Northwestern University Dr. Jennifer Hirsch's Tips for Reflective Writing:

• Discover and demonstrate the depth of your experience by exploring the minutiae of your everyday life abroad. Meaning will be found by paying attention to details and nuances—you want to show the reader what your experiences abroad were like rather than “preaching” about them. For example, if you want to explain how you felt uncomfortable with your host family when you first moved in but then came to feel like part of the family by the end, you don’t want to just say this—you want to show it by writing in depth about one or two of the experiences that you had with the family that demonstrate distance and then closeness.

• Focus on the details of the experiences you write about. Try to describe how people, places, or things looked, smelled, sounded, etc. Look back at your photographs, emails, and journal entries, and talk to your friends who were abroad with you to try and reconstruct scenes. When applicable, try to incorporate dialogue to make scenes come alive on the page; think back to conversations and try to reconstruct them.

• Good creative non-fiction draws the reader in right from the beginning. Try to think of opening dialogue or quick anecdotes or stories that will make the reader want to keep reading—scenarios that raise some kind of interesting question.

• Your article should have a theme; it should not just be a series of semi-related reflective thoughts. Relatedly, your article should include some analysis—of the situations you describe, of your own feelings, etc. This is what “reflecting” means—not just telling a story, but trying to figure out some deeper meanings within it.

Submission Guidelines

NOTE: The Abroad View Foundation is experiencing a period of restructuring during 2010 and has temporarily halted its activities. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your understanding.

If you submitted an article to "Abroad View" magazine in 2010, we encourage you to send it to other venues for publication consideration. If you would like your article or story to be considered during 2010-2011 for Abroad View website publication only, please submit it to editors@abroadviewmagazine.com. Please be sure to include your contact information and a brief bio in the body of your e-mail. There will be no writer's or photographer's compensation for website-only articles.

WHAT IS ABROAD VIEW?
Abroad View (est. 1998) is a student-produced magazine that fosters global awareness and cross-cultural understanding. Content is contributed by students for students, creating a lively forum for the exchange of international experiences and perspectives. Articles, essays and photos document a variety of academic and experiential perspectives, as well as illustrate broader themes related to world cultures, the environment, technology, politics and society.

WHO CAN CONTRIBUTE?
We welcome submissions from college, graduate, and high school students; young college and graduate school alumni; and college faculty and study abroad professionals.

WHEN SHOULD I SUBMIT MY ARTICLE and/or PHOTOGRAPHS?
Abroad View welcomes submissions at any time. We review submissions year-round.

WHAT CAN I WRITE?
Abroad View welcomes first-person articles, journalistic features, research findings, commentaries, creative writing, poetry, reviews, opinion pieces, e-mail excerpts, blogs, photos and artwork.

SUBMISSION CATEGORIES

PERSONAL JOURNEY: nonfiction narrative that showcases personal perspective articles and unites the writer’s outward and inward journey; displays a strong sense of the author’s personality and experiences; demonstrates vivid reporting, literary quality and critical reflection; does not include step-by-step accounts or sentimental “diary” entries.

INSPIRATION: artistic expression, including but not limited to fiction, poetry and illustrations, inspired from travels abroad.

VIEWPOINT: opinions, dialogue and debate about global events and contemporary issues; must be well researched, accurate and persuasive, with a specific point of view on a region-specific subject or a topic of global importance.

PLAY: articles, essays or photo stories related to international adventure, outdoor activities, or sports.

LIVE: articles, essays or photo stories related to the art and culture scene, including food, fashion, music, museums, festivals and language.

LEARN: articles, essays or photo stories related to academics, study abroad or global education.

WORK: reflective essays that emphasize the importance of working, interning, volunteering or researching abroad; can include first-person articles about the research process or a specific work experience.

FEATURE: includes essays, how-to pieces, informational articles, photo essays and journalistic stories on a subject of global importance.

REVIEW: reviews of recent books, music or films that will broaden readers’ awareness and understanding of a specific country or culture.

DEPARTURE: a one-page reflective and creative piece that captures the feeling of living, studying, traveling, volunteering or working abroad.

GENERAL WRITING TIPS FOR ABROAD VIEW PUBLICATION

Our most successful Abroad View contributions share certain characteristics, notably a strong sense of the author’s personality and experiences, vivid reporting, a high literary quality and, in the case of service-oriented departments, meaty practical information.

One kind of story we cannot use is a step-by-step account of what you did on your weekend trip and all of the famous sites you toured. Our emphasis is on learning and immersion abroad. Try to give your article a fresh point of view and, if at all possible, cover some out-of-the-ordinary subject matter.

Please pay attention to your writing style (does your article flow smoothly, does it have a particular form, such as analytical or poetic/emotional?).

Some questions to consider: How did current affairs and newsworthy events play into your experience? What did you learn from being at a specific place in a specific time with specific people? What did your work or project reveal?

Include quotes from locals you meet or from the participants in a particular activity, and let them express their thoughts on how they feel about a place, issue or activity. Bring your conversations to life.

