Write For the Tech.

If you are a friend, an enemy, or even a vague acquaintance of mine, you have likely heard me tell you to write for the Tech. And yet my research has shown the vast majority of you have never written for the tech! What utter disgrace, frankly I’m disappointed. So in an effort to convince more of you to write for the tech I have written a very comprehensive guide about how to write for the tech.

Step 0. Find a topic (optional). Find something you’re passionate about or something you think people need to know. No longer do your rants have to be confined to your preferred messaging app or 2am in the lounge, now all of campus can see it! Want to write a Tech article anyway but don’t know what to write about? We have a page for that, tech.caltech.edu/write. Snag an article from there and write to your heart’s content. Indecisive or just need to be told what to do? Find an editor and tell them you want to write for the tech, if they don’t find you an article to write please report them to the editor in chief.

Step 1. Decide what type of article you want to write. We have so many options for you! You could write a letter to the editor complaining about the last issue. You could write an opinion piece about anything you have opinions about, or even about things other people have opinions about that annoy you. Or you could write the news! Write about things happening on campus! You could even just write about how great your house’s social events are to make everyone else jealous.

Step 1.5. Research (optional). If you’re writing news, you should probably do some interviews. It’s very easy I promise, all you have to do its email the relevant people “interview for the tech pls 👉👈 “ and hope they get back to you before your deadline. If you’re writing an opinion piece, you might not need to do research, but it would probably help you know what you’re talking about. We here at the Tech have a very strict “no publishing garbage lies” policy that you might run into if you try to write an opinion piece with no true content in it.

Step 2. Write. My preferred way to write an article is to go into a brain fugue for about an hour clickity clacking my keyboard. This method does not work for everyone. Articles can be whatever length you want, but if you’re a numbers sort of person around 300 to absolute max of 2000. Clarity and concision are important, as is grammar, but this is what we pay editors for. Ideally you would do this step before the deadline. Don’t make our editors sad they are easily frightened.

Step 3. Submit. Give us your words. Please we crave the words. You can submit articles at tech.caltech.edu/submit, send your article to an editor or tape it to the wedding cake between 11pm and midnight every Thursday after we publish. Please note if you do this you will not be paid and probably won’t be published.

Step 4. ?????

Step 5. Profit. We pay people to write! Please please write please we pay.

Now to address some common concerns I have heard.

I’m not good at writing. Nonsense. If you are literate, we’ll take you. The tech is not a literary journal we do not publish based on skill with the English language. I mean look at me, I don’t even know how to words.

It doesn’t matter/It won’t make a difference. Maybe you have been complaining about something going on around campus but don’t want to write for the tech because it “won’t fix the problem”. Nonsense. Do you think the journalist covering the tree that fell by red door last year expected their words to unfell the tree? News needs to be covered for the good of the populous, not just to enact change. Plus, how much change do you expect to come about from not writing the article? Documentation is important. Don’t let someone 10 years from now who wants to know what the climate was like now down because you wouldn’t write about your complaints just because “it wont matter”. Also, it could make a difference. If a change is enacted on campus that is unpopular and written about in the tech it is possible it will be rescinded. You cannot generalize to say your article will not make a difference. Oopsises my shitpost got a bit serious. Back to your regularly scheduled babbling.

I don’t have time. Well this one is probably true, and I can’t really magic you more time. Maybe you should try procrastinating your sets by writing for the tech? Although if you do manage to find more free time you should use it to play interhouse sports.