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Overdressed Contributors Guide

When pitching an article to any editor within the magazine, there are a few things you should include to make the concept of your article clear. We hope these guides help but should you have any questions, please contact the Overdressed Online Editorial team.

Pitching Guidelines

Pitching Requirements

  • In 200-300 words, write your pitch in a Word document containing the following requirements...

    • a suggested title (and subtitle)

    • format e.g. opinion, analysis, research study, interview (if so, will it be in Q&A or list article format? Etc.)

    • a brief description of each idea, and why you think it would be good for Overdressed

    • an estimated word count (ideally 800-1000 words)

    • names of people to be involved/named in the article

    • web links to your references

  • Save and name your file in the following format: [ARTICLE TITLE]_[FULL NAME].docx 

Recommendations

  • For Voices articles, the general rule for a normal length feature is at least three quotes from three different people.

  • Feel free to mention if the article will need to include pictures. If it does, do you want us to arrange pictures or have you sourced the images and ensured you own the rights to publish them?

  • Try to be as clear as possible.

How to Get Quotes

We are happy to help you get the quotes that you need from psychology of fashion experts. When you write your questions, please follow the guidelines listed below:

  • Please make sure that you are as specific as possible in your question.

  • Please make sure that you are as specific as possible in your question. 

  • Psychology of fashion is an academic discipline. Most of the experts are academics. Therefore, they will prefer to comment on findings of specific research studies.

  • Please provide the PDF or the reference of the research that you are asking about. Additionally, a quote mentioning the exact findings would be perfect. Google Scholar will be useful here.

  • If you wish to obtain a comment based on an article, please make sure to phrase it correctly. Psychologists would most likely offer an opinion in that case. Good sources of articles are Fashion is Psychology, Hajinsky, Business of Fashion, and WGSN.

  • Academics might offer you an opinion or provide advice, but it is much more likely that they will comment on research facts.

  • Questions asking about any general claims or general knowledge regarding sustainability, culture, or positive psychology are not specific enough.

We will be reaching out to the experts for you, as our relationships with them are based on personal connections. However, if you find someone who is not on our list, you are welcome to try to reach out to them yourself.

Quoting Guidelines
Do's & Don'ts Guidelines

Do's & Don'ts

Although this is a psychology-focused publication, we want the articles to be intellectually accessible to most people. A useful tip for this is imagining you are explaining psychology concepts to your grandmother who doesn’t know anything about the topic. Always think about bringing something new, interesting, and innovative to the table; the goal isn’t to write an academic essay, but a creative, informative, and thought-provoking piece rooted in psychological concepts.

The form you choose for your article will depend on the subject matter and the section in which your article fits, but generally be sure to engage with your topic thoughtfully and with complete curiosity. We like to experiment with ideas and encourage inclusivity in order to open our readers’ minds to new concepts.

Guide to referencing

If you are referencing academic journals, online articles or books in your piece, we would like you to cite them using the Chicago referencing system.

  • Make sure your footnote number always appears after the full stop of the sentence where you referenced or quoted something.

  • If you refer to a source more than once, you can shorten the reference to the author’s surname, one or two words from the title of the piece (in quotation marks if it’s an article/chapter or in italics if it is a book), and the page number if applicable. For example, the citation “Dana Thomas, Fashionopolis: The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes (London: Head of Zeus, 2019).” would shorten to “Thomas, Fashionopolis.” the second time you refer to it. Do not use “ibid.”

  • If you accessed an article online, you need to give the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) of the source you accessed, which can be found on the journal’s webpage. If there is no DOI given, you should give the URL link instead.

  • When quoting from somewhere, make sure to include the page number in your footnoted reference. It should come after a comma at the end of the citation, but before any DOI/URL. Simply put the number, do not use “p.” to introduce it.

  • If there was more than one author or editor, simply connect them with “and”.

  • If you can’t find the date of publication, write “n.d.” where the year should be.

Referencing Guidelines
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