Article Guidelines for Authors, Contributors & Guest Posts

Thanks for your interest in contributing an article to Gov1.com, the leading news and information website for local government professionals.

Gov1 welcomes contributions by diverse local government professionals and others who can clearly and concisely communicate concepts and ideas through the written word. We also promote healthy and respectful discussion about topics within public services. Review our topics for insights into our coverage and ideas of themes we regularly cover.

Articles are distributed on our social channels and optimized for search engine discovery and ranking. Many of our authors cite their published articles on Gov1 as important to receiving conference speaking invites, work recognition and growing a professional network.

How to submit an article proposal

Before you submit an article, please send an email to the Gov1 editor. For each article you are proposing include:

  • Working title for the article;
  • 2-3 sentence description of the article;
  • Bullet list of key points;
  • Date article will be submitted by.

Include in the proposal an up-to-date resume/CV or brief bio.
We regularly consider article proposals for:

  • Analysis and opinion pieces on current events and breaking news;
  • Recaps of events or programs;
  • Analysis of local government-related research;
  • Product, movie or book reviews;
  • Process explainers – training, purchasing, leading teams, etc.;
  • Tips and best practices;
  • Incident reports;
  • Essays, poems, illustrations and cartoons.

How to submit an article for review

If a site editor accepts your proposed article idea(s), review and follow these important specifications for submission style and format. As you consider the format for your article, readers respond well to tips, resources, best practices and lists.

Gov1 article specifications:

  • Contributions must be unique and original writing that has not been previously submitted to other publications.
  • Each submission should be between 800 to 2,000 words submitted as a Microsoft Word.
  • Format text as Arial font, 12-point, single-space with breaks between paragraphs and one space after periods.

With your submission, please include:

  • A list of references in a publication-ready format at the end of the document. If a URL is available for the reference, please provide.
  • Include original photo(s) of related procedures or equipment with your submission.
  • Include a 3-5 sentence author biography.

Article editing and revision before publication

If the Gov1 editorial team determines the article matches the proposal, and meets our editorial needs and interests of readers, the editors will edit the document. In most cases, the edited document will be returned to you for approval of edits and required changes. After you return a revised document back to us, we will perform a final review and prepare the article for posting to Gov1 and schedule promotion to registered Gov1 members.

Finally, our regular columnists generally start as contributors. Based on the performance and quality of contributor submissions, we will consider bringing on a writer as a regular columnist.