Submissions

College Rule Notebook is looking for feature articles.

We’ve noticed that talking about one’s alma mater brings about a certain verbosity that our standard survey form cannot accomodate. The survey also limits responses somewhat by asking specific questions, and we know that there are some aspects of University life that cannot be captured by the basic data we ask for. Finally, we notice that many good writers with blogs of their own have taken the time to brag on their alma maters, and we’d like to hear more from the talented wordsmiths out there.

We are willing to pay, but not all that much. Since the blog generates no revenue at this time, we consider this an investment in quality content that should pay off down the road somewhere. We’re offering $12 per article we publish. Why $12? Because thanks to Spinal Tap, 11 is the new 10. If you’re still in college, twelve bucks is a case of something awful.  If you’re a graduate, that’s a sixer of something very good. 

The best way to handle payment would probably be paypal. It’s still your article and you can use it for any other purpose you wish, we’re just licensing the one instance of publishing your writing on this site, and archiving it here.

The Rules:

1. If you haven’t filled out a survey already, you must do so, along with filing your article. The basic capsules are the steak of this website. Your feature articles are the sizzle.
2. No porn. We don’t want to be stuffy or censor the college experience here, we just ask for a little decorum. If you got lucky on spring break, you can say that. Just spare us the details. There are plenty of non-specific ways to get that point across, including the ever-popular and ever-vague “hooked up”.
3. Use pseudonyms to protect the innocent. Or first names, initials, etc. If there’s a chance your buddy might not want to be immortalized for setting his eyebrows on fire while attempting to drink a flaming shot, save us all the aggravation and just call him J.T. or Cleanhead or something.
4. Obviously don’t plaigarize. The whole point of this site is to get the straight scoop on what college is like, directly from someone who experienced it. We could go out and research all of this ourselves, but it wouldn’t have the ring of authenticity that someone who was there can lend.

That’s all we can think of right now. We’ll try to publish one a week (that’s all we can afford), but if we like your submission, we’ll keep it in the queue to be published, and pay you when it’s your turn to be featured.

There are a few subjects we’re particularly interested in:

• Road Trips (driving across country is one of the true joys of college).
• Unusual classes or majors (English or Biology is pretty straightforward, but Hotel Management or Jazz Studies might be worth exploring).
• Historically Black Universities and Colleges (We’ve seen the Hollywood version, tell us what your school was really like).
• Unique Events (We’ve only scratched the surface of the Inter-Sorority Volleyball Tournament at UC-Santa Cruz, or the Little 500 bike race at Indiana. Tell us more).

Anything else creative you can think of is welcome, just let us know what you’re thinking about. Make sure it’s something you can’t read about in Newsweek’s annual college edition. Been there, done that.

Contact us at theextrapolater (at) gmail (dot) com and we’ll get the ball rolling.

Thanks,

CRN.