- The Smog is a magazine that runs on user-submitted content. Without intelligent, creative users to submit articles, we wouldn't get anywhere. That's where you come in!
- The Smog has moved away from accepting applications for staff membership. To get involved, just submit articles. If your articles are good, you will eventually become part of The Smog staff.
- Don't be afraid to submit! We have plenty of talented writers who are more than willing to help you shape up your writing skills. It might take a bit of time, but you'll get there.
1. Articles
- Battling theory
- Battling Strategies
- Team building process / theory
- Maths / Statistics of Pokémon
- In-game processes (e.g. breeding, chaining)
While these are very broad categories, you are not limited to them. Articles should relate to Pokémon or Smogon in some way. As a rule, if you can write an interesting and in-depth analysis or a humorous or an entertaining tale, then your topic is probably OK.
2. Editorials
These can be about almost anything you like, even if it is not Pokémon related. Feel free to write about anything ranging from Pokémon to politics to Potpourri. Keep in mind, however, that these should be well written, and should back up claims with evidence. No one wants to read "Squirtle is the best Pokémon. How can you not like water gun. It just looks really cool so you have to like squirtle!"
3. Art
We encourage users to send in as much of their art as they want. Spectacular art will be shown off in a "Spectacular Art" section in which we will display the best art that Smogon has to offer!
Art can be sent to Jimbo at any time before the deadline via Smogon PM.
We encourage users to send in as much of their art as they want. Spectacular art will be shown off in a "Spectacular Art" section in which we will display the best art that Smogon has to offer!
4. Warstories
We request that you send us your best warstories for publication in the magazine! We will only be publishing one in each issue, so be sure to send us you best. Note that we will only be accepting warstories that have not been posted already. This should be new content.
*For this issue you should PM Seven Deadly Sins or Jimbo with your warstory submissions.*
5. Other Articles
- A "Q&A" section in which users will pose questions which we will do our best to answer. This section is handled in the "Question and Answer" thread in this forum.
- "Metagame Prediction": in this section we ask users to predict the future of the metagame and keep track of the results. For more information, see the "Metagame Prediction" thread in this forum.
- The following articles will appear in every issue, but will be handled by The Smog staff.
- A featured RMT thread.
- OU Metagame Analysis.
- UU Metagame Analysis
- Ubers Metagame Analysis
- A Featured Pokémon
- A CAP report
- A Tournaments Report
- A Suspect Test Report
- Interview a Smogoner
We will be organizing the actual magazine in a private forum on Smogon. There, we will make grammar and structure revisions, plan the layout, and discuss management issues. The purpose of the private forum is to prevent people from seeing the articles beforehand (what fun would that be?). This is the same reason that articles are to be submitted via PM, instead of being publicly posted.
General Information
- We expect all submissions to adhere to standard english grammar and spelling, or at the very least demonstrate a clear attempt on your end to adhere to them. If you can't find time to spellcheck it, we won't find time to read it. Be sure to review the Standards for Grammar, Spelling, etc and What a Good Writer Looks Out For threads. This goes without saying, but absolutely no leetspeak under any circumstances.
- All submissions should be of the same quality as any on-site Article or Guide. While the prose is expected to be a bit more informal and personal for this setting, we still expect professionalism.
- Know your stuff. Lots of things in Pokémon sound nice in theory, but are just nonsense when it comes to competitive battling. We aren't interesting in gimmicks or theorymon, we are interested in intelligent submissions based on knowledge and experience. This applies equally for anything that isn't Pokémon-related.
Submission Rules
Forum Guidelines
- Your article will not be published just because you submit it. We expect it to be both relevant and interesting, and somewhat in-depth.
- We have editors, so your articles do not have to be perfect, but try to take some pride in your writing style. Articles with poor prose or an unbearable number of typos will not be accepted.
- Certain articles (such as the metagame analyses) will be written by our staff. Do not submit any of these articles. A full list is included in the guidelines thread, which is stickied in this forum.
- You may work on your articles in pairs / groups / whatever. However, we will not have multiple users working on different versions of the same article. If your article idea is rejected for this reason we will tell you.
- Send a PM to Jimbo which gives a brief description of the topic. It is encouraged that you also submit a summary or rough draft. You will not get approval if your PM is sent less than two weeks before the release date.
- Feel free to write at your own pace, but articles must be completed at least one week before the release date (the release date is always the second Saturday of the month).
- Upon completion, articles should be submitted to either Seven Deadly Sins Jimbo. If it is a CAP-project related article, you should submit the article to tennisace. At that point it will be moved to a private section of the forum for minor editing and revision. If it meets our standards, it will be published in the next Smogon magazine!
- Do not post submissions to "The Smog" in this forum. If you would like to submit an article, PM Jimbo, Seven Deadly Sins, or jumpluff.
- The Magazine Q&A Thread is not the "Ask a simple question, get a simple answer" thread. Do not answer questions posted in this thread. These questions will be answered in detail in the next issue of "The Smog".
- All standard forum rules apply in this forum. Do not think that this is “Firebot II”.
