Editorial Standards and Stylebook

Proposed until the Founding Meeting on Tuesday, March 30, 2027.

The standards and house style for everything the AUIB Society of Arts and Letters publishes, for Qirtas’s staff and contributors, the Director of Media’s team, everyone who writes a Society document, and readers who want to know how we work.

1. Scope and principles

• This stylebook applies to everything the Society publishes: Qirtas online, the Edition, and the Sunday Paper; auibsal.org; Society documents; Hudhud’s notices; and posts on Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn, including Next Stop.
• Sections 2 to 7 (independence and ethics) govern Qirtas. Sections 8 to 13 (corrections, consent, minors, and house style) govern everything the Society publishes.
• The Editor-in-Chief keeps this stylebook. The Director of Media applies it to the Society’s channels and to Next Stop.
• We follow the standard practice of American student media: seek the truth and report it, minimize harm, act independently, and be accountable.

2. Editorial independence

• Qirtas has its own nameplate, its own masthead, and editorial independence.
• The President serves as Publisher. The Publisher protects that independence and never selects, edits, or blocks work.
• The Editor-in-Chief has the final word on what Qirtas publishes.
• The Director of Media promotes Qirtas on the Society’s channels but never decides its content.
• No officer, Council member, partner, or sponsor reviews or approves a piece before publication, including pieces about the Society itself.
• The Society carries no advertising and takes no paid sponsorship. Sponsors give only in kind, and a gift never buys coverage or changes it.
• Sources do not see a piece before publication. An editor may check a quotation or a fact with the person it comes from, for accuracy only.
• Complaints about what Qirtas publishes go to the Editor-in-Chief, never to the Publisher.

3. Accuracy

• Section editors check facts and names before approval.
• Names are spelled as the person spells them; members’ names are the official names on their auibsal.org accounts.
• Quotations are exact. Dates, numbers, titles, and places are checked against a record, not memory.
• Headlines, captions, and pull quotes say only what the piece supports.
• A photo illustration or altered image is labeled as such. News photographs are never altered beyond cropping and basic color and exposure correction.
• When a fact cannot be checked, it is left out or the piece waits.

4. Fairness

• Anyone a News piece criticizes or accuses gets a real chance to respond before publication. If they decline or do not answer, the piece says so.
• Opinion is labeled as opinion and runs in Voices. Voices keeps one rule for opinion: no party politics, religion, sect, or ethnicity.
• We report on what people do, not on who they are. We avoid stereotypes and needless detail about anyone’s private life.
• We take special care with grief, illness, and people in distress, and we never name a person who could be harmed by being named without their consent.

5. Sources

• News names its sources, with the name and role that let readers judge them.
• Reporters say they are reporting for Qirtas before an interview, and record only with the person’s permission.
• A source may be left unnamed only when the Editor-in-Chief agrees that naming them risks real harm and the information cannot be had any other way. The section editor and the Editor-in-Chief know who the source is, and the piece says why the source is not named.
• Sources are never paid, and reporters accept nothing of value from them.
• A chatbot or other AI tool is never a source.

6. Originality and authorship

• Work must be the author’s own. Work drafted, written, translated, or generated by AI is not eligible; spellcheck and basic grammar tools are fine. The author confirms it in the Publication Agreement (SAL-EXB-01 · F-43). The full rule for submissions is in SAL-EDT-02.
• Plagiarism and fabrication are the most serious breaches of these standards. The piece is removed with an editor’s note, and the matter is handled under the Code of Conduct in SAL-GOV-03.
• Authors keep their copyright. The license they grant the Society is set out in SAL-GOV-05.
• Images, music, and footage are used only with the right to use them, and their makers are credited.

7. Conflicts of interest

A conflict is any situation where a personal interest, relationship, or loyalty could affect, or seem to affect, an editorial decision. Declaring one is normal; hiding one is not.

• Every editor and reader makes the conflict-of-interest declaration on auibsal.org each term, and whenever something new arises.
• An editor or reader steps aside from any piece by a close friend, partner, or relative, and from any piece about an organization they own, work for, or hold a role in.
• Staff do not report on an event, team, or decision they are part of. Another reporter covers it, or the piece states the link.
• Blind reading protects every decision: readers do not see who wrote a piece until a decision is made.
• A book or ticket received for review is disclosed in the review.

Forms: SAL-EXB-01 · F-06, F-40.

8. Corrections, clarifications, and takedowns

Corrections

Errors are corrected promptly, with a dated correction note at the foot of the piece.

1. Anyone may report an error to the section editor or to [email protected].
2. The section editor checks it with the author and the sources.
3. If the piece is wrong, the editor fixes it and adds a note that says what was wrong and what is right, for example: “Correction, November 7, 2026: An earlier version of this piece gave the wrong date for the reading.”
4. If the piece is accurate but could mislead, the editor adds a clarification in the same way.
5. Facts are never changed silently. Typing errors that do not change the meaning are fixed without a note.
6. A correction to a piece in the Sunday Paper runs in the next issue. A correction to a piece in the printed Edition is made online.
7. A post on the Society’s channels that is wrong is corrected or removed by the Director of Media’s team, with the correction stated.

