In order for stories to be eligible for submissions, the following baseline requirements must be met:
Stories must be at least 300 words in length with the exception of podcast or video submissions.
If the story contains images, they must be original.
Stories must have a byline with the writer’s first and last name.
Stories must be submitted within 60 days of publication.
Only one story may be submitted from your site per weekday.
The following will result in a story being immediately disqualified from consideration for publication:
Plagiarism
Libel
Fabrication of quotes or details
Illegal and/or undocumented use of copyrighted photos, music, or videos
Presenting interviews done by other journalism sources as quotations in your story. We expect student writers to conduct their own interviews.
Photo republication policy:
Best of SNO strongly encourages original photos and graphics created by publication staff members. If a story is selected for Best of SNO, we will only republish photos or graphics created by staff members, or attributed to a person interviewed in the story. All other photos will be removed from the version of the story published on the Best of SNO website.
Publication Tips
The Best of SNO Submission process is highly competitive and selective.
Before you submit, set your frame of reference. This isn’t a contest with winners or losers. Rather, it’s like submitting to a magazine. Our reviewers are selecting stories that they think will resonate with our audience –– we consider our audience to be high school and college journalism programs. Simply meeting all of the listed submission requirements does not guarantee a story will be published. Because of the high volume of submissions, the vast majority of submitted stories are not republished.
Stories are judged holistically, and our reviewers expect submissions to be polished, to have a strong voice, and to be free of grammatical and spelling errors. Our reviewers expect stories to follow sound journalistic practices and expect the writing to be engaging, concise, and relevant. Please make sure your work is ready for review when you submit it, as it is not possible to resubmit a story once it has been rejected.
Check out some other publication tips below.
2024-2025 Best of SNO Stats
6715 Submitted Stories
1124 Published Stories
466 Participating Schools
272 Published Schools
Publication Tips
We'll be the first to admit that getting your story published on Best of SNO is hard. We receive over 100 submissions per day, and only about 15 percent are selected for publication.
There are multiple factors that come into play when deciding if a story is Best of SNO-worthy. From engaging writing and unique angles to well thought out multimedia elements, more considerations are made than it might look.
If you're having a hard time achieving that Best of SNO distinction, check out our past newsletters to get a better idea of the type of content we're looking for.
![Adding a tray of canned corn to the pile, junior Michael Collop assists in transporting donations for the Holiday Food Drive. The event, hosted schoolwide from Dec. 10-17, raised over 5,000 food items to deliver to the Parkway Food Pantry, helping several families in need. [The drive] is a great thing for us to do because you're giving to those who are less fortunate, and it helps provide for people who can't provide for themselves. [The] competition is always fun, too. It was fun to be in [social studies teacher Jess] Chazen’s class, because he always gets worked up over [the competition]. He made it exciting, and was always convincing us to turn in cans for the drive,” Collop said.](https://bestofsno.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/feature-photo-unsung-2.png)
![NEW CHALLENGE, NEW TEAM MEMBERS: Every season, VEX creates a new game that robotics team members are faced with and have to build a robot to compete in. This year’s game forces students to create a robot that is able to stack rings onto mobile goals in order to score points. The change in games each season is something that robotics teacher Audrea Moyers appreciates.
“One of the things that I like about VEX is that they have a new problem to solve every year,” she said. ¨Even though the equipment’s the same, they have to analyze the game, and they have to come up with solutions that are unique that year. They are using their knowledge from prior years, but they have to kind of redesign a problem.”
As returning teams were faced a new game, some new teams and members had to adapt to a uncommon playing field and game.
“Three of our four teams were competing for the first time this year, and they had very different experiences match to match, so I think they learned a lot,¨ she said. ¨It’s hard just watching a video online to know how it’s actually going to be in person, so they all learned a lot about what gameplay is like, how to work with an alliance partner [and] how to adapt during the day to changes.”](https://bestofsno.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/IMG_9283-1-1200x800.jpg)
