Truth Before Texture
Style matters, but it cannot rescue weak facts. Verify the concrete details first; polish comes after the piece knows what it is saying.
Epigram Publications
Editorial standards for work that deserves the reader's trust.
A practical charter for essays, reports, blogs, issue pieces, posters, submissions, corrections, and the admin decisions that decide what becomes public.
Editorial Charter
Epigram publishes student work with institutional memory, public care, and a serious respect for the reader.
The goal is not to sound important. The goal is to be useful, readable, accurate, and alive. A strong Epigram piece should help someone understand a debate, a campus event, an argument, a book, a policy, a cultural moment, or the work of the society with more clarity than they had before opening it.
Argument With Discipline
Opinion is welcome when it is argued. A strong claim needs reasons, examples, and an honest sense of what a thoughtful reader might object to.
Campus Without Gossip
Reports should make public life clearer, not turn students into spectacle. Write about actions, decisions, records, and accountable public roles.
Editorial Voice, Not Noise
The house tone is confident, plain, observant, and humane. Avoid inflated language, fake grandeur, filler, and borrowed prestige.
Access Is Editorial Work
Readable typography, useful headings, image descriptions, captions, and mobile layout are not decoration. They decide who can read the work.
What We Publish
Every format has a job. The standard changes with the job.
Editors should classify work correctly before review. A report is not an opinion piece. A blog is not a press release. A poster is not a substitute for context.
Reported or researched article
Best for campus life, debate culture, student initiatives, public events, interviews, and researched explainers.
- Needs a clear central question or finding.
- Needs named sources, documents, interviews, or direct observation where relevant.
- Needs context for readers outside the immediate room.
Essay or argument
Best for interpretation, criticism, response, campus argument, public affairs, debate analysis, and cultural reflection.
- Needs an arguable thesis, not just a mood.
- Needs reasons and examples.
- Needs fairness toward people or institutions being criticized.
Shorter voice-led piece
Best for personal reflections, reading notes, informal cultural commentary, and timely responses.
- Can be looser in structure, but not lazy with facts.
- Should still have a beginning, turn, and landing.
- Should not use diary energy to avoid editorial clarity.
Event report or debate recap
Best for competitions, open debates, workshops, screenings, collaborations, forums, and campus events.
- Needs date, venue, organizer, format, speakers, and outcome.
- Needs the strongest moments, not a minute-by-minute dump.
- Needs a poster or cover image whenever available.
Publication issue or collection
Best for bundled editorial work, recurring columns, special projects, PDF issues, and themed releases.
- Needs a theme, editor's note, issue cover, and ordered contents.
- Needs consistent metadata across every included piece.
- Needs final proofing as one package, not only as separate articles.
Transcript, episode note, or media feature
Best for interviews, podcasts, debate recordings, livestreams, highlight clips, and broadcast explainers.
- Needs host, guest, date, series, platform link, and summary.
- Needs transcript support when possible.
- Needs fair description of what viewers or listeners will get.
Submission Expectations
A submission should arrive with enough information for an editor to make a real decision.
Editors should not have to guess the author's name, the intended section, whether an image can be used, or what the piece is trying to do. If a contributor is new, the form should guide them; if a contributor is experienced, the standards should challenge them.
What is this piece and why should it exist now?
A pitch should identify the subject, angle, format, likely sources, and why Epigram's readers should care. "I want to write about debate" is not an angle. "What open debates teach first-year speakers about losing well" is closer.
The draft must be readable before it is beautiful.
Editors may improve structure, rhythm, and headline language. They should not have to rescue a piece that has no thesis, no facts, and no sense of audience.
Posters and covers need permission, context, and alt text.
Upload JPG, PNG, or WebP files that are clear, relevant, and publishable. If a poster has text, the article should still include the key details in actual page text.
Do not submit what you cannot publish.
Work must be original or properly credited. Images must be owned by the contributor, cleared by the organizer, created by Epigram, or licensed for publication.
Writing Standard
The piece should feel edited, not merely uploaded.
Epigram's editorial standard is not stiffness. It is control: every paragraph earns its space, every claim knows its basis, and every flourish has a job.
Lead
Open with the subject, the tension, the scene, or the question. Do not spend the first paragraph warming up.
Thesis
The reader should be able to say what the piece is about after the first few paragraphs.
Structure
Use sections, turns, and transitions. A list of thoughts is not a structure.
Evidence
Support claims with observation, documents, interviews, data, direct experience, or careful reasoning.
