Guidelines for member submissions to Rising Scholars

Thank you for considering to contribute a blog post! Before you start writing, we recommend that you read the following guidelines.

Who we are

Style Guide

Topics and relevance

Examples of previous blog posts

Preparing and Submitting a Guest Post

Guidelines on the use of Artificial Intelligence Tools

Additional notes

Who we are

Rising Scholars is a global network that provides support, mentoring, resources and training for researchers in low and middle income countries.

We promote equity by actively addressing the needs of men, women and non-binary community members across all our work and by addressing issues of power within the research and knowledge system.

We welcome contributions from all members who would like to share practical tips, resources and experiences which are useful for other researchers.

Before you start writing, we would recommend that you check that your topic hasn't been covered already on the Rising Scholars website, at least not recently. If it has, consider how your contribution would introduce a new or novel angle, or an updated perspective. If you would like to discuss contribution ideas first with the Rising Scholars editorial team, please email us at risingscholars@inasp.info.

Style guide

Approx 500–1000 words* of body text, ideally written using plain language (some written pieces may require technical language, as appropriate); the 500-word minimum limit is strictly observed for contributed guest posts.

Please bear in mind that many readers of the Rising Scholars blog are non-native users of English. The content and language level of blog posts should be geared accordingly.

Topics and relevance

We welcome posts on topics related to improving the skills and confidence of researchers – e.g. article and grant writing, data and stats, publishing in journals, speaking and presentations, digital research tools, artificial intelligence in research, career tips or inspirational stories. (Note, this is a non-exhaustive list of suggestions.)

You are welcome to talk about your own research and experience, but please bear in mind that the Rising Scholars community is diverse and multidisciplinary, so we only tend to publish such pieces if they contain insights, tips or inspiration that are applicable to a broad range of researchers.

The content of your post should consider our Rising Scholars values and guiding principles - in it together; making change last; every voice counts; and doing things right. For more information see our 'About' page.

Examples of previous blog posts

Click on the following links to see examples of previous Rising Scholars blog posts:

*please note that we occasionally publish longer posts, for example:

Preparing and Submitting a Guest Post:

For readability online, paragraphs should be relatively short and with subheadings wherever appropriate. If you include a list, consider putting it in bulleted format. The title should be clear and not too long, e.g. "10 tips for writing your research paper" or "Picking an appropriate journal for your research".

To begin drafting your article, go to the News page and click on 'My articles', then click 'Add Article'. You can also click here to get started. You can save your draft until later.
When you are happy with your work, you can then submit for review. Don't forget to hit the 'submit' button as otherwise we won't see your post!
All submissions are subject to (light-touch) review by the Rising Scholars review team for relevance and appropriateness. In most cases, posts will be reviewed by our team of experienced Stewards.
We will inform you via email if your article has been accepted or requires revisions.
If your article requires revisions, please check the 'Feedback Log' at the bottom of your post to read comments from the reviewers.
If appropriate you can make edits to your article and resubmit.
We will inform you once your article is ready to be published and provide an approximate publication date (subject to change without notice).

Within the article text, please include the following details:

your name as you would like it to appear
your job title and affiliation (as part of your bio).
a brief bio of 2–3 lines with a description (1–2 lines) on what the post is about. The bio will be published in italic font at the bottom of the post. The description should be rendered in straight font (not in italics); it will appear on the AuthorAID home and news pages.

Pictures:

Once your article has been accepted, we may ask for your photo (headshot) or other thumbnail image via email in gif, png or jpeg format.
If you would like to also include any other relevant images that add meaning to the blog post, we may also be able to incorporate them. Please make sure that you either own the copyright of the material you wish to publish or use copyright-free image
When adding images to your blog post, please ensure that you have added the ‘alt text’. This is an important accessibility feature for people using screen readers. If you have not added alt text, the screen reader will not be able to describe the image. Additionally, images may not always load for all users, so by having added alt text, users will be able to read your description of what the image shows. You add the alt text when you insert an image into your blog post – enter your text in the ‘Alternative text’ field, visible above the dimensions field.

Additional notes:

If you are writing a time-sensitive blog post, for example for a specific ‘awareness day’ such as World Earth Day, please ensure that you submit your blog post for review at least two weeks before the date. This will enable the reviewer to have sufficient time to review your post, and for you to then have enough time to make the revisions before the post proceeds to publication.

Guidelines on the use of Artificial Intelligence Tools

We encourage our community members to share their experiences and knowledge in our blog. These submissions are expected to be original contributions written by the members of our community, and thus we cannot accept submissions written by AI tools.

Artificial Intelligence tools such as ChatGPT and other Large Language Models (LLM) do not meet the criteria for scholarly authorship, as stated by ICMJE, COPE, CSE, WAME, the JAMA Network and others.

There are some acceptable uses of AI tools such as improving language or syntax and readability, brainstorming ideas and creating an outline, or translating the work.

For transparency, the use of AI tools should be disclosed at the end of the blog post in the following manner:

“The author used [TOOL (Version), on DATE] to [revise/translate/outline] this publication. After using this tool, the authors checked the work to ensure accuracy and are fully responsible for the content of the publication.”

This statement will be published along with the post.

Using AI to create Images

All Rising Scholars blog posts should include an image (see above, section on 'pictures'). The use of AI-generated images is permitted, provided that the author includes the following statement to be used as a caption:

This image was created using [TOOL (Version) on DATE]

The author remains fully responsible for the image, content and accuracy.

Sources

Additional notes

Rising Scholars reserves the right to decline to publish a submitted guest post for any reason, including duplication of recent topics, the need for significant rewrites, pieces that are self-promotional, pieces that are discriminatory or offensive, or if the topic doesn’t fit with our needs. Because of the moderation process, blogs will not be published immediately. We usually publish new posts on Tuesdays, approximately in the order of acceptance (so if you are asked to make some revisions, it is in your own interest to return the revised version promptly).

Please note that all reviewed and approved blog posts are subject to final formatting checks by the Rising Scholars team, for readability before publication. If your blog post has no images, images will be selected and added. Large paragraphs of text may be broken up with spacing and/or adding images. Shorter blog posts will contain at least one image, and longer blogs, at least two images.

Blogs published on the Rising Scholars website may be republished in other INASP/Rising Scholars publications.

Also, blogs posted on the Rising Scholars website are welcome to be republished on the author’s own blog, or on any partner blog that the author agrees to. Please include a hyperlinked tag that says, “This piece was originally published on the Rising Scholars platform on [mm/dd/yy]."

Please ensure that the work is your own intellectual property. We will remove any material that is found to infringe copyright or plagiarises the work of others.

Blog contributions are undertaken on a voluntary basis. Rising Scholars is unable to pay for contributed blog posts.