Guidelines & Prep Sheets
Before sitting down to write your story, review the Telling Our Story Guidelines below to help structure your writing and your submission. You may also want to use our Prep Sheets to write your narrative and key story elements offline before beginning the online submission process.
Guidelines
Style
Telling Our Story aims to produce concise, simple stories about USAID-funded programs that everyone—especially people outside the field of international development—can enjoy reading. When composing your story, try to:
- Build a narrative flow for your story - with a beginning, middle, and end.
- Describe the problem or the issue and USAID’s solution or response.
- Avoid acronyms, program names, and partner names.
- Focus on the main subject of the story: the people that USAID helps.
Length
Stories submitted to the TOS website must follow the word limits indicated for each story type.
- Success Story: 350-500 words
- Case Study: 450 words (150 words per paragraph)
- First Person: 350-500 words
- Before & After: 250 words (plus 50 words per caption)
- Photo & Caption: 350 words
Any submissions beyond this length will be edited by the TOS team without consultation with the author.
Photograph
The quality of the photograph can make or break a story. Please review these guidelines carefully:
- Digital photos should be shot with at least a 3-megapixel resolution, and when possible, maintain at least 300 dpi (dots per inch).
- Send only graphics files – do not paste photographs into an MS Word document and attach that document as your photo submission.
- JPEG (or .jpg) files are preferred – GIF files make poor photographs.
- Do not alter, compress, or crop photographs – send only original images – TOS will make any necessary changes.
- Do not scan images from publications or other printed materials.
- Generally speaking: the larger the file, the better the quality and final result!
Submission
Submitting your story is easy. Simply go to Telling Our Story’s submission page and choose the appropriate format. Fill out all required fields in the story form, upload your photograph, and click “Submit.” You should receive confirmation that your story was submitted successfully. If you do not receive confirmation, please verify that your story:
- Does not use any special characters (such as accents) in any field.
- Does not exceed the maximum length.
- Includes a photo attachment in JPG format.
Model Stories
Before sitting down to write, consider reviewing our model stories. This will give you a sense of what makes for a successful submission.
Once you have decided on a story format, download the appropriate prep sheet, which lays out the main story elements in a word processing document. Instead of entering your draft text straight into the Telling Our Story online submit form, you can create the content within the prep sheet. Once the content is finalized, go to the Telling Our Story submission page and click on the appropriate form. Cut and paste the information from the prep sheet document into the online submit form within the appropriate sections. Click on the submit button to send the story to the Telling Our Story database.
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