Takedowns

What we publish stays published: the record is corrected, not erased. A piece or image is taken down only when:

• a person asks for a photograph or video of them to be removed (it comes down within 24 hours);
• publication puts someone’s safety at real risk;
• it breaks the law or someone else’s copyright;
• it shows or names a minor without valid consent, or a parent or guardian withdraws consent;
• it is plagiarized or fabricated.

Other requests go to the Editor-in-Chief, who decides. Instead of removing a piece, the Editor-in-Chief may change a byline to “Anonymous” or remove a name. Where a piece comes down, a short editor’s note takes its place unless the note itself would cause the harm. Authors may withdraw a piece at any time before a decision.

9. People pictured and consent

The photography and consent rules are in the Policy Manual, SAL-GOV-03. In practice:

• The Director of Media’s team covers events with photography consent. Anyone wearing a camera-shy sticker is never photographed or shown.
• Anyone clearly featured in the Society’s photos, video, or interviews signs the media release (SAL-EXB-01 · F-15) on the site, by typing their name. Anyone under 18 needs a parent’s or guardian’s signature.
• Performances are photographed and recorded only with every visible performer’s consent.
• Photographs of people submitted to Qirtas come with the contributor and image consent form (SAL-EXB-01 · F-44), signed on the site by each person clearly shown.
• Captions name people only with their consent.
• Next Stop’s guests see their episode before it is published.
• Anything showing a person comes down within 24 hours if they ask.
• A concern about media or consent is reported as an incident.

Forms: SAL-EXB-01 · F-15, F-16, F-44.

10. Minors

• Nothing showing or naming anyone under 18 is published without a parent’s or guardian’s written consent.
• Qalam students’ work appears in Qirtas only with consent, as SAL-EDT-03 sets out. Their byline is the student’s first name, last initial, and school; the full name appears only on the certificate. They are never shown with contact details and never named in a public vote. Forms: SAL-EXB-01 · F-38, F-39.
• High school students never have Society accounts. All contact goes through their teacher.
• Safeguarding follows SAL-GOV-03 throughout.

11. House style: English

• American English with no exceptions, following the Chicago Manual of Style, with Merriam-Webster for spelling (its first spelling).
• Chicago’s typography applies, and there are no separate house typography rules: curly quotation marks and apostrophes (“ ” ’), the serial comma, en dashes for ranges (2026–27; pages 4–9), and closed em dashes.
• Numbers follow Chicago: zero through one hundred and round numbers are spelled out in prose; numerals for dates, times, percentages (70 percent), and street numbers.
• Dates: November 7, 2026; with the day, Tuesday, March 30, 2027.
• The Society’s name in full is “AUIB Society of Arts and Letters,” then “the Society.” “AUIB” has no periods.
• Spellings the Society uses: advisor, Editor-in-Chief, Get involved, What’s on.
• Society bodies and roles are capitalized as names: the Council, the Executive Board, the Annual Meeting, the Register, the Edition, the President.
• Site addresses are written without https:// or www: auibsal.org/join.
• The endorsement line is “a Society of Arts and Letters program.”
• Headings in Society documents are in sentence case and stand alone.

12. House style: Arabic

• Modern Standard Arabic, following the usage of the Arab language academies, for documents, Qirtas, and the site.
• Iraqi Arabic, written as Iraqis write it (with گ، چ، پ), only where the Society chats: Hudhud, social captions and stories, the members’ group, and signs at the door. Never both in one message.
• Latin digits (0–9).
• «» for quotations and for the names of pages and buttons.
• Tanween al-fath on the letter before the alif: شكرًا، دائمًا.
• Hamzas written in full.
• Arabic punctuation: ، ؛ ؟
• The Iraqi month names: كانون الثاني، شباط، آذار، نيسان، أيار، حزيران، تموز، آب، أيلول، تشرين الأول، تشرين الثاني، كانون الأول.
• The reader is addressed as «أنت».
• Codes stay in Latin letters (SAL-GOV-01), and so do site addresses (auibsal.org/join).
• One word per term, as in the glossary below.
• Arabic is written for Arabic readers, not translated word for word.

The glossary

13. House style: both languages

• Each piece is in one language. A piece published in both languages appears as two linked pieces.
• Every Society document exists in full in English and in Arabic, as separate editions linked to each other.
• Everyone who works on a piece is credited by name unless they ask not to be.
• A Qirtas byline is the author’s name as in the Register, a pen name, or “Anonymous,” as the author chooses in the Publication Agreement (SAL-EXB-01 · F-43). For a pen name or “Anonymous,” the Editor-in-Chief must know the writer and keeps the identity confidential. Qalam bylines follow section 10.
• Names the Society has stopped using never appear. The current names are those in the glossary above and in the Society’s documents.
• Society documents are Version 1, with no change notes. “Thank you.” closes only printed pieces, such as decks, printed programs, and the Edition; documents end with their last section.
• Design, headlines, and icons follow SAL-MED-02.

Related documents

• SAL-EDT-02 Qirtas Staff Manual
• SAL-EDT-03 Qalam Program Handbook
• SAL-EDT-04 Mutanabbi Prize Rules
• SAL-GOV-03 Policy Manual
• SAL-GOV-05 Terms of Use
• SAL-MED-01 Media Manual
• SAL-MED-02 Brand and Identity
• SAL-EXB-01 Leadership Handbook (forms register)