Writer's Guidelines
Who can write for Health&Home?
Anybody who can meet our needs can write for Health&Home. We welcome factual and interesting articles in any aspect in the task of maintaining a good health and a good home.
The purpose of Health&Home
Health&Home aims to disseminate knowledge on basic health principles for the family. It is dedicated to the belief that good health depends greatly on the right information being offered to its readers. It desires to help build a healthier nation by making our people aware of the importance of health. Will Durant once said, "The health of nations is the wealth of nations."
The Readers
Originally, Health&Home was intended for the Filipino middle class. These people are fairly educated and compose the majority of the ''movers and shakers'' of Philippine society. However, Health&Home has been widely accepted by people from all walks of life, especially those who desire to have basic knowledge of health principles. Tailor your writing, therefore, to the needs of the average reader. Great writing is writing great ideas in the simplest language possible.
What to write
You should read at least three issues of Health&Home in order to grasp the scope and intent of the magazine. We need articles dealing with, well, health and home! But since these two fields are quite broad, we divided them into the following categories:
1. Food and Nutrition (Food values, preparation, and nutritional facts)
2. Diseases and Disorders (Causes, prevention, and cure)
3. Environment (From pollution to reforestation)
4. Marriage (Problems, solutions, and tips to spice up the married life)
5. Child Growth and Development (Information on children's unique concerns and preferences complete with practical examples)
6. Local Festivities and Events (Events with social relevance, advocacies, and local tourism)
7.Spiritual Aspect (Saving truths from the Bible)
8. Reflections (On life and death, success and failure, gladness and despair)
9. Relationships (Between sweethearts, colleagues, kin, and the like)
10. Parenting (How-to's on rearing children)
11. Inspirational (True-to-life stories that brighten up life)
How to write
Have a punchy lead. The first sentence and first paragraph must grab your reader's interest. For example:
The incidence of heart disease is increasing rapidly in this country. Heart specialists are becoming alarmed over the number of deaths reported last year as compared with those of the previous year.
Obviously, this has little to whet your appetite and induce you to read further, but --
A coffin is a poor place for a heart! Especially if it's yours. You can avoid such premature resting place by learning the facts about your heart.
It grabs your eye and sets you to reading further.
Use topic sentences to start paragraphs. Tell what you are going to talk about. Follow up with explaining sentences.
Focus on human interest. People are interested in people. Find someone who has solved a problem or overcome a handicap and tell how he did it.
Use personal pronouns. They lend an informal, personal touch to your article. Use you, we, our, us, his, hers, frequently. Third person writing is often stiff. So be chatty.
Break up long paragraphs with short ones. Long blocks of reading matter weary your reader. He'll drift to another article, and often another magazine, if you bore him with lengthy, tedious paragraphs without an eye break.
Focus on one basic idea. Don't try to tell everything in one article.
Use active verbs and avoid the is-was-were overdose.
Verify facts. Here is where many articles fail--the writer hasn't done his homework. Get the facts straight.
Religious articles should be made acceptable in content and style for non-Adventists.
Avoid the talking heads. Minimize quotes or quoted statements.
Quotes. Give source of all quotes, author, magazine or book, page, and date. This assists our copy editors, who must check all quotes for accuracy. This need not appear in the article but should be attached.
Final paragraphs must call for action. You've told your reader the facts. Now what is he to do about them? Ask him to do something. Otherwise, your article is lost; it has missed the mark. We want him to improve his way of living...to feel better...to go to bed early...to see his doctor. Your concluding paragraph should call for action.
Ask a second pair of eyes to criticize. Even if you have read your article over and over again, chances are you will miss something. It is better to ask somebody to criticize your work. If possible, request him to answer an evaluation sheet.
We welcome photos. They should be in color, clear, and sharp. Glossy pictures are best, and the larger the better. You can also save the photo in large-size JPEG format with at least 150 resolutions.
Typing and submission. Manuscript should be typed double space on a good grade standard-size paper. Begin title page one-half way down on sheet, so that notations may be made by the editors. Not more than seven (7) pages. If possible, save article in a CD using MS Word, in Rich Text Format.
You can also email your article to editorial@pphsda.com or fax it to (632)363-4244. Don't forget to write your contact details at the end of your article.
Payment. The average payment for articles published is from PhP800 to PhP1200.
Top Tips in Making Sensible Write-ups
Choose the type of feature suitable to your story.
Personality profile- Brings audience closer to a person in or out of news. It needs to give more idea of the individual you want to feature.
Human interest story- Shows a subject's oddity or its practical, emotional, or entertainment value.
Trend story- Examines people, things, or organizations that have impact on society.
In-depth story- Provides detailed account beyond a basic news feature through extensive research and interviews.
Backgrounder- Also called an analysis piece, it adds meaning to current issues in news by explaining them further. These articles bring audience up-to-date, explaining how this organization, or this person, or this country happens to be where it is now.
Accuracy is important--you can interpret and embroider but not fudge. Interview experts or people involved on your chosen topic. Do research.
Talk to more than one person to provide a more complete picture--but don't just add in sources to show how much work you've done. Get comments from experts. Be ruthless about who you put in and who you leave out.
Prepare your questions in advance, but be flexible if the conversation takes a different turn during the interview. You may miss an important point just because you stick rigidly to your planned questions.
Find the right angle. There may be a lot of angles to write about but magazine space is limited, so narrow your choices by determining which of those angles have human interest and can ''hook'' readers' attention.
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