T&MW Author Guidelines
Test & Measurement World is written for engineers and engineering managers responsible for ensuring the quality of electronic products at the design and manufacturing stages. If you can help our readers improve their methods of testing or inspecting electronic materials, components, circuit boards, subassemblies, or systems, then please consider contributing a technical article to us.
Types of articles we publish
How to propose an article
Writing the article
Article length
Submitting the article; what the file should contain
Specifications for electronic art
Manuscript review
Copyright release
How we will edit the article
Types of articles we publish
We are looking for articles that help our readers do their jobs better. Contributed articles should focus on generic test techniques. They should not describe products, although you can use a product to illustrate a technique or application. The product's features, however, cannot be the subject of the article.
How to propose an article
1. Contact one of our technical editors to discuss your idea. The editor can tell you whether your idea is appropriate for us or whether we already have a similar article in the queue. Here are the topics each editor covers:
|
Rick Nelson, Editor in Chief ATE & production test |
Martin Rowe, Senior Technical Editor Bench instruments |
2. If the editor is interested in your idea, prepare a proposal, in either abstract or outline format. Your proposal should answer these three questions:
a. What type of engineer will read and benefit from this article?
b. What will the article teach the reader?
c. Why would the reader want this information?
Your proposal should also give an overview of what you plan to cover, and it should list some of the key points you intend to make.
3. Send your outline to the technical editor. Be sure to include your name, title, company, address, phone number, and e-mail address.
We will review your proposal in about 14 to 21 days and contact you with our comments. If we believe your proposal shows promise, we will encourage you to complete the article and will offer suggestions on how to proceed.
Writing the article
Once a technical editor gives you the go-ahead, you should begin to write the article. (Please be aware that this does not mean the article will automatically be accepted. Occasionally, the final article turns out differently from what a technical editor envisioned, and we reserve the right to reject the manuscript.)
Follow these rules when writing the article:
1. Be excruciatingly accurate with your technical information, both in your text and in your artwork. Our readers base technical decisions on information they find in our pages.
2. Write in the active voice. Make it clear who, or what, is performing the actions in your article. Talk to the readers; tell them what they need to do.
For example, do not write, 'The stimulus is applied to the device under test; the response is then measured and analyzed.'
Instead, write something like, 'You should set up a frequency synthesizer to generate a stimulus signal to the device under test. Then, use a digital oscilloscope to acquire the resulting output signal and run data-reduction software to analyze the results of successive measurements.'
3. Avoid using jargon and abbreviations without explaining your terms. Not all our readers are experts in all areas of electronics testing; a term that is familiar to engineers in the telecom industry might be unknown to someone in inspection. Also, different companies may use different terms to describe the same process. Spell out all abbreviations and acronyms the first time you use them in an article.
Article length
We are flexible about length, but generally, shorter is better. Our articles typically run from 900 to 2500 words and include three to five illustrations. When you discuss your proposal with the technical editor, he may be able to give you an estimate of how long your article should be.
The most important point is: Concentrate on what you want to say, not on how many words you need to use.
Submitting the article; what the file should contain
Please submit your article to us in electronic format, preferably as a .txt or .doc file. Use e-mail to send your article to the technical editor with whom you have been working.
The file should include:
- Article headline
- Byline. Include your name and your company's name and location as they should appear in print.
- Main text of article.
- Artwork. This can include tables, photographs, line drawings, flow charts, or electronic images (see 'Specifications for Electronic Art'). Label each piece of art with a number.
- Captions for artwork. Each piece of artwork must have a caption. Label each caption with the number you assigned to the artwork.
- References, when applicable. If you have referred to a book, article, test standard, Web site, or other resource, please include bibliographic or link information so our readers can find it.
- Biography. Provide a short biography for each author. The biography should include the academic degrees you hold, where you received them, and a brief summary of your work experience. Example: Amy Smith is a senior test engineer at Testing Co. USA. She received her BSEE and MSEE from MIT, and she has worked in telecom testing for 10 years. asmith@testingcousa.com.
- Contact information. Please provide the name, address, telephone number, and e-mail address of the person we should call with any questions about the article.
Specifications for electronic art
Images may be submitted in electronic format provided they meet our specifications:
- Please provide electronic art as an independent image file. Do not import it into programs such as Microsoft Word or PowerPoint. We cannot convert Word or PowerPoint images into a format that is compatible with our page layout software.
- Images can be created on either a PC or Mac platform.
- Please provide the images in either an EPS or a TIF file format. (Do not submit a PDF file. PDFs cannot be converted for use in a magazine.)
- Save color images in CMYK mode (preferred) or RGB mode.
- Save black-and-white images in grayscale mode.
- Images must have a resolution of at least 300 dpi (dots per inch) and be of good original quality.
- We accept JPEG (JPG) file format images only if they are of high quality. To create a JPEG of acceptable quality, either provide an image that is physically large (approximately 20 inches wide) or provide one with a resolution of 300 dpi.
- If you are providing a screen shot, please save it in the highest resolution and at the largest size available to you.
If you have any questions regarding the format of an image, please contact the technical editor.
Manuscript review
The technical editor will review your completed manuscript and will let you know whether we have accepted it. The editor will also tell you when we plan to publish the article.
Copyright release
After we accept your article, we will send you an acceptance letter and a copyright release form. We cannot publish your article unless you sign this form. Basically, the form says that we can reuse the article on our Web site and in other formats, but it also states that you, too, can reuse the article.
How we will edit the article
In general, we edit articles heavily. We need to put them in a format appropriate for magazines. This differs from the style used in test reports and conference proceedings.
We will cut sections that don't directly pertain to your focus, and we may reorganize your article to emphasize certain points. Also, we may ask you for additional information about something that seems second-nature to you but with which our readers may not be familiar. Finally, we will copyedit the article to put it in our style.
But we will not publish the article without showing you our changes. The technical editor will show you revised drafts as he edits your manuscript,. Just before we publish the article, we will send you a final version that includes all of our copyedits and style changes. This will be your chance to make sure we have not inadvertently altered the technical details.
If you have any questions about our policies, please contact:
Deborah Sargent, Managing Editor
dsargent@tmworld.com
781-734-8420
