Submission Guidelines for Op-Eds
Capitol Weekly welcomes Opinion pieces and Commentaries on California public policy or politics. Please note that we receive many submissions, often on the same topic, and not all submissions will be published. Acceptance for publication is at the discretion of the editor.
Guidelines:
Please send Op-Ed submissions to [email protected] and include “Op-Ed Submission” in the Subject of the email. Please include your contact information (email and phone number) with all submissions.
Submissions must be exclusive to Capitol Weekly.
Submissions must focus on California policy or regulatory issues. They also may touch on federal or international issues, but every submission must have a nexus with policymaking and regulation occurring within the borders of the state. Submissions focused on the California impact of a federal or international issue will not be accepted unless it is a concern that state or local-level policymakers or regulators could address in some fashion, and the submission explicitly explains how.
Submissions must be in their FINAL form.
Submissions must be no longer than 750 words (body only – we do not include bylines or bios in that count).
Submissions must be in a Word document.
Please submit in Times New Roman 12 point font.
Please do not use subheads as we are only going to delete them.
Please do not use footnotes as they do not translate to our format.
Please do not underline or use boldface type.
You may, but are not required to, provide an image that we have permission to use to illustrate your Op-Ed. Images should be horizontal – a format of 2:1 (twice as wide as tall) is ideal. Image files should be no larger than 900K. If you do not provide an image, you agree that our editors will select an image to illustrate the piece without your input. We DO NOT use images of the author or those with company or organizational logos.
Your submission may be edited for accuracy, style and clarity, and will be published as space is available in our schedule. We receive many submissions and cannot guarantee a specific publication date.
Please include a VERY BRIEF one-sentence bio of author/s for use at the end of the piece (between 10 and 20 words).
Capitol Weekly often receives a large volume of op-ed submissions. Op-eds are accepted on a first-come basis and are scheduled for publication as much as ONE MONTH in advance. Because of the volume, Capitol Weekly cannot accommodate requests to publish op-eds on specific dates and cannot change op-ed submissions once they are scheduled. Please consider both our schedule and impending legislative deadlines before submitting an op-ed for consideration.
If for any reason you want or need to make changes to an accepted and scheduled op-ed, the op-ed will lose its place in the queue and have to be resubmitted.
Submissions that do not follow the guidelines above will not be considered for publication.