Voice
Prefer sharp plain language over inflated language. Sound like a thoughtful person, not a poster caption.
Ending
End by clarifying the consequence of the piece. Avoid sudden moral summaries that could belong to any article.
Accuracy And Sources
Trust is built in boring places: spelling, dates, links, quotes, numbers, and captions.
The easiest way to lose reader trust is to mishandle a small fact. Editors must check the small facts because readers use them to judge the larger work.
Claim Type
Minimum Standard
Before Publishing
Names, offices, departments
Use the person's preferred public name and correct role.
Confirm from the person, event poster, official page, or society record.
Check spelling, initials, titles, and capitalization.
Dates, venues, results
Readers use these details as the public record.
Confirm against event material, minutes, registration forms, or organizers.
Verify day, month, year, room, block, and final outcome.
Quotes and interviews
Quotes must preserve meaning and not create a false impression.
Use recordings, notes, written replies, or approved quote text.
Check attribution, context, and whether the quote was on record.
Numbers and rankings
Numbers invite authority. They need a source.
Use official tab sheets, registrations, published results, or named organizers.
State limitations if the data is partial or informal.
Allegations or criticism
Serious claims require serious handling.
Escalate to senior editors. Seek response where fair and possible.
Remove loaded wording, check evidence, and document the editorial decision.
Ethics
Be independent, fair, and careful with people who did not ask to become content.
Epigram can be lively without being careless. Criticism should be aimed at work, public decisions, arguments, performances, institutions, and accountable roles. Avoid turning private students into props for public writing.
Conflicts of Interest
Disclose if the author, editor, photographer, or approving admin is directly involved in the event, team, campaign, dispute, or publication subject. Disclosure does not always prevent publication; secrecy does.
Privacy And Consent
Do not publish private contact details, medical information, personal accusations, classroom incidents, or sensitive images without a clear public-interest reason and senior editorial approval.
Right Of Reply
When a piece makes a serious criticism of a named person, office, organization, or event team, give them a fair chance to respond before publication whenever possible.
Corrections
If a published piece contains an error, correct it promptly. For substantive changes, add a correction note with what changed and when.
Removals
Remove or unpublish only for strong reasons: legal risk, privacy risk, clear factual failure, rights issues, duplicate publication, or a decision by senior editors.
Respectful Language
Use precise, inclusive language. Do not rely on stereotypes, slurs, personal attacks, or jokes that ask marginalized people to carry the cost of the sentence.
Images, Posters, And Media
A poster can attract attention. It cannot replace editorial context.
Images should help the reader understand the work. The page must still carry the essential details in text for search, accessibility, and clarity.
File
Use JPG for posters when possible. PNG and WebP are acceptable for artwork, screenshots, and web images. Avoid tiny, blurred, stretched, or heavily compressed files.
Rights
Use images created by Epigram, submitted by the author, cleared by an event organizer, or licensed for publication. Do not use random social media images without permission.
Caption
Captions should identify the event, people if relevant, photographer or source, and date when known. Do not caption with vague hype.
Alt Text
Alt text should describe what is visually important. If a poster contains essential text, repeat that information in the article body as well.
Manipulation
Do not publish edits that mislead the reader about what happened. Cropping, exposure correction, and layout preparation are fine; invented evidence is not.
Credits
Credit photographers, designers, organizers, and partner institutions when the information is available.
Editorial Workflow
From submission to publication, every piece needs an accountable path.
The workflow should be simple enough for students to use and strict enough that public pages do not become an unreviewed upload board.
01
Intake
Submission enters the public portal or is created by an editor in the admin portal.
02
Triage
Editor checks format, relevance, rights confirmation, image quality, and whether the piece belongs in Articles, Blog, Reports, Issues, or Airwaves.
03
Editorial Review
Editor checks thesis, structure, clarity, tone, facts, sources, quotes, and any conflicts of interest.
04
Author Revision
Contributor revises when the piece needs additional reporting, clearer argument, proof, captions, or permissions.
05
Copy Edit
Editor fixes headline, deck, paragraph rhythm, grammar, style, tags, section, slug, excerpt, and image alt text.
06
Approval
Senior editor or authorized admin confirms the piece is ready and publishes or schedules it.
07
Promotion
Social caption, poster, Instagram story, newsletter line, or Airwaves tie-in should match the published piece accurately.
08
Archive
Published work should remain findable by title, author, section, date, content type, and related event where relevant.
Admin Publishing Standard
Admins are not just pressing publish. They are protecting the public record.
