Submitting to The Mercury

Letters to the Editor Policies

The Mercury greatly values its readers’ input and welcomes criticism. Letters can be submitted by students, faculty, staff, administrators, alumni and anyone else strongly affiliated with the UTD community. Letters should be 500 words or less and focused on a concern about the publication or a current issue. Students and alumni should include their full name, major and year. Faculty, staff and administrators should include their full name and title. Email letters to editor@utdmercury.com. Please include a clear headshot. Authors may only have one letter printed per edition of The Mercury.

The Mercury reserves the right to add disclaimers to or reject any letter to the editor which fails to meet our rigorous factual standard for news.

Op-Ed Policies

The Mercury publishes op-eds in an effort to reflect a wide variety of campus perspectives. Op-eds should be between 500 and 1,200 words and relevant to a college or local audience. Apart from your name, personal info will not be published. The Mercury reserves the right to reject any submission and to edit op-eds for clarity, brevity, accuracy and to prevent libel. Email op-eds to opinioneditor@utdmercury.com.

Oftentimes, UTD students wish to write a rebuttal to an opinion piece previously published in The Mercury. This is encouraged, as The Mercury intends to serve as a public forum for open dialogue and discussion. Rebuttals will be accepted on a first-come, first-serve basis; multiple rebuttals may be accepted at the discretion of the Opinion Editor if they make differing enough arguments. After rebuttals are published, a counterargument to the rebuttal may be published by the original opinion’s author or another UTD student, following the same rules as rebuttal submissions. After the publication of the counterargument, with the conversation having gone back and forth, the topic is closed and no further opinions on that topic will be accepted for that academic year.

Mercury staff have the option to publish a rebuttal concurrently with the original opinion so both pieces occur in the same issue. In this case, the rebuttal already exists, so The Mercury will accept counters to either piece before the topic is closed.

Reach out to the Editor-in-Chief if you have any questions regarding these policies.

Deadlines

The Mercury operates on a two-week production cycle each semester. Therefore, writing drafts in a timely manner, addressing all suggestions and communicating with editors is critical to the success of your piece. The Opinion Editor will inform authors of opinion editorials and letters to the editor about the nearest upcoming publication date and key deadlines.

• First draft due to Opinion Editor by Thursday night of the first week*
  • Kavya Racheeti, Opinion Editor (opinioneditor@utdmercury.com)
• Second draft due to Managing Editor by Monday night of the second week*
  • Maria Shaikh, Managing Editor (managingeditor@utdmercury.com)
• Final draft due to Editor-in-Chief by Thursday night of the second week*
  • Gregorio Olivares Gutierrez, Editor-in-Chief (editor@utdmercury.com)

*Please contact the Opinion Editor for specific deadlines and publication dates.

The author of an opinion editorial may only retract their piece before submitting their second draft to the Managing Editor. An author may not retract their submission once the second draft is submitted.

After you submit your final draft to the Editor-in-Chief, be sure to check your email frequently during the Saturday before publication: this is when we have our production time and may need to contact you for additional final edits. If you do not respond to us at this time, The Mercury reserves the right to make final edits as necessary. Additionally, editors may contact you for your feedback about the graphic being designed for your letter or op-ed to make sure it adequately reflects your opinion. The Mercury reserves the right to make final judgements about the graphic accompanying your submission.

As a general rule, you should respond to messages from editors within 24 hours.

When submitting your drafts, in the subject line of the email, put your name, title of the article, and number of draft, like so:

“JohnDoe_PoliticsArePolitical_1”

Be sure to identify who you are in the email and, if submitting a letter to the editor, attach a headshot of yourself (be sure that lighting is sufficient and that the background behind you is blank). The Mercury does not publish anonymous opinion pieces outside of exceptional circumstances, and will not publish your letter without a headshot. Opinion editorials do not need a headshot.