Ultra Vires

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Write for UV

Ultra Vires is the independent student newspaper of the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. We publish six issues a year and are always in search of additional contributors. Ultra Vires welcomes written and visual submissions, as well as tips, from our students. We always welcome photos, cartoons, and poems! This guide covers the stylistic and formatting preferences of UV, as well as a high-level overview of the writing and editing process.

Have an idea for an article for an upcoming issue? 

Join us at our pitch meetings or email the Editors-in-Chief (EiCs) at editor@ultravires.ca. We have five sections: news, features, opinions, diversions, and puzzles. News articles are fact-based reporting about events relevant to the law school or legal community. Articles should cover the 5W’s: who, what, where, when, and why. Past articles include: Faculty Council coverage, Faculty administration policy changes, and student open letters. News articles should include comments from all parties involved and strive to include differing perspectives.  Features is a bit of a catch-all section that is a hybrid of News and Opinions. Articles that are more one-sided or that are written in a casual voice such that they don’t belong in news fit here. Past articles include reviews of food items, investigative work into the Faculty’s budget, and our recurring columns such as IVV and CLSA. Opinions is our op-ed section. Articles are generally based on the author’s own experiences and take a stance on an issue. Past articles include: why you should run for SLS, a call for the return of the Headnotes Bulletin, and why mindfulness is an ineffective remedy for mental health issues. While Opinions articles express the author’s opinion, they must be grounded in factually correct information. For example, one cannot publish an article under the premise that climate change is a hoax.   Diversions is our attempt to be funny. Every issue includes an Intra Vires article where we attempt satire. Past articles include: an anonymous confessions column, top 10 disaster moments during OCIs, and mock exam fact patterns. Puzzles is new for Volume 25. At minimum, this includes our classic crossword but otherwise, the puzzles may vary. Our November issue is our Recruit Special where we dedicate several pages to the 2L Toronto Recruit. We also publish articles for Rights Review, a student-led publication at the International Human Rights Program. 

What should you include in your article?

Generally, 800-1000 words on a topic of your choice, although our word count can be flexible depending on the article (shorter for certain News articles or longer for certain Opinions pieces). To assist and streamline our editors, we strongly encourage your article to also include: Hed, dek, by, and word count as the first four lines of your article. “Hed” is your main headline or title. “Dek” is a sentence or sentence fragment that reveals what the article is about.
For example:

Hed: Faculty Announces Change to Exam Policy

Dek: Students may now access digital materials during fully open book exams

By: Atticus Finch (3L)

Word Count: 537

On February 2, the University of Toronto Law Union (UTLU) penned a letter to Dean Jutta Brunnée stating that the Faculty’s COVID-19 policies fail to take into account the needs of its most vulnerable students…

No anonymous submissions. Except under very rare circumstances where the author may incur harm due to publication, and the article is within the public interest, we do not permit anonymous submissions. For example, we will permit anonymization if the author is writing on the discrimination they faced by a large employer.

Hyperlinks for sources, not footnotes. We edit in Google Docs and hyperlinks help our editors quickly verify your statements. Hyperlinks also improve our website’s (and by extension your article’s) search engine optimization.

Reach out early and often for comments. While not every article requires external comments (especially in Opinions and Diversions), when making claims that refer to external parties’ conduct, especially under News, it is best practice to allow the third party a chance to comment. For example, if you are alleging that a University actor committed some action, you should reach out to that actor for their comment. Please reach out to your sources at least a few days before (ideally a week) and cc’ editor@ultravires.ca in your correspondence. If you are emailing a University actor, please also cc’ U of T Media Relations at media.relations@utoronto.ca, as all media requests regarding the administration of the university are redirected there. If you have questions regarding how to avoid defamation, please contact editor@ultravires.ca.. 

Quote attributions that reference an individual’s position the first time you mention them, if they’re commenting from that position. For example: Associate Dean Christopher Essert said “…”. Or Students’ Law Society (SLS) President Dill Harris (3L) commented “…”.

References to individuals by their surname after the first time you mention them. For example, Associate Dean Essert stated “…”. Or Harris added “…”. 

Submit your article as a Google or Word document, with the naming convention Last Name_Hed. For example, Radley_Law Ball is Back

If there is a specific image that you would like included in your article, please email it to us or upload it into the Images folder. Please include a proposed caption, who we should attribute the image to, and indicate where in the article you would like it inserted. Please highlight this information. E.g., [Insert Lee_Article Name_Photo 1. Caption: Outside the law school. Credit: Harper Lee]

Note: We prefer images to be submitted as .jpg or .png files. Thank you.

How does UV’s editing process work?

Our editing meetings typically begin on the second-last Thursday of the month at noon. Editing will continue over the weekend with the EiCs finalizing the issue’s print layout on Friday and Saturday. Articles can be emailed to us at editor@ultravires.ca or directly uploaded to our Google Drive folder. We post the link in our UV Contributors Facebook group.

Each article goes through at least three rounds of edits, and the EiCs review each piece prior to sending the drafts to our layout editor. Our editors amend for clarity and conciseness, while adjusting articles to fit the UV Style Guide. For example: 

We write out percent, not %; 
We capitalize Faculty when we refer to the Faculty of Law and use lowercase faculty to refer to faculty members; 
We write out numbers one to nine, and use Arabic numerals for 10 and above; and
We use the Oxford comma.

We do not run edits past contributors unless our editors propose substantial changes to the article’s tone or content, or we have questions about a source the author is relying on. UV reserves the right to amend the hed or dek you propose, to edit for concision and clarity, and to remove or add accompanying images due to space constraints.

When are articles published?

Ultra Vires publishes six times per year: September, October, November, January, February, and March.

We aim to publish the print copies of the issue on the last Thursday of the month. We distribute the print copies in the Atrium, and leave additional copies on the stands. There is one UV stand in Jackman Hall in Goodmans Cafe, and one UV stand in Falconer Hall near the Rowell Room.

The PDF version of our print issue will be uploaded onto issuu.com on the same day as the print release. Articles will be uploaded individually onto ultravires.ca within a week of the print release.

Have further questions?

Email the EiCs at editor@ultravires.ca.