Share Your Experience: Write an article

Topic

There is no limit to potential article topics: from health and lifestyle (eg diet, exercise, travel) to medication management, or managing adrenal insufficiency at work.  Whatever you are choosing to share, bear in mind that we will be looking for a different angle or an unusual topic.  Everyone’s experience is, of course, unique and will have value, but if you can also find a new way of expressing your story and engaging your audience, we will be more likely to select your article for publication.

Please take a look at our current Blog posts to get an idea of the breadth of topics we have already online, and the styles: Blog | Addison's Disease Self-Help Group

Length

Aim for no more than 1500 words, which gives us the flexibility to use your article in print, rather than just on the website.  Longer articles are also welcome, but may just be published on the website as appropriate.

Format

To make the article more engaging and easier to read, try and break it up into sections with subheadings.  It can help certain sections stand out.   Please do add in quotes where you have them – pop them in italics so we know they are quotes or testimonials.

Tone of Voice

This is your article, and as such, we want to give you as free rein as possible over the style in which it is written.  However, the more engaging, informative and inspiring it is, the more value it has for our community. We would respectfully request that it be written in an easy-to-read style and is not inflammatory or political.

Accuracy

As we do not have the resources for our Clinical Advisory Panel to check all of our blogs and articles, we would ask for you to only include medical/clinical facts and information if they are accurate.   We will also review your article, but it is helpful to us if you have already made sure of the facts first.

Anonymity

The experiences that our members have with various healthcare teams can strongly influence their journey with Addison’s or adrenal insufficiency.  This may be a positive or negative influence.  Within the boundaries of an individual blog article, we are not able to present a balanced view, and so we ask you to avoid naming hospitals or individual healthcare professionals within your article.

Images

We need at least one high-quality image to accompany your article, which fits/describes your blog topic, but the more images you have to share, to bring your article to life, the better.

It would also be great to have a headshot/photo of yourself as author, for your bio section and one of your emergency injection kit in situ for our #ShareYourKit question (see the form).

Please note that files uploaded via our form are limited to 50MB per file.  Any larger files can be emailed over to us at [email protected], with reference to your article.

Please ensure you have the permission of anyone in the photo to share it with us. 

A bit about you!

It's highly engaging for our community to get to know you a little through your article.  Please send us a short (2 or 3 sentence) biography about yourself, written in the third person, e.g. Anna lives in North Wales with her husband and two children. She is passionate about walking and reading fiction.

As mentioned in the Images section above, we'd also love to have a photo of you, or a headshot.

Please also let us have answers to our regular blog FAQs:  

• How do you remember to take your tablets?
• Where do you keep your injection kit? Great to have a photo to accompany this.
• What type of medic ID do you have?

If you would prefer to be anonymous, then, of course, that is also totally fine.   Please make this clear to us on your sign-up form.  You could use something like: ‘This article was authored by a member of the ADSHG community keen to share their experience with XYZ… ‘ rather than the short bio.