Editorial Notes
On our Style Guide
Working Draft’s style guide has been shaped by two key resources: Elements of Indigenous Style: A Guide for Writing By and About Indigenous Peoples, Second Edition by Gregory Younging, Lead editor Warren Cariou and The Canadian Press Stylebook.
On Artificial Intelligence
AI will never replace human storytelling at Working Draft. The soul of each of our stories — from this year and beyond — is distinctly human.
We’ve set a firm no AI policy in our creative process from ideation to proofreading. Exceptions are granted only for transcribing interviews and for specific research purposes after an approval process. As part of our commitment to write with authenticity and honesty, we will always tell you if a story has used AI as part of the research process. We want to be fully transparent with you, our readers.
Thanks for trusting us.
On Content Warnings
In 2023 the editorial board of Working Draft magazine decided not to include content warnings on our pieces.
This isn’t a decision we took lightly, and we wanted to provide our readers with some insight into this change in direction.
In previous issues of Working Draft, we included content warnings at the beginning of some articles to warn readers of potentially sensitive material. More recent research has suggested, however, that these warnings aren’t effective at minimizing distress and can instead increase anticipatory anxiety in readers.
Beyond this, content warnings only function to alert readers of potentially distressing content and offer no resources on how to deal with distress if and when it happens.
We have encouraged our contributors to write thoughtful descriptions of their pieces that provide necessary context in hopes that our readers will have a general understanding of the piece they’re about to read.
We understand that this system, much like our previous system, is not perfect. We will not be able to warn readers of every potentially troubling thing they may encounter while reading our magazine, so we have included a few resources at the bottom of this page aimed at helping our readers find support should they need it.
This magazine is constantly evolving with the goal of encouraging our readers to engage critically with our content and with the world around them. If you have questions or comments about this change, please send us a message.