Recreate the place you visited. Let us see it through your eyes rather than simply telling us what you saw. Surprise us. Give us something out of the ordinary—something that only someone who was there would know. Do this by observing astutely, trying things, meeting people and getting involved in scenes. If you’re a passive observer and don’t tell us more than we can learn by reading a couple of guidebooks, we’re not interested in your story.

Use your senses and tell us what it feels like, smells like, tastes like, sounds like. But avoid clichéd descriptions and adjective overload.

Don’t send personal travel diaries or generic tours that aim to say everything and ultimately reveal nothing. Focus your story idea and don’t be afraid of specifics: name names and places. We like details. To stand out from the crowd, your story must have a personal voice and point of view. Remember that almost any place or issue you write about has been written about before. Your challenge is to find something new and original to say about it—something meaningful.

Don’t try to squeeze every aspect of an experience into your story. Often a well-chosen vignette conveys a better feel for a place or situation than a broad overview. Traveling, the displacement from the familiar to the foreign, is rich in emotions and perspectives. A good nonfiction narrative is more than just a collection of random impressions; it has a definite theme. It connects the dots. Decide what point you want to get across and then work your impressions around it.

Set your sight on a narrowly defined subject. A common problem among new writers is attempting to cover too much in the context of a 1,500-word manuscript. Ground your article in a specific experience and allow it to grow from there, moving beyond the details into reflection and connections that shape the piece into an endeavor worthy of being called journalism. Sometimes the specific episode or anecdote from which your article stems is a critical incident or challenging transition that led you to a personal epiphany. Share your struggles and your triumphs—they are equally important. The best of these articles intertwine affective, experiential learning and intellectual learning. They make a connection between the heart and head. This is a key difference between creative nonfiction narrative and more academic expository writing.

In his essay “Educational Values of Experiential Education,” John Wallace, a former Experiment in International Living staff member, contrasts two of his own educational experiences: the first involved writing a cut-and-dry academic paper on drought and famine for a geography course; the second involved his experience studying in Calcutta, where he became invested in his academic learning through an emotional connection. He writes, “The bodies being carted away had been, a few days previously, living, thinking, sensate, dreaming human beings. Now they were dead from simple starvation, victims of drought and famine over which they had no control. The facts of my undergraduate paper had now turned into funeral pyres. And I changed.”

Be honest in your writing and explore emotions, changes in worldviews, reflections on ethics and thoughts about what your study abroad learning means for social action or how you lead or wish to lead your life. These pieces often include topics such as cultural knowledge, race and ethnicity, gender, power and work, to name a few.

As your writing takes shape, reflect on it and consider theories on cultural learning. What perspective are you coming from? What are your biases? How did you access the culture of your host county? How did immersion in that culture transform your understanding? What are the complexities with which you grappled? Draw on social science analysis and interdisciplinary perspectives, including politics, sociology, religion, economics, anthropology, history, environmental studies and philosophy—but keep your topic rooted in specific experience.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A JOURNAL AND A DIARY?
The distinction between a diary and a journal is key. A diary is typically for the recording of events and interactions only. The writing is often very personal and full of reactions and stream of consciousness. It is primarily a private, emotional outlet. A journal, on the other hand, can serve as a worthwhile literary activity and invaluable resource for later writing. It is an act of meditation and reflection. It is a philosophical exercise and a first attempt to use language to articulate and reflect the complexity of human experience. It serves both an emotional and an intellectual function. It documents your observatory and participatory research with an eventual product—the piece written for the public—in mind.

WHAT STYLE SHOULD I USE?
If you know AP style, go ahead and use it. Basically, editors want writers who understand grammar and syntax, who know how to gather accurate information, who write with clarity and without affectation, who know what their point is and get to it, and who exhibit intelligence and wit. There should be a “self” in your writing. A reader should hear your voice.

Good writing always “shows” rather than “tells.” There should be an abundance of sensual detail and vibrant sentences. The lead is the bait you use to lure readers into getting hooked on your story. Write and rewrite ones that grab your readers and pull them into your tale. Please, no “majestic” mountains, “spectacular” canyons, “perched” or “quaint” villages. Dialogue helps a travel story immeasurably, but few writers ever include it.

Somewhere near the beginning of your piece, answer the main questions: Who are you? Where did you travel? When did you live there? Why did you decide to go there? What was the name of your host program or organization? Establish your personality and purpose as soon as possible.

Brevity, clarity, and conciseness should be hallmarks of your article. Use active voice more often than not. Eliminate redundancies. Accuracy and attention to detail are essential. Do your research. Double check your facts.

Always include all of your contact information on your manuscript, as well as a brief bio. Please see the template for editorial submissions below for formatting guidelines.

PARTING THOUGHTS
Challenge yourself. Writing is not an easy exercise. Your final article should be the result of careful sculpting and editing. Do you combine both ideas and images, both abstraction and concreteness? There should be evidence of deep observation of events, open-mindedness, concentration, meditation and compassion.