Submit a post – guidelines

To read our blog, click on the banner header, or explore using the categories sidebar.

Want to submit a blog? Have you travelled or conducted interesting ethnobotanical projects recently or in the past? Through writing, are you thinking about anthropological theory and the ethicality of economic botany and/or ethnobotany?

Submit your proposals for a blog regarding your research, experiences, writing, photos, film, or other media to students@econbot.org cc’ing allasicanales@gmail.com and harriet.gendall@btinternet.com

Guidelines for blogposts

Please first approach us with a proposal to arrange a date for publication, as delays due to other publication commitments may lead to disappointment.

Communications all to Nataly Allasi Canales allasicanales@gmail.com and Harriet Gendall harriet.gendall@btinternet.com

To make it as hassle-free as possible for us to post, please use the following guidelines to submit a blog to the SEB Student blog:

•  Please submit the blog as a Word document (.doc)
• The blog can have a short and a longer format where the total length should not pass 1200 and 2000 words, respectively. And the minimum should be 600 words. Please discuss with us whether you plan to write a short or longer-form piece.
• Consider including the following additional details:
  • You may wish to include a 50-100 word bio describing yourself and what you do. 
  • Include links to your social media handles/website/email contact if you wish to share it on the blog.
  • Any links given in the interview to papers, videos, etc., should be written in full between parenthesis [] after the place you wish to be linked. E.g. In the inspirational Ted Talk [www.ted.com/mytalk]

• In addition, images must be attached to the email, with the following requirements:

• • Each image must have a caption describing what it is, plus the source permission (either Author’s own or the photographer/artist’s name/other sources), e.g. A Calendula flower. Image Author’s own
  • Images must be 2Mb minimum and 5Mb maximum. For the short blogs at least two and up to five pictures are advised, and for the long blogs at least five and up to twenty.
  • A landscape format picture is advised for the header image. The rest of the pictures can be either portraits or landscapes.
• A blog can also take the following forms: photo-essay, poems, songs, etc. If you have any similar ideas please discuss them with us and we will do our best to post your art.

‘How I Got Here’ interview Guidelines

Please first approach us with a proposal to arrange a date for publication, as delays due to other publication commitments may lead to disappointment.

Communications all to Nataly Allasi Canales allasicanales@gmail.com and Harriet Gendall harriet.gendall@btinternet.com

To make it as hassle-free as possible for us to post, please use the following guidelines to submit an interview to the SEB Student blog:

• Please submit the interview as a Word document (.doc)
• The interview should have a maximum of 2000 words excluding the bio (reading time of 15-25 min).
• You must also submit in the blog document, the following additional details:
  • A 50-100 word bio on the person being interviewed covering who and what they do. E.g. An interview with Andrea Pieroni, Professor of Ethnobotany at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo/Bra, Northern Italy and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine. 
  • Links to their website and Twitter/SM handles. (Also email contact if they want to share it on the blog)
  • Any links given in the interview to papers, videos, etc., should be written in full between parenthesis [] after the place you wish it to be linked. E.g I really enjoyed giving a Ted Talk on ethnobotany in 2019 [www.ted.com/mytalk]
  • Name and affiliation of the interviewee plus any links to their (non-commercial) websites/social media. E.g This interview was organised by Amy Smith, Ethnobotany Graduate, University of Jupiter. Follow her on Twitter @amyjupiter
• In addition, images need to be attached to the email as jpegs, at least with the following:
  • Image of them now for the header, with a caption.
  • Other images WITH captions that include source/permissions e.g. A Calendula flower. Image Author’s own.
  • Each image must have a caption describing what it is, plus the source.
  • Images must be 2Mb minimum and 5Mb maximum. 
  • A landscape format picture is advised for the header image. The rest of the pictures can be either portraits or landscapes.

You must allow the interviewee to see/edit a copy of the interview before forwarding to us with the email showing their permission to use that version.

The following questions are a guide, use all, some or none as you wish:

• Describe yourself in your own words. Do you consider yourself primarily an ethnobotanist or do you have another way of seeing yourself?
• Describe your work/what you see as your mission
• Did you ever think you would be an ethno/botanist growing up?[Or work with plants?] 
• What did you want to be when you were a child? If you were not an ethnobotanist, what would you be?
• What/where did you study? Do you think this influences you in any particular way?
• What got you interested in ethnobotany?
• What made you choose your current research themes of <<specific to interviewee>>
• Who was the most influential person(s) in your career? Was there ever an act of (kindness/fate) that changed your life course?
• What was the highlight of your career? A moment you were proud of?
• And a lowlight? Was there ever a point you looked at yourself and thought what am I doing/how the hell did I get here?
• What would be your top advice for a student of ethnobotany? (1 or 2 tips, or things you had wish you had known as a student)
• How do you see the future of ethnobotany? i.e. new trends, areas not yet researched, areas that are over-researched? What do you see as the most important mission of ethnobotany for the future?
• Favourite ethnobotanical researcher?
• Do you have any ‘must read’ ethnobotany books? 
• What do you do in your downtime? Any secret hobbies?
• What is your favourite plant and why?

*Finally, the student committee reserves the right not to publish submissions.