Any admin who makes text, article content, reports, posters, images, event listings, or publication issues visible to visitors is responsible for the checklist below.
Choose the correct destination: article, blog, report, publication issue, event, notice, broadcast, or resource. Do not publish everything as a generic article.
Confirm the item is meant to be public. Pending submissions and drafts should remain offline until approved.
Use a specific title and a short summary. Avoid all caps, vague slogans, and summaries that repeat the title.
Upload the correct JPG, PNG, or WebP. Check that it renders, has alt text, and matches the content being published.
For events and reports, verify the date, time, venue, organizer, division, and whether the event is upcoming or past.
Use tags readers can actually browse: Debates, Campus, Opinion, Reports, Airwaves, Events, Workshops, Interviews, or Issues.
Test YouTube, Spotify, PDF, article, social, form, and external links before publishing.
Open the public page after saving. Check mobile layout, title wrapping, image crop, and whether the item appears in the right archive.
Style Guide
Small rules keep the archive clean.
The house style should help readers move through the site without noticing friction.
Names
Spell names exactly as the person publicly uses them. Confirm class, department, and office before publishing.
Dates
Use day, date, month, and year for event reports when possible. Avoid vague dating such as "recently" unless the piece is deliberately informal.
Headlines
Use clear, specific headlines. A headline should tell the reader the subject or argument, not just the mood.
Decks
Use one or two sentences that add context. Do not repeat the headline with different adjectives.
Quotes
Do not clean quotes so aggressively that the speaker sounds unlike themselves. Light edits for clarity are acceptable when meaning is preserved.
Links
Link to primary sources, related Epigram pages, partner pages, public forms, PDFs, and recordings where useful.
Capitalization
Use official names for Epigram, St. Joseph's University, Epigram Publications, Epigram Airwaves, and named events.
Length
Publish the length the piece earns. Short is acceptable. Long is acceptable. Padded is not.
Software-Assisted Drafting
Tools can help the process. They cannot replace authorship, reporting, or editorial judgment.
Epigram should publish work that has a human author accountable for the argument, facts, sources, and final language.
Allowed
Grammar checks, outline support, transcription cleanup, formatting help, headline brainstorming, and translation assistance when reviewed carefully by the author.
Requires Disclosure
Substantial machine assistance in drafting, translation, image generation, data summary, or interview transcription should be disclosed to the editor.
Not Acceptable
Fabricated quotes, invented sources, generated reporting, undisclosed ghostwritten submissions, fake images presented as documentary evidence, or work the author cannot explain.
Review Checklist
Publish only when the answer is yes.
This is the practical checklist editors and admins should use before approving any article, blog, report, issue, event feature, or media post.
Editorial Readiness
- The piece has a clear purpose, thesis, or news value.
- The structure helps the reader move through the argument or report.
- The headline and deck are specific, accurate, and restrained.
- The tone sounds human, edited, and appropriate for the subject.
- The ending adds clarity rather than a generic moral.
Accuracy
- Names, titles, offices, departments, dates, venues, and outcomes are checked.
- Quotes are attributed correctly and preserve intended meaning.
- Numbers, rankings, statistics, and claims have a source.
- Serious criticism has evidence and a fair chance for response where needed.
- Links open and point to the correct destination.
Media And Accessibility
- Cover image or poster is publishable and relevant.
- Image rights or organizer permission are clear.
- Alt text describes the image usefully.
- Captions and credits are included where needed.
- Essential poster text also appears as page text.
Admin Metadata
- Correct content type, section, tags, author, date, and status are selected.
- Slug or URL is readable and not misleading.
- Featured status is intentional, not accidental.
- Event items are marked upcoming or past correctly.
- Public page preview has been opened after saving.
Decision
Use When
Next Step
Publish
The piece is accurate, readable, complete, properly tagged, and has cleared image and rights checks.
Approve, publish or schedule, then verify the public page.
Revise
The idea is good but needs clearer structure, stronger sourcing, better images, or author clarification.
Send specific edits. Avoid vague feedback like "make it better."
Hold
The piece has unresolved factual, ethical, rights, or conflict issues.
Keep offline. Escalate to senior editors or society leadership if needed.
Decline
The work is plagiarized, fabricated, unsafe, irrelevant, malicious, or impossible to verify.
Reject politely. Keep an internal note on why the decision was made.
Editorial Contact
Questions should move through the editorial desk, not vanish in chat.
Use the submission portal for new work, the admin portal for review, and the contact page for collaboration, corrections, or rights questions.