CLD

Chinese Language Division

ATA CLD Blog Author Guidelines

Dear Authors,

Thank you for your interest in contributing to Yifeng – ATA Chinese Language Division Blog. By sharing your experience and expertise you help fellow Chinese language translators and interpreters. The editorial team of Yifeng Blog would ask interested authors to read the guidelines for guest contributors below before submitting your post. Be sure it conforms to our Style Guide and the following general post guidelines:

If you have any questions, please email our editor-in-chief.

What to include in your submission email

  • Your full name
  • Your email address
  • The article (in .doc or .docx format), maximum 1,000 words
  • A headshot and bio for the author’s profile at the end of the post. Your bio should be maximum 100 words and may include a link to your website.
  • Any images for your post, indicating the source and proof of permission to use the image.

Please send your email with the attachments to our editor-in-chief.

Audience

CLD serves professional translators and interpreters to and from the Chinese language. In CLD, our members are work in one or more capacities and specializations, such as medical, court, conference, or community interpreting, and/or translating business, finance, technology or general contents. Such diversity means that the posts we seek shall reflect all our members’ professional capacities and interests, and they shall help promote our professional practices. In addition to ATA members, Yifeng Blog’s content is also meant to interest and connect with non-member Chinese language professionals, to promote our profession in general.

Length and layout

As we shift from traditional magazine form to an online outlet, we strive to keep our blog posts concise. As a guideline, each article would be under 1,000 words. However, since one of the functions of CLD is to bring new information to the field, we appreciate some longer articles if the information is well researched and written, and present them in a multi-episode format. We will evaluate those articles on a case-by-case basis and find ways to bring top-quality material to our members. We wouldn’t prescribe a certain format, but to help keep things concise, authors could consider using bulleted or numbered lists, if applicable to the post.

Bios

Please verify that your bio is updated and that it is no more than 100 words. You may include a link to your website or your LinkedIn profile in your bio. A bio that focuses on the experience relevant to the post makes both the bio and the post stronger.

Content

The content of the article is up to you. Articles that cover topics of diverse interests of CLD membership are all very welcome. The content must be original (it should not have been published anywhere before). Feel free to include links to any websites, online resources, etc., that you mention in your post. However, authors should keep in mind that Yifeng Blog is meant to be a professional information outlet. Submissions must be professional: contents that are not original or that attempt to promote certain political motives, or contents that are considered racist or hate speech, etc., would not be accepted for publication.

If the article has a list of sources for further reading, the list must be submitted according to the latest standards of the latest edition of The Chicago Manual of Style. Using an online citation tool can be helpful. The resources should be listed in alphabetical order. Links will be embedded in the article at the appropriate places.

Opinions must be supported by experience, reliable studies, and/or research; we do not publish opinion pieces per se.

Sources

We encourage authors to follow the University of Chicago Fair Use guidelines as they prepare their articles. These guidelines are media neutral and have been adopted by a broad spectrum of publishers.

Editing process

The Yifeng Blog editorial team follows a three-step process that applies to all text submitted (article and bio).

  • Step 1. The Content Editor checks whether the post generally meets our Author Guidelines and determines whether to accept it for further editing or not.
  • Step 2. The Content Editor might raise questions or provide feedback to the author. This will be limited to two rounds of questions/feedback. The author may decide to continue this process with the editorial team or not.
  • Step 3. The Copy Editor then checks the article for mechanics and consistency with the style guide of the Yifeng Blog. The Copy Editor sends the article back to the author with track-changes, who may decide to accept or reject the changes. The finalized article will be published by the CLD webmaster and the author will be provided a link. If the author and the copy editor cannot agree on the changes, the article will not be published.

Non-publication

Guest authors will receive a marked-up version of their document from the editorial team and have the option of accepting or rejecting changes and discussing anything that is unclear with the editorial team. The CLD will not publish a version the author has not agreed to. The ATA CLD reserves the right to withhold any articles from publication at its discretion. On rare occasions, articles must be withheld at the last minute for ATA policy reasons, or reasons related to the Division Handbook, that we could not foresee as an editorial team. To avoid those issues, the blog team requests that authors be aware that we require that articles meet the expectations in this guide. Articles must also meet the following criteria:

Copyright

Authors maintain copyright to the blog post. Yifeng does not provide monetary remuneration to authors for their content. Your post may be shared on social media (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, the Interpreters Division listserv, etc.).

Adapted from The Savvy Newcomer author guidelines with permission.

Guidelines published on the ATA Chinese Language Division website. Last updated: September 22, 2021.