Thank you for your interest in writing for The Strategy Bridge community.
These guidelines matter because they determine whether your work is accepted for publication, drive the editorial process once an article is accepted, and are central to its eventual publication.
We look forward to working with you!
THE BIG PICTURE
The Strategy Bridge does not entertain pitches or unsolicited articles. Instead, we publish articles submitted in response to our quarterly call for articles. We do accept book reviews with prior coordination, and publish them on a weekly basis—see below for more details.
Articles in the 1000–2000 word range work best, but circumstances may allow your article to run longer. For the Student Writing Competition submissions up to 5000 words are accepted. Footnotes are not included in your word count.
Your article should be clearly focused and establish that focus almost immediately, in part by providing a thesis in the first paragraph.
Your article should be well structured over the entire piece, where ideas are developed through the logical, orderly progression of paragraphs.
Your article should also be well organized at the paragraph level, with each paragraph centered on a single, main idea.
And, your article should provide evidence that logically and clearly supports the content and thesis of your article.
A note on evidence: Authors may refer to themselves in the first person (e.g., “I could not put down the book”), but personal and professional experience are no substitute for external evidence.
Finally, prose is important. Clarity, concision, and directness at the sentence level ensure even the most complicated ideas are presented in an accessible way. Avoid jargon.
You’re writing about what you know, but your audience does not necessarily share your outlook, background and store of knowledge, and your audience knows a lot that you don’t; write with that in mind.
THE NUTS AND BOLTS
Style Matters:
Please use AP Style for the content of your piece; that is, for matters including abbreviations, capitalization, forms of address etc.
The Strategy Bridge defaults to standard American English for spelling and punctuation, but adjusts when guided by the author’s national background or the nature of the subject matter.
Use one space only between a punctuation mark that ends a sentence and the first word of the next sentence, and all punctuation goes within quotation marks in accordance with AP Style.
Begin each new paragraph without indenting the first sentence.
Your article should use the Chicago Manual of Style formatting for your citations. Use footnotes only, do not use endnotes. Do not include bibliographies or works cited listings.
Avoid hyperlink citations.
ABOUT REVIEWS
The Strategy Bridge publishes reviews in our #Reviewing series. Reviews usually center on nonfiction books, but we also welcome articles on fiction, poetry, movies, board and video games, documentaries, television shows, podcasts, and other forms of cultural production that touch on issues of strategy, military affairs, and national defense.
In addition to the criteria for publication spelled out above (including the recommended word count of 1000-2000 words), there are a few other things to attend to when #Reviewing:
A review goes beyond simply summarizing the work. A review stands on its own; it is worth reading independent of the text under consideration.
A review explains the argument, stakes, methodology, and use of evidence in the text under consideration.
A review explains how these pieces fit together as well as where they are out of joint.
A review situates the text in relationship to other texts that are in some way similar. This is rather broad, and determining how best to identify and discuss this similarity is a crucial part of a reviewer’s work.
It’s conventional to discuss how a text shifts an existing conversation, but it’s also possible to move beyond that.
SUBMISSION DETAILS
We do not entertain simultaneous submissions.
The Strategy Bridge accepts only first-publication articles. After publication, all rights revert to the author and any article may be reprinted with appropriate acknowledgment to The Strategy Bridge.
Submit your article in a Word document to submissions@thestrategybridge.org. Our editorial team aims to reply in seven calendar days.
In addition to your Word attachment please include a biographical statement of about two sentences. Please also provide links to your Twitter handle and your LinkedIn profile, if applicable.
You may also need to include any relevant institutional caveats.
Authors requiring official review before an article can be published should secure permissions prior to submission.
If you create any custom images, figures, or tables for your article, please attach separately the highest possible quality of image for our use. Give credit for any images you do not create.
SUBMISSION TEMPLATE
Please use the following template to guide your writing process.
Please let us know if you have any questions.
Welcome to our community of writers!
Best,
Editorial Board
The Strategy Bridge
