General Writing Guidelines

Context - we are looking for writing that takes into consideration the various contexts of the works of art under discussion - be they political, social, artistic, historical  or cultural (to name a few). While the artwork is the focus of our project, we would like the readers to get acquainted with the circumstances under which it has been created and/or perceived.

Clarity - we appreciate clear writing. That doesn’t mean you have to over-simplify your ideas, but rather make an effort at communicating them in a clear way. We don’t like meaningless name-dropping or vagueness for vagueness’ sake.

Stated position - behind every essay there’s a writer. We prefer writers who can speak in their own unique voice, attitude and position, without taking over the conversation. While we acknowledge the importance of description in art writing, as well as the significance of a close observation, we feel that the writer’s position should be stated along with the specificity and context of her/his point of view. This should make things more interesting.

As a rule, we only accept articles which have never been published before, with a few exceptions. The editors must be notified if the article had been published anywhere, or in a different language, and the details of the publication should be indicated by an asterisk next to the title.

 Submission process:

*Submitted articles are considered for publication by Tohu’s editors, , Leah Abir and Avi Lubin, and at least one editorial board member.
If recommended, the article proceeds through the following steps:
*Editing by the editors.
*Copy editing in the original language.
*Translation into two more languages: English (US), Arabic, or Hebrew.
*The process is supervised by the editorial coordinator, Oriana Weich.

Submission Format:

*The article should be submitted in Word format.
*Editing is done on Google Docs.
*The number of words should be between 1000 and 2000, unless otherwise approved by the editors or the editorial coordinator.

Guidelines for authors:
Title: may be suggested by the author but is subject to change by editors.
The blurb is to be written by the editors.
Footnotes: Chicago style MLA (see guide: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html)
Links to online sources may be indicated in-text or in the footnotes as a hyperlink.
The first mention of a name of a person who is from a country where a language other than the author’s is spoken should be accompanied by the name in the foreign language, in parentheses. Examples:

רולאן בארת (Barthes)      

וואאל עאדל זועייתר (  Zwaiter,  زعيتر)
*Names of works of art should be Italicized. Names of exhibitions are Capitalized and in quotation marks.
*Quotes and references: as the text is being translated into two other languages, please provide the translators with the quote in the original-language (e.g., when writing in English and using a quote translated from Hebrew, and vice versa).
*The author states that the submitted text is his/her own, not borrowed or quoted from another source, unless indicated as such in the text and accompanied by the proper reference. Borrowing without providing proper reference or credit has ethical, professional, and legal repercussions for which the author is solely responsible.
Images:  The author is responsible for supplying images from the artist or institution discussed in the article, unless otherwise agreed with the editors or editorial coordinator.
Image guidelines
Image size:  minimum width 1500-2000 pxl, optimal width: 2400.
Number of images for a 1000-2000 word article: at least three.
Image information: Name of artist, work, medium/technique, year, credit for photographer or collection.
If the author prefers the magazine staff to retrieve the images they should notify the editors at the time of submission.

Every image file should be named using the full details of the image - artist_title_year_technique/medium_credit_other relevant details
Copyright: the author must indicate any instance of use in the article of a work of art which is protected by copyright, and send the proper credits along with the images. Tohu Magazine is licensed under  Creative Commons type Attribution / Attribution-NonCommercial license

Still have questions? Please contact us at: info@tohumagazine.com