Dusted Magazine

As a student magazine written by students, for students, the content of the magazine is decided by you. If you have identified a topic or issue that has not been covered or you dissagree with a previous article, now is your time to do something about it. As well as giving you the oppurtunity to put your view point across, the magazine will offer you the opportunity to gain valuable experience in journalism and more importantly the chance to have fun. Let me just give you a brief introduction into the magazine which is the biggest form of media we create. Remember your Student Union needs you.

Simon Moss– Vice President of Communications

What is Dusted?

Dusted is the magazine for students of the University of Derby. Over the last couple of years the magazine has undergone major improvements with its new glossy look and new colour coded sections. The magazine is only as good as its contributions and that is why you are so important.

Who writes for Dusted?

Dusted is a student magazine, which is written by the students, for the students. All students have the oppurtunity to write for the magazine and it is entirely up to you what you write about. My role is to ensure that deadlines are met, contributions are received and that the magazine is distributed to all students. I am also here to offer you guidance and support regarding any ideas you may have and any problems you come across. 

How is it Distributed?

Dusted is distributed to all of the different teaching sites that are affiliated with the University of Derby. Dusted will also be distributed to all the halls of residence sites, as well as having presence in the bars frequented by students within Derby City Centre. Buxton will also be having their own smaller publication this year, specific to Buxton covering Buxton issues. It is called The Word Buxton.

Why should you get involved with Dusted?

Getting involved with Dusted is a great way to boost personal development in a number of areas:

• If you are interested in journalism, it is a great way to gain experience for future employment.
• If you enjoy writing, Dusted gives you the opportunity to showcase your talents to a massive audience.
• You can be part of a team that work closely together in producing an award winning publication.
• Dusted acts as a vehicle to for you to vent issues you may have to the student population.

Alongside this it is also a very worthwhile area to become involved in. You can be as heavily or a lightly involved as you want, but any involvement you have will have a massive positive impact to the Union. Not only that, it is a great aspect of interest and development to highlight on your CV’s, which can only be a good thing to show.

When do you meet for Dusted?

As an editorial team, we will be holding fortnightly contributors meetings, at 5.00pm in Blends, to discuss the progression of the magazine throughout the year. At these meetings, I will distribute material that I have received and chat to you guys about any developments that may have occurred during that week. But do not worry, these meetings will not just be me talking to you, there will also be many opportunities for you to ask me any questions and highlight your ideas and speak to me about any aspect of the magazine, whether that be something you want to write or something that may need changing – have your say.

Word Counts and Rules

Dusted is a very successful magazine and I know that it will stay successful and continue to grow from strength to strength because of your hard work and commitment and contributions. The following information is a simple guideline to ensure that the work you submit is of a fantastic standard and will make great reading. As I say, it is only a guideline so please don’t feel confined by it. Just make your work yours, everyone has their own style of writing so use it. The sub-editors and I will be able to give you further guidance too if you need it.

To make life a little easier for us at the design stage, I ask you to read these few points and to try and stick to them. It makes the compiling of Dusted more straightforward, so that your writing can be thoroughly enjoyed.

Keep text and pictures separate…

If you’re submitting digital pictures with your article, please don’t paste them into the word file. This makes it more difficult for us to extract and use. A separate JPEG file is preferred - however if you feel you need to place the images in the article to show a specific place they should be used we’d like to ask for the original file to be included as a separate JPEG file as well.

Don’t double space after full stops…

Modern fonts have Kerning information embedded in them. Double spaces are a leftover from the days of typewriters - they leave unsightly gaps with digital fonts and cause problems with justification and layout work.

Don’t use lots of spaces instead of tab…

All submissions need to be re-set for the magazine, if you need to format your article then use tabs or tables in Word as these are easier to edit than using spaces to move text.

Don’t overuse dots – you only need three!

Elipsis is 3 full stops. Not 2. Not 4. Not as many as you can press. Learn it

Only use one exclamation mark…

As cool as this looks!!!!!!!!! It’s annoying and uses up space that could be more of your writing. Try to stick to one exclamation mark and one question mark per sentence.

Images:

Although it can be a pain, it is also important that should you want specific images within your article, you need to submit them with it. In the past the design team has been made to spend too much of their time searching for images to match articles when it is really the job of the contributor to do this. Should the contributor not submit images then the relevant sub-editor should do so.

Accreditations:

Please, Please, Please make sure you put your name at the bottom of your articles, or reviews or anything else that you have written for the magazine. Otherwise nobody will ever know it was you who wrote that piece!

Spelling & Grammar:

It is important to make your writing as clear and concise as you can. Using the correct punctuation and ensuring that there are no spelling mistakes within your piece of writing is also massively important. It is also a good idea to proof read your article two or three times and then maybe get someone else to read it through and pick out any mistakes you may have made. Do not just rely on the spell checker to do this for you as it may change it to the wrong word – by doing this it will save you any embarrassing errors that could have been avoided before it goes to print.

Deadlines:

As a contributor you are effectively a working journalist. It is important to remember that we have deadlines for a reason, they are so that the finished magazine can go to print on a certain day and can be released when it is said it will, not afterwards. Therefore the deadline dates must be met and not be missed! Any piece of work submitted after the stated deadline date will not be printed in the next edition. If you’re looking to get into media as a career, it’s a great way to start getting into the working ways of the industry!

Word Count:

It is important that the word count for articles is stuck to as much as possible. Basically I don’t want you to go massively over or incredibly under the word count, but a few words here and there is acceptable. So for a single page article with pictures, I’m looking for around 600 words in length and for a double page article with pictures, I’m looking for around 1200 words in length. As I say it is important these lengths are followed as much as possible as it helps myself and our designer to be able to layout the magazine easily and to make sure that it looks as good as it can.

Reviews:

With review writing, the aim is to try and engage the reader and make them enjoy what they are reading. Therefore it is important to make it as interesting as you can. Most importantly with review writing is that you need to be truthful. Your opinion counts so don’t be afraid to voice it, that it what people want to hear. Did you like it? Was it fun? Interesting? Or was it boring and not really that good? Let people know.

Music – Singles:

Rate the song – use the star system, giving a minimum of one star to a maximum of 5 stars. One star is obviously not very good, whereas 5 stars is great and then anything in between. You’re looking at around 70 words in length for a single review. Be sure to include the name of the artist, the song title and your name.

Music – Albums:

For album reviews, we’re looking at around 100 to 150 words in length per review. It’s important to think about what you think will make someone want to buy an album or even not buy an album if your opinion of it was a bad one. Be concise and get straight to the point. Again rate the album and be honest, what did you really think of it?

Film:

Cinema or DVD, film reviews should be around 100 to 150 words long in length. Give each review a rating out of 5 stars. If it’s on at the cinema, find out how long it is on for and if it’s a DVD, find out when it is released and mention these points.

Video Games:

Approximately 100 - 150 words in length. Preferably try not to go over the maximum, but if you haven’t reached the minimum then don’t worry too much about this.

Literature:

Approximately 100 – 150 words in length.

If you are struggling with anything, please feel free to ask me anything. Make sure you check your work before submission in order to feel entirely comfortable with everything you hand in.