Contributor Guidelines
Thank you so much for your interest in submitting content for Christian Parenting. We are so grateful for your interest in equipping parents to become “perfectly imperfect” in parenting. We are all in this together and know that guidance from the Lord is the only sure thing in anyone’s parenting journey.
Content: Because we are a Christian parenting resource, we are looking for content that points our readers to God’s word and to his son. Please submit articles that rely heavily on scripture and Jesus to guide us in parenting.
Format: Submit your article as:
- a Word document
- with one-inch margins
- left justification
- and black, 12-point Times New Roman font.
Do not indent new paragraphs.
Do not hit enter twice to create a new paragraph. Rather, use the line spacing feature in Word to separate paragraphs. In the upper main menu of Word, select Format > Paragraph. Look for the Spacing header. In the form field named After, enter 12. Doing this means you will no longer have to hit enter twice to start a new paragraph.
Do not double space after periods. If you can’t help double-spacing, conduct a find-and-replace within Word and replace all double spaces with single spaces.
Additionally, white space is your friend and helps online readers. Break up long paragraphs. See examples at ChristianParenting.org/articles. CP reserves the right to create new paragraph breaks.
Titles: Suggest 1-2 titles at the top of your article. CP reserves the right to retitle.
Byline: Include your author name under the title, e.g., Susan Smith
Subtitles: Use 3-5 subtitles per article. See examples at ChristianParenting.org/articles. Again, CP reserves the right to edit or rewrite subtitles.
- Use H2 styles in Word for all subtitles. Highlight your subtitle, then click Heading 2 in the Styles pane. Alternatively, just bold the subtitle.
- Use sentence-case for subtitles (e.g., What God taught me about parenting) but do not use closing punctuation unless the subtitle is a question.
Deity pronouns: Lowercase all pronouns for God, e.g., he, him, his.
Citing the Bible: To cite the Bible, place the citation in parentheses following the quoted material, e.g., “Jesus wept” (John 11:35 ESV). Note that the closing punctuation is not included within the quoted material.
However, if the verse ends in a question mark or exclamation mark, the closing punctuation is included in the quoted material and a period follows the citation, e.g., “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” (Matthew 16:13 ESV).
If you use only one translation for every verse in your article, cite the translation in your first citation, but then leave it off for the remaining citations, e.g., (Genesis 1:1 ESV) … (Genesis 1:2).
If you use multiple translations throughout your article, cite the translation in every citation.
Note: When designating multiple verses, don’t use a hyphen. Rather, type two hyphens within Word, which should automatically convert those two dashes into an en-dash. Alternatively, copy and paste this en-dash and place it in your citation.
En-dash vs. hyphen example:
- Good: Matthew 4:1–2
- Bad: Matthew 4:1-2
Citing sources other than the Bible: Always give credit where credit is due. If citing a book or article, name the author and title either in the text itself or in a parenthetical citation. Where possible, link the title of the work to its relevant website, e.g., As Janet Denison wrote in “What Jesus Prayed for His Kids,” ….
Author Bio: Include a 150-word or less author bio at the end of your article. May include one link. Please also include a headshot.
Collaboration: We are so grateful for your submission. Please agree to share our collaboration on all of your social media platforms. We are grateful for the “shout-outs” and “tags” when you share that we have published your article. Our handles are below:
Instagram:
christianparenting_org
pardonthemesspodcast
Facebook:
@Christianparenting.org
@pardonthemesspodcast
Twitter:
@chrstparenting