The following are general guidelines drawn up to help with writing for Context

• Context is primarily a magazine of ideas, news and debate, a forum for practicing therapists to communicate with other therapists. Like the Roman Forum of old, it is a meeting place where ideas can be exchanged, compared, contrasted and where different approaches from far-flung realms of family therapy and related approaches can mingle. It is a place for enthusiasm where the up-and-coming can bring forward new thinking and the old-and established can remind them of its roots. It is a place for serious issues to be aired and debated, and yet a place for laughter, for sacred cows to be gently challenged, for news and views to be shared, opportunities highlighted and sometimes for sad tidings to be passed on.
• We see Context as acting like a good invisible family therapy team, to help support and stimulate you in your work with families and other systems. It is also a testing ground for theoretical or practice ideas or work in progress, either of your own or of colleagues that you or they might like to see appear in print before writing a more formal journal article. Alternatively, authors who have already published in professional journals may want to take the opportunity of summarising their ideas or findings in a more immediately accessible way for their wider and quicker dissemination. We also encourage articles on research but remember, you are not writing for other researchers or for academics but primarily for practitioners who may be interested in your outcomes but do not necessarily need or want to have too much detail about the methods you used (they can email you if they do).
• Therefore, we do not have rigorous formal requirements for articles. We are not seeking high academic standards of presentation together with comprehensive literature reviews, although we will look for a good, clear writing style, academic integrity in matters such as acknowledging sources, the origins of ideas and not "re-inventing the wheel", etc. (At the end of this handout you will find some notes outlining our system for referencing).
• A contribution should be well structured and have a clear focus, like good therapy. Be clear about the points you want to put across and use a simple communicative, conversational, personal style of writing that can be readily understood. Use a mode of expression you feel comfortable with that suits the content and secures your aim whether your approach is serious, gentle, forceful, ironic, challenging or humorous. Try to avoid footnotes: if possible, incorporate what you would want to say in them into the body of your article. We are interested in a range of lengths of article from 1,000 (sometimes less), mostly around 2,000-3,000 and occasionally up to 5,000 words. If an article is too long, you might be asked to shorten it. Ultimately, the issue editor and the general editor reserve the right to edit articles.
• The general editor, deputy editor and the individual issue editors are available to help and guide those with ideas but for whom writing is a new and perhaps a daunting prospect (our contact details are below). Whilst we can’t write it for you, we are more than happy to do what we can to help you develop your idea(s). It can often be useful to have a colleague read through what you have written – sometimes a friend or family member who knows little about family therapy will be better placed to comment on how clearly you have expressed yourself.
• Although AFT produces Context primarily for its members, it is also taken by or read by many other professionals and therefore widely disseminated. Contributions are also often invited and accepted from a wide range of people and places. So, try to avoid using “in-language” or family therapy jargon and please, please, not too many unnecessary acronyms. Write to be understood by a wide spread of readers.
• Do not presume that (a) readers will have no interest in what you have to say, (b) will already know about it, or (c) that you will be regarded as on an “ego trip” to enhance your own reputation or that of your institution, etc. Family therapy has suffered from the two extremes of “hyped promotion” and “sterile silence”. In addition to the kinds of articles referred to above, you might interview someone of interest to the field or suggest such an interview to the editor. Literature reviews covering particular topics are also a possibility as are reviews of books, plays, television programmes and films that can introduce an interesting slant on any aspect of our field. Encourage your colleagues to consider writing up their interesting ideas or projects. Feel free to photocopy these notes and pass them on to potential writers.
• Also, select two or three photographs or illustrations to send with your contribution. As well as one of you, consider taking or borrowing photographs of individuals, groups, activities or places that will help bring it to life. Photographs should be in colour and taken at the highest possible resolution. Low-resolution photographs or those taken with a mobile phone will usually not be adequate. Louise can suggest other sources of photographs and we have artists and cartoonists ever on hand.
• A major advantage of considering Context is your contribution will generally appear much more quickly than with most books or journals and it appears people actually read it.

Finally, think “plain language“ and remember George Orwell’s six elementary rules of good writing (Politics and the English Language, 1946)

• Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech that you are used to seeing in print.
• Never use a long word where a short one will do.
• If it is possible to cut out a word, always cut it out.
• Never use the passive where you can use the active.
• Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
• Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous. *

• Or if you are doing so deliberately to make a particular point or to be ironic (Ed)