 Writing for Sacra Blue
Sacra Blue welcomes submissions from its readers
By
Eric Butow
Sacra Blue welcomes submissions from its readers. We encourage all prospective contributors to contact the editor with ideas for articles at all levels. Current issues of the newsletter provide the best guide to the preferred format and style. However, the following general guidelines may be helpful.
Deadline and Schedule
Because of the volume of submissions, Sacra Blue cannot guarantee that all submissions will be used. However, most articles that are received by the deadlines outlined below will appear in the next issue. The editor gives preferential treatment to articles that are received on time and require a minimum of editing. Articles may be retained for later publication if time and space prevent immediate use. All submissions are subject to editing. Articles. The deadline for articles is the third Wednesday of the month (the general meeting night). If you cannot get your article in by the deadline but you want to have your article published in the next issue of Sacra Blue, please contact the editor by the weekend before the deadline at the latest to discuss the issue with him. Meeting reports. Chapters, SIGs, and ACOs that hold their monthly meetings before the week containing the third Wednesday of the month must send in their reports by the third Wednesday of the month. Chapters, SIGs, and ACOs that hold their monthly meetings on or after the week containing the third Wednesday of the month must send in their reports 48 hours after the meeting. Advertising. The deadline for classified and commercial advertising reservations is the fourth Wednesday of the month. See “About Advertising” on the classified advertisements page for more information on submitting classified ads, and the inside front cover for more information on submitting commercial ads. What to Submit
Text. Please submit your articles in plain text, Word, or WordPerfect formats. The editor has the latest versions of Word and WordPerfect, so any version of Word or WordPerfect will do. Please do not submit Lotus Word Pro files. Photos. If you submit photographs, black-and-white or color glossy prints are best. Illustrations and screen shots. We can handle a wide variety of graphic file formats, but TIF, PCX, BMP, and EPS formats produce the best results. If you haven’t submitted screen shots or illustrations before, please contact the editor.
Format and Style
Current issues of Sacra Blue provide the best guide to our preferred style. Sacra Blue is prepared with Adobe PageMaker. Because PageMaker handles most formatting with style sheets, you should not attempt to format your text manually. Particular format and style notes include the following. If you have questions and/or concerns, contact the editor.
Only one space should appear between sentences.
Please keep your text left-justified at all times.
Use blank lines to separate paragraphs. Do not use automatic paragraph spacing.
Please do not use spaces or tabs to indent paragraphs, center text, or justify text.
If you must align tabular material, use one tab—not spaces—between columns.
The headline of the article should be at the top of the article with the author’s name directly underneath. Use initial capital letters for all but “insignificant” words such as articles and prepositions. Please do not type entire headlines in capital letters.
>Subheads in text should be entered as separate paragraphs. Use initial capital letters for all but “insignificant” words such as articles and prepositions. Please do not type entire subheads in capital letters.
PageMaker will preserve your word processor’s use of italics and boldface. If you are submitting a plain text article, please identify the text you want italicized and bolded.
Please use italics for emphasis instead of an underline. Italics are also used for other SPCUG services and names of other publications and media titles. Bold italics are used for references to Sacra Blue.
PageMaker converts inch marks to true opening and closing quotes. Please do not use any fancy techniques to represent quotes.
PageMaker converts double hyphens (--) to dashes. Don’t put spaces in front of and behind dashes—link the words with the dash.
Capitalization of company and program names should conform to the usage of the particular vendors.
Use ALL CAPS only for commands (e.g., CHKDSK), filenames (CONFIG.SYS) and acronyms (DOS). For plurals of acronyms and dates, use s next to the name (e.g., PCs, 1990s).
Keys are designated as on the IBM Enhanced Keyboard—e.g., F1, Esc, Alt. For key combinations, use a hyphen between the keys to be pressed simultaneously, e.g., Ctrl-X, Shift-F4, Ctrl-Alt-Del.
Do not embed formatting codes or special characters, even the ones in the PC’s extended symbol set, such as ˝. Some of these codes can have far-reaching effects.
Put your telephone number and e-mail address at the bottom of your article in case we need to contact you. Please indicate whether you want the phone number and/or e-mail address published with your article.
How to Submit
By E-mail. An e-mail attachment is the preferred method of delivery. Send your file attached to a message and e-mail it to ebutow@dgweb.com.
By BBS. You can upload the file to our Sacra Bytes BBS in file area 20, which is the area reserved for Sacra Blue articles.
By Mail. You can mail articles on a 3.5-inch disk to Editor, Sacra Blue, 311 Canterbury Ave., Roseville, CA 95678-5175.
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