Here is a template for you to prepare a post!

We invite posts that discuss ecology, or professional aspects of being an ecologist (in whichever form that comes), from any student, scholar or practitioner. A post doesn’t need to be profound, but it also should not be void of substance. It can definitely be fun, but should not come at the expense of anyone. Responses to, discussion of, rebuttals to, or amplification of papers published in journals are welcome. If you have an idea that you think might make a good blog post, it probably will! If you would like to submit a query about an idea before you write a post, feel free to pitch your idea by sending in a few sentences!

Audience: This is a science community blog, written by ecologists for ecologists. Please prepare your piece for our own scientific community (including students, scholars, practitioners, administrators, and so on) rather than the public at large.

What is Not Acceptable:  We do not print job announcements, personal attacks, or paid advocacy for products or services. Ultimately, the decision to publish or not publish is made by the Associate Editor or Editor-in-Chief, who might consult with the Editorial Board for input. We expect to publish posts that we disagree with, but we also will not publish work that we feel is harmful for members of the community in good standing. We welcome posts that are responses to work that has been published here, as long as the content of the posts is substantial enough to stand on their own as independent content. This blog is designed for the purpose of public submission, but nobody is entitled to space in Rapid Ecology, whose editors exercise subjective editorial discretion. In short: if you’re not being a jerk (e.g. racist, masochist, discriminatory, violent, oppressive, patronising, etc.), we don’t anticipate having any problem with your post and will run it as you wrote it, however, we reserve editorial discretion and ultimately we are the ones who decide. We may republish posts from other blogs at the request of the author, if these posts appeared prior to the launch of Rapid Ecology (February 2018).

Proofreading and Grammar: Please check your piece at least four times for typos. We do not copyedit posts. Please ask a couple friends to read over your post and provide remarks before posting. If you send us typos, then that’s what will be posted.

Length: Blog posts often work best by targeting the 500-1000 word range, but both shorter and longer posts are acceptable. Similarly, titles should be fewer than 60-70 characters and avoid sensationalism (e.g. click-bait). Excerpts of posts should also at most be 100 words.

Keywords: Include several keywords that correspond with your submission.

Author Identity Policy:  Authors should post under their own names. We encourage you to share your social network handle. For those who would like the protection of pseudonymity or anonymity, then a member of the editorial board (Giulio Valentino Dalla Riva or Laura Jurgens) can serve as a confidential contact.

Author biography: Please include a brief (100 words or less) paragraph about your background and relevant experience. You may choose to include your affiliation and/or contact information.

Posting Limits: The idea behind this venue is that it’s a plurality of voices. In this spirit, no author is allowed to post more than once per month.

Comments: The default setting is hat comments are disabled. If you would like comments enabled on your post, then you can request this in the email of your submitted post. (Posts that might be good for comment would be asking others for advice or their own experiences, or travel tips for an ecological conference, or journal club-like discussion).

Images: At least one image is required for your post. Images can be related to the topic of your post, or can be just a cool image of a fieldsite or a focal organism, a cartoon or diagram, or something pretty. If you didn’t take the image yourself, you need to have the rights to publish it. If you found this image online, a link to the original image must be provided at the end of your post, indicating its copyright status. Here is a guide to finding posts that you can legally republish. Make sure that the image is of adequate resolution that it can be featured at the top of the post without appearing pixelated, in .jpg or .png format.

Polls: If you wish to embed a poll in your post, embed one that you create on an external site, such as polldaddy, which you can do for free.

File format: Please submit in the form of an attachment that we can readily copy and paste. This includes rich text file (RTF), Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx),or (if you insist) a text file written in markdown.

Links: Embed links within the body of your text.  (The hyperlink shortcut in Word is ctrl-k for pc, cmd-k for mac.)

Where to submit: Send all submissions to rapidecology@gmail.com.

Template for submission

Title: [Title in sentence case, no more than 60 or 70 characters]

Author: [First Lastname]

Keywords: [3 to 5 keywords associated with post]

Excerpt: [Captures essence of post, no more than 100 words]

Post: [Body of text. Approximately 500-700 words suggested]

Author biography: [At your discretion. At most, a brief paragraph describing your background and experience. May include affiliation.]

Image caption and credit: [a brief description of the image (for accessibility), attribution and link to image source if appropriate]

Questions? Email rapidecology@gmail.com, or ask on twitter at @rapidecology

Starting a column: Do you want to run a regular column in Rapid Ecology? We welcome regular authors writing on a featured theme on a monthly basis. Columns can be on any relevant topic, for example, as statistical methods and computing, student perspectives, teaching tips, ecological modeling, science communication, equity and inclusion, controversial topics, new papers, or ecological takes from any particular subfield (ecophysiology, botany, entomology). If you’d like to write a regular column, please submit a post through the standard process. The name of your column can be a the first part of the post title, with the title of the piece after a colon. For example,” Tips for R: Five great things to know about phylogenetic methods,” and “Community Ecology Journal Club: A brand new explanation for the latitudinal biodiversity gradient?”