9Trees Blog Guidelines
How to write an amazing blog with us!
Who do we write for?
A general audience - intelligent, curious but not experts
What do we write about?
Many things!
From planting trees in your back garden to eco-anxiety, tackling the climate crisis, and the work of 9Trees.
🕊️ Nature pieces educational blogs on everything biodiversity, ecology or climate change 🔗 Click here for examples! (some examples are not from 9Trees)
🌍 Living sustainably guidance blogs with achievable steps to lower your individual footprint
🔗 Click here for examples! (some examples are not from 9Trees)
🌅 Reasons for hope inspirational blogs about the environmental success stories out there
🔗 Click here for examples! (some examples are not from 9Trees)
🗒️ Policy explored factual blogs which dissect existing policies and explore areas for improvement
🔗 Click here for examples! (some examples are not from 9Trees)
🔎 9Trees in focus promotional blogs which explore the work and philosophy of 9Trees
🔗 Click here for examples! (some examples are not from 9Trees)
Choosing topics
The 9Trees blog hub has a list of topics that we need written. Ideally, we need to get the ‘high priority’ ones here done first. Alternatively, if you have a burning desire to write your own topic, please do send your suggestion to info@9trees.org with:
Your general story idea in a one-paragraph proposal
What category it falls into
Intended length (number of words not pages)
Proposed title
Writing style
We are telling stories - true ones and important ones - to a general audience. As such, draw your reader in, and engage them with what you are writing.
Creativity is very much encouraged! And please do feel free to develop your unique style.
For an almost exhaustive list of hints and tips, go to this document.
What you must include
4 photos minimum per post or a photo whenever there is a change of topic or a large block of text (even if all of that text relates to only one topic). See this for a good example.
The web address of all photos used and, if available, the photographer's name.
Note: if you don’t have original photos to accompany your article, you can use royalty-free stock photos (only those with an Attribution-free Creative Commons license). You can find some on Flickr, Pixabay, or Pexels
See this for a good example.
Include links to all resources that you refer to (i.e. news articles, journal papers, websites)
If possible, try to link your article to other 9Trees articles e.g. “for more on this, please check out x blog”
Things to avoid
Avoid unnecessary repetition or out-of-the-blue jumps from one paragraph to another.
Connect sentences and paragraphs together - flow is key!
Avoid acronyms or write it in full the first time you use it e.g. if your blog is about nature deficit disorder, write it in full the first time, putting the acronym in brackets “Nature Deficit Disorder (NDD)”. Now that you have introduced the acronym, you can use it.
Avoid jargon or spell it out if it is necessary
Avoid jumping straight in with technical details; ease them in slowly
Avoid Latin names unless the species you're talking about doesn’t have a common name
Admin stuff
Before you start writing, please email us at info@9trees.org so we can go through your topic and set a timeframe. (FYI - timeframes are more a ballpark estimate and we're very flexible with this)
Once you’ve written the blog, email it to us and we’ll proofread it/ suggest changes, and then get it up on the website!
Good luck with your writing!
We hope this was helpful but if you have any questions,
please email us at info@9trees.org
we’ll be really happy to help!