Writing for TheLancetStudent.com
Although we cannot pay you for what we publish, we do offer a free online subscription to TheLancet.com (with access to ALL Lancet content) to every author of an article published on this site.

We want to publish articles from you on various global health topics, and you can write in a variety of ways.

For example, factual, well researched, and relatively brief articles which include a clear message or point (Editorials), longer more journalistic articles where you can include interviews with appropriate people or organisations (Features), and shorter pieces where you can tell us what you really think about a particular global health issue (Viewpoints). We also hope to publish interviews with prominent global health experts (Profiles).

However, as most medical students go on an Elective at some point, it may be easiest to start off with an Elective report.

Elective reports are published in the Elective section of TheLancetStudent.com while all other types of articles are in the Article section.

How to submit?
More details about each type of article are below but we also advise you to email student@lancet.com with your ideas and briefs BEFORE you start writing so that we can give you some hints and pointers about the topic, and style of writing, you have chosen to help improve your work and increase your chances of being published on TheLancetStudent.com.

So why not have a think now about what you want to write about? It may help to read our writing guidelines below, and view the Articles we have already published so that you have a better idea about what we are after.

Once you are happy with your piece, please submit to us at student@lancet.com

Our Review Process
All submissions are now reviewed by our student reviewers from around the world (if you are interested in becoming a reviewer yourself, please email student@lancet.com for more information) and one Lancet editor (Rhona). .

We aim to get back to you as soon as we can but please note that due to a large volume of submissions, we may not be able to contact you for a week or so.

We may ask you to revise your article in light of the reviewer comments and we would appreciate a fast turn around for this.

If we decide to publish your submission, it will be lightly edited and posted on the site in the Article section with a unique URL so that you can easily find and cite it. If we decide not to publish your submission, we will give you some feedback and tips on how to improve your writing in the future.

More Information
Elective Reports
We want this section to be a useful resource to all students. Therefore, as you all have very different experiences of your electives, we have decided to make this an “anything goes” section so elective reports can now be as long or as short as you like (within reason), remain unedited (unless for typos or MASSIVELY long etc), and will no longer be peer reviewed by our student reviewers. It is your chance to write an honest, personal, and informative account of your elective and to show off some of your photos. So in addition to details of where you went and what you did, witnessed, and experienced etc, please include some useful information for others. All elective reports must also include a short paragraph about what you learned from your experience. Although not imperative, we strongly encourage you to submit photos with your reports (as separate attachments NOT embedded please!). Please note that if any photos are of patients, you will need to provide us with some evidence of their consent.

Editorials
These are 800 word articles with a maximum of 10 references. References should be in Vancouver style: that is, numbers in the text corresponding to a numbered list at the end. Editorials should be informative, balanced and focus on some main points or themes. You can also submit a photo or graphic that you would like to go with it (as a separate attachment NOT embedded in the Editorial please!).

Features
These are written more informally than editorials—more like magazine features. You can include interviews with relevant people etc and cover one aspect of a topic in more depth. They are up to 1000 words long with a maximum of 10 references (Vancouver). We would greatly welcome acompanying photos with this type of article, again NOT embedded please, but as a seperate attachment.

Viewpoints
This is where you get to sound off—in 400 words.

Profiles
Please run ALL of your ideas for subjects of profiles by us first by emailing student@lancet.com. Please include a very short biog of your subject and a brief explanation of why you think this person would make a good subject for a profile. You will need to interview your subject so you will need to take the initiative in how to contact them to arrange this. The actual profile should be 600 words long and include quotes from the subject. There also MUST be a photo of them and you will need to arrange this. Thanks!

Perspectives
This is a bit of a mix but are more essay-like. Here you can write in greater depth about a subject or  interesting experience and how this has shaped your views. The word count for this is variable.

General Writing Tips
Here are our top writing tips which you may find useful

1. Write in the first person and in the active tense, for example, NOT “it is recommended that…” but rather, “I recommend…”, or “WHO recommends …”

2. Don’t overcomplicate your writing - keep it simple, and short! Don’t use three words where one will do.

3. If using other sources, ALWAYS reference them (Vancouver style please) and NEVER pass off as your own work. You don’t want to be accused of plagiarising other people’s work which is a major offence (and one which TheLancetStudent.com takes very seriously), and could wreck your career. Definitely NOT worth it!