Author Guidelines

netECR Blog Author Guidelines

The netECR blog acts as a platform for a wide range of ECR content. This includes ‘traditional’ blog posts, helpful ‘how-to’s covering everything from ECR life to methodology and knowledge exchange content (e.g., infographics, lay summaries, public engagement output). We welcome guest blogs and co-authored and/or co-produced content.

Language and imagery

We are mindful that our content may have a wide reaching audience and that we must consider the impact our output may have. As a group, netECR are passionate about listening to and responding in line with feedback from those with lived experience, as well as the research evidence. With this in mind, we ask that content conforms to media guidelines [see Samaritans and Mindframe].

In particular, we ask that:

  • The phrase ‘commit* suicide’ is avoided in all contexts (outside of quoted prose) – this language is outdate, inaccurate and stigmatizing (conveying unhelpful notion of illegality and immorality). Instead, consider phrases such as ‘died by suicide’.
  • ‘People first’ language is adopted where possible and labelling language (e.g., ‘self-harmers’, ‘ideators’, etc) is avoided – (e.g., ‘people who self-harm’, rather than ‘self-harmers’).
  • Any self-harm and suicide-related imagery is carefully considered. In line with WHO guidance, pictures and explicit descriptions of method should be avoided wherever possible. For examples of appropriate images, please see the Time to Change, Get the Picture resources.
Source: Nielsen, E. (2016). Mind your ‘C’s and ‘S’s: The Language of Self-harm and Suicide (and why it matters). Institute of Mental Health (IMH) Blog.

If you would like to choose a general image for your blog post, please select it from https://unsplash.com/ and include the image link within your text file.

Word count

We appreciate that differing content is likely to be of differing length (e.g., lay summaries and infographics are likely to contain fewer words).
As a guide, we recommend that ‘traditional’ blog posts aim to be between 700-1200 words.

Please include five keywords related to the topic of your blog post.

Referencing

If your content contains references, please conform to the following guidance to ensure consistency across the blog.

  1. In text citations are to be numerical and appear in square brackets (e.g., [1])
  2. The reference are to be formatted in APA, BUT, listed numerically rather than alphabetically.
  3. Wherever possible, please provide a hyperlink for your reference in the submission.

This referencing aims to aid the readability of the blog, while providing appropriate signposting to external sources.

Affiliations/Contact information

When submitting content please provide your name, affiliation(s) and contact details. This should include any hyperlinks you would like to appear on the blog.

For example,

Emma Nielsen (@EmmaLNielsen) is a PhD student in the Self-Harm Research Group (SHRG), University of Nottingham (emma.nielsen@nottingham.ac.uk) and an Associate Fellow of the Institute of Mental Health.

If you have not already completed an ECR profile you may wish to do so prior to submitting your content to the blog – this will ensure that your work can be tagged to your profile.

If you would prefer to submit an anonymous post, please state this clearly as a header to your content.

Signposting to support

The netECR platform contains international self-harm and suicide prevention signposting information. If there is additional signposting which is of particular relevance to your content, please include this in your submission.

Please send your contributions to internationalnetecr@gmail.com including a head shot photo.