Author: David Swiderski, PTCMW Blog Editor

Call for The Point Blog Contributors

The Point Blog is the official blog of the Personnel Testing Council of the Metropolitan Washington area (PTCMW), an organization dedicated to advancing the science and practice of industrial and organizational psychology through high-value professional growth and networking opportunities. The Point Blog strives to inform, educate, and entertain our membership and the broader community while maintaining our position as a creative, inclusive, and curious voice in the I/O psychology blogosphere.

The content that will reside on the blog will focus on the scientific study of human behavior in the workplace. Potential content areas will include topics typically discussed in a graduate industrial and organizational psychology program or at the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) annual conference. We aim to publish on a variety of topics within the field and encourage writers from diverse backgrounds to submit their ideas to expose our readership to a range of perspectives on the issues confronting our field. Submissions can come from members or non-members of PTCMW. Graduate students in industrial and organizational psychology or related fields are encouraged to contribute to the blog by submitting ideas for posts they would like to write on the blog. Leveraging our position as an evidence-based field, claims and arguments made on the blog should be backed by rigorous methodology and critical thought.

What Makes a Good Submission?

Submissions should be made via a Microsoft Word document submitted to blog@ptcmw.org. Submissions may come in the form of a quick summary of a research program or project, an applied approach to solving an organizational challenge, an opinion piece on an issue that the field is facing, or a perspective on a professional development experience that others would benefit from hearing. Submissions outside of these broad guidelines will be accepted but should be focused on topics related to industrial and organizational psychology. Examples of topics for post submissions include ideas like:

• A short summary of the findings from a recently published article examining “return to work” policies on employee engagement
• A high-level overview of a novel approach to a high-volume pre-hire assessment context within an organization
• A post challenging common assumptions about work motivation
• A personal account of formal and informal experiences learning a statistical programming language such as R or Python

When submitting an idea for The Point Blog, it is not necessary to submit a fully written post, but we should have enough information to evaluate whether it would be a good fit for the blog. A submission should be at least a paragraph in length (4-5 sentences), although longer submissions will be accepted. Please include the following elements in your submission:

• A summary of the main point of your post that includes any key takeaways that you will want readers to remember. This should include why readers would be excited to view your post and why it matters in the broader context of the field of industrial and organizational psychology.
• A brief description of the types of information you will be using to back your claims or tell your story. If you plan to include any tables or charts, include a description of how you’d like to present this information and how it supports your story (e.g., “I’d like to include a chart that shows the distribution of performance management ratings collected using two separate methodologies to demonstrate the impact of our new approach to performance management.”)
• A short post author biography and an email that we can use to contact you regarding your submission.

You are welcome to submit more than one idea for a blog post or to frame your idea as a series of blog posts, but please make it clear in your submission if this is the case.

What to Expect from Us?

As blog editors, it is our job to support you in a way that is transparent, efficient, and quality-focused. We will aim to make decisions on whether to proceed with turning a submission into a blog post within two weeks of receipt of the submission. If you do not receive a follow-up or acknowledgement from blog@ptcmw.org within two weeks of sending in your submission, please assume we are not interested. Editing times may vary depending on the content of the post and resources available to support the editing process, but in general we aim to publish content at least once per month.

Throughout the editing process, we’ll be thinking about the following:

• How does the post align with the objectives of The Point Blog and with PTCMW?
• Is the idea worthy of professional discourse (i.e., could the post be the focus of a 10–15-minute conversation with a colleague at school, work, or other professional settings)?
• How does the piece reinforce, add to, or reshape public knowledge on the content area?
• Is there a clear takeaway or a clear sense of the story being told?
• How does the evidence submitted illustrate the points being made?
• How well does the writing adhere to the style guidelines and grammatical conventions?

Style Guidelines

To create a unified voice and appearance for our readers, there are a few things you should try to keep in mind while writing a post for The Point Blog.

• Blog posts will follow the latest American Psychological Association (APA) style guidelines for in-text citations and references.
• Given the debate and diversity surrounding the name of our field, we believe it is important to note that any references to the field should be written as “industrial and organizational psychology” and should be abbreviated as “I/O psychology”.
• Avoid gendered terms (e.g., “mankind”) or terms that assume a person’s gender (e.g., use “parenthood” instead of “motherhood/fatherhood”).
• Avoid ableist language (e.g., “tone-deaf”, “blind to…”, “crazy”). These terms are exclusionary and could likely be said in a different way.
• When giving examples, use “e.g.” to reference an incomplete list that is part of a larger list of items. Use “i.e.” when restating a phrase to clarify an earlier statement.
• Abbreviations and acronyms: Always spell these out on first reference. Include a parenthetical of the acronym if you think it won’t be obvious for the reader.
• Numbers: Outside of tables and figures, write out the numbers one through nine. Use numerals for numbers 10 and above unless they’re the first word in a sentence.

Thank you for taking the time to consider submitting to The Point Blog and we hope to bring our readers content that will enrich their professional development and strengthen the connections among those in our community.