Submission Guidelines

The Gazette will not knowingly publish letters, articles or reports that are hateful, racist, sexist, otherwise discriminatory, inflammatory or needlessly provocative.

The Gazette welcomes Coop-related articles, letters and committee reports from members that follow the published guidelines and policies. The following is a summary — please see the detailed guidelines for each type of submission on the other pages in this section.

All submissions must include author’s name, phone number and e-mail address, conform to the following guidelines and to the Fairness, Anonymity and Respect policies. Editors will reject letters, articles and reports that do not follow the guidelines or policies.

You may submit via email to

Letters: Maximum 250 words. All letters will be printed if they follow the published guidelines and policies.

Voluntary Articles: Maximum 500 words. A Voluntary Article is held to a higher standard than a letter and must meet at least the following criteria: A Voluntary Article must analyze the topic it is discussing; it must present accurate, verifiable corroboration for factual assertions; it can criticize but not attack Coop practices and personnel; if critical it must present positive solutions; it cannot be solely or mainly opinion. It must strive to make a positive contribution to the understanding of the reader on a topic. If a submitted Voluntary Article is substantially opinion, it must be re-submitted, under 500 words, as a Letter to the Editor, possibly to a future issue. Editors will reject articles that are essentially just advertisements for member businesses, those of family and friends of members, solely expressions of opinion or that do not follow the guidelines and policies.

Committee Reports: Maximum 750 words. Reports must follow the published guidelines and policies.

LETTERS, ARTICLES AND REPORTS SUBMISSION POLICIES

Letters must be the opinion of the letter-writer and can contain no more than 25% non-original writing.

All submissions must be written by the writer. Letters or articles that are form letters, chain letters, template letters or letters prepared by someone other than the submitting member will be rejected.

Letters, articles and reports must adhere to the Fairness, Anonymity and Respect policies. They cannot be hateful, needlessly inflammatory, discriminatory libelous, personal attacks or make unsubstantiated claims or accusations or be contrary to the values of the Coop as expressed in our mission statement.

All submissions must be intelligible, civil, well and concisely written with accurate, attributed, easily verifiable statements of facts separated from opinions.

Letter and article writers are limited to one letter or article per issue.

Letter and article writers cannot write gratuitous serial submissions. Editors may reject submissions to consecutive editions of the Gazette on the same topic by the same writer.

Editor-Writer Guidelines: All submissions will be reviewed and, if necessary, edited or rejected by the editor. Writers are responsible for the factual content of their stories. Editors must make a reasonable effort to contact and communicate with writers regarding any questions or proposed editorial changes. Writers must be available to editors to confer about their submissions. If a writer does not respond to requests for editorial changes, the editor may make the changes without conferring with the writer, or reject the submission. If agreement between the writer and the editor about changes does not occur after a first revision, the editor may reject the submission, and the writer may revise and resubmit for a future issue.