PAA Guest Article Guidelines

The PAA loves sharing the knowledge and experience of our members or other Pilates based content providers. If you’re considering submitting a guest article to the PAA, the following guidelines will help you create a piece that fits our publication requirements.

Submitting a Proposal

Are you using your own idea for a topic rather than one supplied by the PAA? Before you put lots of effort into writing, please submit a proposal of 2 or 3 lines explaining the following:

• what is the article about?
• who is it for?
• what will our members learn from it?

This will help us assess whether the content will be suitable for our members.

What is Suitable Content?

Your subject matter should be of direct interest to our membership, which includes instructors, business owners, students, and associate members.

Some examples (and there will be many others):

• Pilates/physiology/anatomy/pathology/business or marketing
• research, education, health, self development
• anecdotal material, pieces that relate your experience of Pilates
• reviews: books, events, products, etc.
• interviews with instructors, physios, doctors, students… even clients
• tips and tricks for the studio, for practise, for marketing, for business management (top 5… etc)

The ideal length

Between 500 and 2000 words (approx.)

References

List references from all the sources you’ve used to write the article and provide links to the original where possible.

Note: Only links that are directly relevant to the content (i.e. to supporting research) will be included.

Attribution

Please tell us

• your name, exactly as you would like it published
• your relevant qualifications
• any affiliations relevant to your article

Images

At least one image is required, to illustrate the article (min. width 570px, square or landscape), but you can supply more. All images must be copyright/royalty free.

Video

Video must be hosted online (Vimeo, YouTube, etc.) and the link included with your submission.

Editing

The PAA reserves the right to make minor edits to submitted articles. These may be made for the following reasons:

• to correct grammar and spelling, or improve readability
• to improve SEO

If anything major needs editing, we will let you know so that you can amend it personally.

Copyright

By submitting an article, you are declaring it is all your own work and you are the legal copyright holder.

1. Consider who your readers are and write in a style they will identify with
2. Aim for a style that is neither too formal or informal
3. Use the active voice: it will be stronger and more interesting than a passive voice
4. Be concise, clear and direct – short sentences and paragraphs are easier to read
5. Make it scan-able – using headings, captions, graphics, quotes, bulleted lists will all help
6. Make headers meaningful – they should describe the content they introduce
7. Use bullet points rather than a sentence with lots of commas. Long lists benefit from being numbered
8. Use familiar, everyday words: try to avoid jargon and words that are hard to understand
9. Sentence length should vary to keep the reader’s interest
10. Avoid underlining and the overuse of exclamation marks
11. Review, proof and edit thoroughly before submitting