Coop Scoop Submissions
Hello and thanks for your interest in submitting to Honest Weight's Coop Scoop, which has been written by Co-op members since 1976! Writing for the Coop Scoop is a great way to build on your Member-Owner time investment hours on your own time and from your home, not to mention sharing your voice with the Co-op community (and beyond) and seeing your name in print (always a thrill)!
Past issues of the Coop Scoop are available for your reference here.
We are now accepting proposals for future issues on a rolling basis. We're excited to hear from you!
1. COOKING: Your favorite recipes using ingredients from Honest Weight.
2. CONNECTIONS: Your Co-op story: shopping, events, cooking, people, experiences, etc.
3. COMMUNITY: Your wider community of social justice and environmentalism. What else are you involved in that speaks to the same values as Honest Weight?
A note on Member-Owner hours: Please keep track of the time you spend writing your proposal in addition to any drafts written and submitted to the Coop Scoop Editors. You can reach out with any questions to coopscoop@honestweight.coop.
Submission Guidelines:
Draft can be sent as a Google Doc, a Word Doc, or copied and pasted into an email.
Unless specified, each proposal is for one article with a 550-word count.
Basic formatting:
Make sure paragraph divisions are evident
Line spacing at least 1.5
Only 1 space after periods
Font: Times New Roman 12 pt
Word Count: Aim for coming in at or a little under the required word count. Our editors do not want to have to decide what to cut from your article:
Article: 550 words unless otherwise instructed.
Coop 101: 260 words
Recipes: Introduction of less than 150 words, totaling 350 with ingredients and
instructions
If you wish to pitch a longer piece, please contact the Managing Editor.
Topic, Focus, and Style:
The Scoop’s goal is to serve the Coop community by informing and inspiring our readers. Topics should be handled in an accessible, conversational style, and, as much as possible, with a clear focus on their relevance/relationship to Honest Weight and community and cooperative values.
Copyright:
Contributors retain all copyrights to their own material.
Bio:
Each submission should contain a current bio under 30 words and in the third person.
Source/Reference material:
Our main concern with citations and references is to:
1) correctly attribute “borrowed material,” and
2) help readers locate sources if they wish to follow up.
We ask that writers use clear language–such as a brief phrase or lead-in–indicating when they are quoting/paraphrasing or otherwise relying on a source. This is especially necessary for readers of the print edition, who won’t have instant access to our digital bibliographies. Our online version will link to an online References page for each issue, where readers can find any article bibliographies.
When submitting your draft, please include links to online sources or helpful resources. List any other print sources, including title, author, publication date. Don’t worry about order or format, we’ll take care of that.
If you are writing a piece where your information primarily comes from an organization’s website, simply provide their homepage link. If you quote/cite something very specific from a particular page on their site and wish to direct the reader to that page, please indicate that through an appropriate phrase or lead-in, so we know to include this additional link. If you have questions about handling sources that fall outside these basic guidelines, please check with the content editor for help.
Editing:
- Content: our content editor will contact you if your draft needs alterations to substance–additions, subtractions, changes in organization or focus–in order to better fit each issue’s topics/themes or align with the magazine’s style or purposes.
Revisions: All attempts will be made to give the writer adequate time to revise, but in the new monthly schedule, a quick turnaround of about a week may be needed. This makes it important to submit your first draft by the appropriate deadline. If the revised draft still needs further work but won’t be ready by the next deadline, the article may be bumped to a future edition, or in some instances, turned down. The writer will still receive their member hours for all work done on the piece.
- Style: Edits and changes to sentences/paragraphs for reasons of clarity, concision, or grammar will be made at the editorial team’s discretion. We may also insert small amounts of relevant information to connect the article with upcoming events or other articles in the issue or to further develop a key point. We will not consult with the writer for this level of editing unless we believe it might substantially alter the meaning or tone of the text.