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, obtained through the SNO/Reuters partnership, 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
13,679 Submitted Stories
2,072 Published Stories
560 Participating Schools
340 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.
