An important point to keep in mind when pitching is that editors are looking for stories, not topics.
“We do often get pitches that are a topic [rather than a story]. That doesn’t mean that the pitch is going to be rejected, it just means that there’s a bit of extra work [to be done],” Hoag explains. “So rather than just ‘High water levels on the Great Lakes’, you could phrase it as ‘This is a story about how the public response to high water levels on the Great Lakes is actually threatening us more,’ or something like that.”
Hoag suggests imagining how you would tell your story to people you know. “If you were sitting down with your friends or family you’d say, ‘This is a story about…’ and you could start the sentence that way. That may not be the way you actually pitch it but try to turn it into a single sentence that captures the key elements of what you want to write about.”
Once your pitch is accepted, it’s time to get writing. You’ll be given an assignment to write a certain number of words based on the story you outlined in your pitch.
For The Conversation, this runs around 800 words, whereas Massive Science usually aims for between 900 and 1200 words, unless there’s a compelling reason for a longer story.
Writers for Massive Science who have no previous experience writing for the public will be asked to do some exercises “that help them break their story down to key bullet points, a strong hook, and helps them identify an audience. An editor gives them feedback and then they write a draft with that guidance in mind,” Samorodnitsky explains. How long you’ll be given to write depends on who you’re writing for and what the story is.
“The deadline could be as short as a few hours [for breaking news] to several weeks for an evergreen story or one that’s tied to a more distant event or publication,” says Hoag. Samorodnitsky says that Massive Science tries to work with the writer’s schedule, but usually likes drafts to be done within a few days.
As with academic articles, any information you use to make your arguments should be backed up by linked sources. Once a draft is submitted to an editor, it gets edited for structure, clarity, and excess jargon, as well as having links checked to ensure they support the facts presented. Drafts may go through multiple rounds of revision before being approved.