Editorial Guidelines for Contributers

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Field of Interest

Articles should deal with some phase of finishing metals or plastics, including but not limited to: plating, painting, powder coating, anodizing, passivation, electrocoating, buffing/polishing, deburring, vibratory finishing, cleaning/pretreatment, metal spraying, vacuum metallizing, printed circuit production, etching and related processes.

Types of Coverage

Contributed Features. Feature articles written by a technical expert or experts from your company are a staple of PF’s finishing industry coverage. Articles should be a maximum of 2,500 words in length (minimum 2,200). The article will necessarily discuss finishing technology from your company's perspective; however, commercialism should be kept to a minimum. Feature articles run with 3-5 pertinent illustrations (photos, graphs, charts, diagrams).

Preparation of an outline or synopsis before sending a completed manuscript is strongly recommended for potential feature articles. This gives our editors an opportunity to direct the author’s efforts, generally resulting in a better, more informative article for PF readers and saving time for the author in the long run.

Case Studies. Application case studies are the other main type of feature editorial used in Products Finishing. Our editorial staff generates case studies based on input from users of finishing technology. Most often, we are put into contact with these users by technology suppliers, so what we would need from your company is contact information for a customer willing to talk with us in some detail about their operations, plus any background material about the application that you can provide.

Case study articles are most often based on information gathered during a visit by our staff to your customer's facility. Plant visits last half a day or less, and usually consist of an interview with appropriate company personnel, a walk around the shop to snap some photos, then a wrap-up for any questions the shop tour may have generated. Completed case studies are always sent back to the user for technical approval before publication.

Tech Notes is a monthly department that reports news about novel finishing technologies. Although Tech Notes are generally product-driven, the items are about more than just new products. Ideally, Tech Notes covers significant product developments that reveal technology or industry trends or application breakthroughs in a technology area. Tech Notes items run as a full page in the magazine and include at least one illustration. Tech Notes are generated by our staff based on information supplied by your company.

New Products/Literature. Has your company developed a new product or an improvement of an existing product? Have you recently published a new brochure, catalog or other piece of literature? Our readers want to know--they consistently rate information on new finishing products and technologies as one of the most important types of coverage PF provides. Participation in the New Products section of PF can be as simple as dropping a brochure or other product information in the mail.

Products Finishing Directory and Technology Guide. The Directory is an annual issue that contains basic tutorial articles on a wide variety of finishing technologies as well as a directory of technology suppliers. Published in December, the Directory is an extra 13th issue for PF. For this reason, we work on it basically year 'round, and editorial deadline for the issue is in mid-May. Directory articles should run 2,000-2500 words in length, and should contain 3-5 appropriate illustrations/charts/graphs.

Materials

Please submit feature articles as Microsoft Word (.doc) documents. Prepare tables, graphs, photographs and other illustrations separately rather than incorporating them within the document text.

Electronic photos should be in .jpg or .tif file formats with minimum 300-dpi resolution at a minimum size of 4 x 5 or 5 x 7 inches. Photographs and color slides are also acceptable. All photographic materials must be clear, sharp, in-focus and properly exposed. Captions should be provided for each photograph and each photograph should be identified.

Materials can be submitted by e-mail to Jim Destefani (jdestefani@pfonline.com) or Kate Hand (khand@pfonline.com), or by regular mail at:

                                          Products Finishing Magazine

                                          Attn: Kate Hand, Managing Editor

                                          6915 Valley Ave.

                                          Cincinnati, OH 45244-3029

Manuscript and electronic illustrations can also be uploaded directly via Gardner Publications’ corporate Web site. Instructions:

* Go to our corporate website, www.gardnerweb.com.

* Click on "Upload Center" near the top middle of the page.

* Click on "File Upload Center."

* Enter the number of files you're sending (up to six at a time), then select "Products Finishing Editorial (Kate Hand)" from the pulldown menu.

* Click Next.

* Browse to select and attach the files you want, add your contact information and any message you want to send, and click "Next."

* Depending on file size, the upload may take a few minutes. Upon completion, you will receive an e-mail message from Gardner's IT department confirming file receipt.

Editing and Exclusivity

Products Finishing will edit any articles to conform to our style guide and for content. We also insist that contributed feature articles be exclusive to Products Finishing magazine. Authors may be asked to sign copyright release or to assign in writing one-time rights to Products Finishing magazine.

Editorial Deadlines

For regular issues, editorial deadlines are two months in advance of the issue date. (Example: for the October issue, editorial deadline is the beginning of August.) If you have an idea for an article that you think may be of interest to our readers, it's best to contact our editor to discuss the article about 6 months before the issue in which you would like it to appear.

Questions

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Jim Destefani (jdestefani@pfonline.com; phone 734-709-8496) or Kate Hand (khand@pfonline.com; phone 513-527-8844).