Mises Wire

Revised April 23, 2020

Are you interested in submitting an article for publication at the Mises Wire?

Here are the basic guidelines.

1. Please use the phrase "Mises Wire submission" in your email's subject line. Feel free to add a few words about the topic, but be sure the phrase "Mises Wire submission" is in there. Attach your article as an editable file, either MSWord doc, or Google doc. Please no PDFs.

2. Please do not include more than one article per email. If you have more than one article to submit, send them all in separate emails. 

3. Format your article as a standard column. It should be 650 to 1,200 words. Exceptions are made when articles are extraordinarily informative or entertaining. But if you want your article quickly read, edited, and published, I strongly recommend keeping it within length guidelines. The easier it is to read, the more likely it is to be edited and posted quickly.

4. Get to the point quickly. Don't force the reader to endure several paragraphs of introductory material before the purpose and topic of the article finally become clear. Article should follow basic rules of journalism: the information most key to the article needs to be presented early, then the supporting material, and tangents come near the end.

5. Please respect your audience and your audience's time. Subject matter should be timely and interesting. That means it's interesting to a broad group of readers, including those who are not hard-core devout free marketers and libertarians. This definitely doesn't mean you have to be moderate or milquetoast. (Radicalism is good.) But your column has to be understandable, plausible, and (hopefully) convincing to people who aren't already in agreement with you. Also, we only publish a few articles per day, so articles that are timely and relevant and time sensitive are published faster. Meandering theoretical musings will be low-priority.

6. Provide links so your reader can check your facts. It's best to link to any article you refer to in your article. It's also good to link to previously published articles and material on mises.org. Don't try to reinvent the wheel. Consider what's already been said on the topic by Mises Institute scholars and others. It is now standard practice for many news sites to require links for pretty much any statement of fact in an op-ed. While we don't go this far, an article filled with claims and assertions, but few links providing background, is unlikely to meet our standards. 

7. In-text URL links are better for referencing sources. Sometimes footnotes can't be avoided, but please keep footnotes to a minimum, as they are more time consuming to format and edit. Articles that are easier to edit make it to the front page faster. Please keep in mind that the Mises Wire is not an academic publication. (We have an academic journal, if that's what you're looking for.) Please no in-text citations and long lists of references. 

8. Your article in general should be rich in examples and factual material. Having an opinion isn't enough. Your opinion must be based on facts and sound analysis. 

9. Don't frame your article as an attack on another article at mises.org. In other words, "this is why that other article on mises.org is wrong," is not a good premise for an article. 

10. Your article should be organized in such a way that people can read it quickly and easily without having to labor over it to figure out your point. Don't use lots of big words and long, complex sentences. Don't use your articles to show your readers how intelligent you think you are.

11. If your article runs long and becomes unfocused, split it into two or three articles. I'm happy to publish more than one article by you if each one makes the grade. 

12. There are no "certification" requirements for authors. That is, you don't need a degree in economics, or to be famous, or anything like that to be published in Mises Wire. You just need to write a good article. 

13. The best way to get a sense of what is best for Mises Wire is to read a lot of recent Mises Wire articles.

Send submissions to me.

Additional Notes on Structure

We prefer a modified version of the I-R-A-C structure for essays: issue, rule, analysis, conclusion. This is common format used for standardized exams. Applied to mises.org submissions, this is what that looks like:

Issue: clearly state the problem or issue you are addressing up front. Perhaps it is a new law or regulation being debated. Perhaps it is a common misconception about a historical event or some aspect of economic theory that needs to be addressed. Perhaps the problem is that a politician said something terrible and the correct view must be explained.

Rule: once you state the problem, succinctly state your "solution," "thesis," or view of what is the "correct" interpretation of things. In other words, make it clear to the reader what you plan to illustrate with your article. If the reader has to read to the end of your article to figure out your point, you did it wrong.

Analysis: here's where the meat of the article is. This is your main argument and the concrete examples you use to illustrate your point. Here's where you describe an important political event and what it means. Or you might explain how a minimum wage really works and why Politician X is wrong about it. Or you might just summarize some recent events in the news and show what we can learn from them. This is generally the longest and most detailed part of the article. You might break it up into subheadings. Or even a numbered list.

Conclusion: wrap it up. Be quick about it, and don't belabor your points.

Publication of Accepted Articles

All articles accepted and published by the Mises Institute are considered to be property of the Mises Institute. Articles are published under a Creative Commons attribution by the Mises Institute and can be used in any book, publication, advertising, etc., deemed appropriate by the Mises Institute. Request by a third party to reprint or disseminate an article published by the Mises Institute will be granted under the Creative Commons attribution.