writers’ guidelines

The Compassionate Alternatives team thanks you for the time, energy, and thoughtful work that you’re about to put into your blog post. We’ve laid out some information here to help you make the best post possible! Please read these guidelines and let us know if you have any questions before submitting your article. Thanks!

Our Audience

Compassionate Alternatives is a place for patients and their families, medical professionals, industry professionals, and those who would like to learn about medical cannabis and alternative medicine.

So the person reading your article could be anyone: a parent, a legislator, a small business owner, or a Ph.D in biopharmaceuticals.

Our Mission

The mission of Compassionate Alternatives is to inform our audience about the truths, science, and potential of medical cannabis.

Another way to think about this is Veritas Over Stigma—we want to counteract years of misunderstanding with facts!

Checklist of Content to Include in Your Submission:

1. Your Article (I.e., copy)

  • Word Count: A popular guideline for post length is 300-500 words. However, if you need more room to express your ideas, then use it. Our editor may suggest parsing longer articles into multiple posts.
  • Voice: Keep in mind that our audience represents a wide cross-section of society, so write for the layperson without diluting the importance of your content. Channel people like Neil deGrasse-Tyson or Sanjay Gupta here.
  • Opinion vs. Fact: If you are stating an opinion, please make it clear that you are doing so. If you are stating something as fact that is not yet widely known or accepted by the general public, then cite your references (including URLs)! Because it is our mission to dispel misinformation, we have a responsibility to publish articles that promote a more clear, constructive, and fact-based public discourse.

2. Your Byline

  • Your name, letters, title, and organizational affiliation (as applicable)

3. A Brief Biography

  • Summarize who you are and why people should take your words seriously without sounding full of yourself. (50-100 word count)

4. Your Headshot

  • Please provide us your favorite professional headshot with at least 300×300 pixels of resolution.

5. Image Files (I.e., art)

  • Quantity: Include two (2) or more image files to accompany your blog and help enhance the reader’s understanding of your content.
  • Quality: Images can any engaging visual content that helps the reader better connect to your ideas: photos, infographics, data charts, etc. (Please provide the highest resolution files available.)
  • File Naming: Please number & name each image file so that our editor can understand what the image represents and where to sequence it in the article (E.g., 01_picture-of-patient.jpg, 02_chart-of-results.png, etc.). We’ll also use that metadata to help optimize your post’s search engine performance.

Email your submission to emilie@compassionatealternatives.org

Once we have loaded and formatted your content, we will send you a preview link of the edited article for your feedback & approval before publishing your post.