Submit Solar Blogs & Articles

We currently accept blogs and articles related to Ontario’s solar industry.  If you have any interesting topics that you would like to submit to Ontario Solar Academy, please read the following guidelines first and then follow the submission directions towards the bottom of the page.

Citations & Sourcing

1.    All content must be factually correct and properly sourced.  This means that any stats, facts, and figures need to be hyperlinked to the original source (ex: “The new module by Acme Solar is 46% more efficient than…..”).

2.    Whenever the original source is not available online or if the fact came from “internal” calculations, please indicate this, (“According to Acme Solar’s internal calculations, its new module is 46% more efficient than….”)

3.    You only need to hyperlink once per source.  So if multiple facts come from the same source, just hyperlink the first fact mentioned.

4.    What constitutes a fact, figure, or stat?  If the reader could ever conceivably think to himself, “How does the writer know that Acme is about to invest $1 million in this project” or “How does the writer know that Ontario is going to phase out coal plants by 2014″….then you need a hyperlink to the original source – preferably under the most important 1 to 4 words in the sentence (“invest $1 million”….”by 2014.”).

5.    All companies, organizations, projects, legislation, etc, with a Web site should be hyperlinked to the Homepage of that site on the first mention.  (“On June 5, Acme Solar announced that it would….”).

Content & Tone

1.    Please do not disparage or put down any other solar firms, government officials, agencies, etc.  You can be factually correct and objective without being overly critical.

2.    All pieces need to be relevant within Ontario’s solar market, although you are free to incorporate non-solar and non-Ontario elements.

3.    All pieces must cover stories from the past 1-7 days to be considered “news.”

4.    We strongly prefer not to publish duplicate content.  If a piece already exists online, it is best not to send it to us.  We prefer 1st access – anyone can publish the piece thereafter.

5.    When indicating dates and times, please do not use relative markers (last week, yesterday, next month) since our publishing schedule varies.  By the time your piece goes up, terms like “yesterday” no longer apply.  Better to use “In late August” or “On June 5.”

6.    All pieces should include at least one image (you can send it as an attachment – see below for submission details).  You must have proper access/permission to use this image.

Submitting

1.    When submitting your first piece, please include a 50-100 word bio (3rd person) and a headshot so we can assign this and all future pieces to your profile.

2.    We reserve the right to edit, change, or reject any piece sent to us.  Any major edits will be sent back for approval prior to publishing.

3.    All documents should be in MS Word, single-spaced, 12pt Arial, Helvetica, or Times New Roman.

4.    Please send all materials as attachments using this address.

Publishing

1.    All pieces sent to us will go up on Ontario Solar Academyprior to going up on www.ontariosolarnews.com.

2.    We regularly submit all articles originally published on Ontario Solar Academy to other distribution channels.  Whenever possible, we will make sure the original author’s name transfers with the piece, but sometimes, these other channels use existing profiles that we cannot change.  This means that a few pieces will be listed as “Staff Writer,” “Ontario Solar Academy,” or whatever username is attached to that particular profile.