Writer's Guidelines

Parent Academic Resources Inc. (PARI) is soliciting articles from freelance writers for a new magazine we are publishing for middle school parents. We will consider articles for a sample issue that will be used as part of a funding proposal being submitted to grant makers. When funding is secured we will consider all submitted articles for publication in the first issues of the magazine.

Magazine Purpose

Research has shown that, in general, parent involvement in a child's education begins to drop off significantly as students enter middle school. At the same time, research has also shown that greater parent involvement at home leads to higher achievement by children. PARI's first magazine will be aimed at providing information to middle school parents on how to become more involved in their child's learning.

Compared to the number of parenting resources at the elementary level, few resources exist that are specifically designed to help middle school parents understand their child's curriculum, the purpose and content of assignments, the expectations of the teacher and school, and most importantly how to help their child. To fill this resource gap, PARI intends to publish the only magazine specifically focused on addressing these important issues at the middle school level.

Article Guidelines

Articles should be written in informal, non-academic language that is generally understandable to readers who have a high school education. The information in the article should be practical; parents should be able to come away from an article with information that is immediately useful in working with their children. We welcome articles from parents of middle schoolers, whose personal experience will be of interest to our target readership. Familiarity with common middle school curricula would also be helpful in writing an article.

We are interested in articles that do at least one (if not more) of the following:

• Explain how parents can help children with schoolwork, without doing the work for the child. Parents need to be able to come away from your article with concrete actions they can take with their child. Think tutoring skills.
• Provide an engaging and understandable background to topics children will be exposed to in middle school. Before they can help, parents need to know something about the subject their children are studying. In writing this type of article, consider what aspects of a subject middle school parents would be interested in. Parents should also be encouraged to learn along with their children.
• Explain to parents the purpose of common assignments. (e.g. Why do middle school students study world civilizations? How is algebra useful?)
• Help parents understand what a teacher's expectations are for common types of assignments. (e.g. What does a teacher expect from a research report? How should a science report be written? How might math problems be tackled at home?)
• Inform parents how to successfully access and engage school personnel (administrators, teachers, guidance counselors, and resource personnel) towards helping the family support learning.
• Help parents understand how a child's schoolwork meets academic standards.
• Give parents advice on how to successfully engage their children in schoolwork.
• Help parents understand social and developmental factors that might impede a child's success in school, and how to redress these factors.

Manuscript Preparation and Submission

As the nature of the magazine content is still being developed, we are accepting manuscripts from about 400 to 2500 words.

The manuscript must:

• Be double-spaced.
• Include your name on each page.
• Have numbered pages.
• Be printed on white paper if a hard copy is submitted.
• Be submitted as a MSWord attachment if sent by e-mail.
• Include brief biographical information, including address, work/home telephone number and e-mail address on the manuscript.
• Be accompanied by a cover letter with an abstract or brief proposal outlining the article.

Do not send your manuscript to multiple magazines at the same time. We do not accept simultaneous submissions.

Hard-copy manuscripts will not be returned unless requested and accompanied by a SASE.

Send completed manuscripts to:

Parent Academic Resources Inc.
Attn: Krzysztof Grabarek
16 Coventry Rd.
Grafton, MA 01519
editor@academicresources.org