Authors Guide:
How To Get Your Article
Published In R&D Magazine
R&D Magazine's History & Objectives
Since its founding in 1959 (under the name Industrial Research),
R&D Magazine has served research scientists, engineers, and technical
staff members at laboratories around the world. R&D Magazine provides
timely, informative news – and useful technical articles that broaden our
readers’ knowledge of the research and development industry and
improve the quality of their work.
R&D Magazine is circulated monthly to over 80,000 readers. About
75% of R&D Magazine readers work for high-tech industrial companies.
The remainder work in government labs, universities, private research
institutes, or medical facilities.
A majority of R&D Magazine readers—almost 60%--are managers. They
run projects, laboratories, research divisions, or entire companies. Often
multidisciplinary in nature, their work focuses on physics, chemistry,
materials science, biology, and engineering.
Most articles in R&D Magazine are technical. Due to the multidisciplinary
nature of the magazine’s readership, however, articles are written to be
readable and useful to all R&D Magazine readers, regardless of their
scientific specialty.
News stories and technical articles in R&D Magazine
are concerned with:
1. State-of-the-art scientific and technical advances.
2. How the latest R&D instruments and techniques
help researchers work more productively.
3. Important trends in research management, funding,
and policy.
R&D Magazine also sponsors the R&D
100 Awards to recognize the
100 most technologically significant new products
of the year.
Applications for these awards programs are available
at www.rdmag.com/awards.aspx. The magazine also presents
awards for the Scientist, Laboratory, Corporation,
and Innovator of the Year.
The R&D franchise also consists of various print
and electronic newsletters, online and live technical
conferences, and special reports
and publications. Please see our website for further
information.
A Few Things to Remember
Before you jump to your computer to churn out the
next cover story
for R&D Magazine, please keep a couple of points
in mind.
FIRST, it’s important to remember that R&D Magazine is meant to be
read, understood, and used. The editors believe that
articles can be
technically rigorous and professionally useful without
being dull. The
secret lies in concise, crisp writing, and helpful,
eye-catching graphics.
We want all of our articles to look and read their
best. That’s why we’ll
work closely with you to maintain the highest of
editorial, technical, and
scientific excellence.
SECOND, please contact us before
you put a lot of time and effort into
writing an article. We’ll be able to tell you
whether your idea is suitable
for R&D Magazine and how to create a manuscript
with the greatest
potential for acceptance.
The best way to promote your idea is to write us
a short letter containing
the following information:
1. A suggested title or topic heading for your article.
2. A one-paragraph synopsis or outline of the story
idea, indicating
its significance and why it should be published in
R&D Magazine.
3. A sentence or two about yourself (and any co-authors)
indicating you are qualified to write the article.
All submitted articles must be original–we
will not use previously published articles.
All published articles are copyrighted by Advantage Business Media and
may only be used for other purposes with written approval of Advantage
Business Media/R&D Magazine. Some published articles may be
selected to also run on our website.
The Best Way to Reach the Editors
We gladly accept phone calls
and emails from readers and other
outside contributors who want to
try out story ideas on us. Please
direct questions and ideas to our
editors. A full list of R&D Magazine’s
editors with phone numbers and e-mail
addresses is available on our website
at www.rdmag.com/EdInfo.aspx. A similar
list is also printed in the front
of each magazine issue.
Editors can be reached by mail at the following address:
R&D/Managing
Editor
100 Enterprise
Drive, Ste 600
Rockaway, NJ 07866 |
We will answer your questions as
quickly as possible, usually within
a few days.
Six Requirements for Publication
All articles in R&D Magazine must be:
1. Original
2. Accurate
3. Timely
4. Noncommercial / Non-advertorial
5. Useful to R&D Magazine’s readers
6. Exclusive to R&D Magazine. An article must be previously unpublished in the
form submitted. A
manuscript that appeared in a company newsletter
or in a small-
circulation specialty publication that does not compete
editorially with
with R&D Magazine may be considered for publication,
provided the
author makes R&D Magazine aware of this previous
publication at the
time of submittal. All submitted articles are subject
to editing at
R&D Magazine’s discretion.
After an article concept is accepted by R&D Magazine’s editors. The
final version should be e-mailed to the supervising
editor or sent on a
disk or CD-ROM via mail.
Editorial Opportunities
R&D Magazine actively solicits editorial material
for the following sections
or departments:
•Front Cover Photo
• News and Developments
• Contributed Feature Articles
• Staff-Written Feature Articles
• Special Supplement Features
• Informatics
• R&D Asia
• Regulatory Update
• Emerging Technologies
• Exclusive New Product Introductions
• Events Calendar
What We're Looking For
R&D Magazine plans its Editorial Calendar a
year in advance. You can
get a good idea of the kinds of articles we’re
interested in by visiting the
Editorial Calendar on the media kit portion of our
website,
www.rdmag.com
We are particularly interested in editorial material
that pertains to the
following subject areas or disciplines:
• Advanced Materials
• Aerospace Research
• Analytical Instrumentation
• Automotive Research
• Analytical Chemistry
• Biosciences/Biotechnology
• Chemicals
• Chromatography / Separation Sciences
• Computers/LIMS/Image Analysis/Software
• Data Acquisition
• Electronic Instrumentation
• Energy Research
• Environmental Research and Instrumentation
• Food & Beverage Technology
•Forensics
• Laboratory Design
• Lab Equipment and Supplies
• Lab Safety and Standards
• Lasers/Optics/Electro-optics
• Micromachined Devices
• Microscopy
• Nanotechnology
• Pharmaceuticals Research
• Process Technology
• Sample Preparation
• Spectroscopy
• Surface Analysis
• Test and Measurement Equipment
• Vacuum Technology/Thin Films/Semiconductor Research
Front Cover Photo
The front cover photo is selected to illustrate
the editorial focus of an
issue. If you feel you have a cover-quality photo,
or if you are interested
in working with the editors to develop such a photo
for a future issue,
please contact the Editor-in-Chief at least five months
before publication
of the issue. Full credit will be given to the company
or individual
supplying the photo.
Candidate photos must be of superior photographic
quality and must
meet the design requirements established for R&D Magazine covers.
To improve your organization’s chances of having
its image selected
for the cover, please review the following guidelines:
1. Cover photos must be in a vertical format. Horizontal
photos are
acceptable only if they can be successfully cropped
to form an appropriate vertical image.
2. Cover images must be recent photographs that illustrate
a topic
pertinent to the focus of the issue. Sharp, colorful
photos are best.
3. A cover photo must also relate directly to an
article in the issue.
We will consider developing an article related to
the cover photo if the technology involved merits
such attention.
4. This must be the first usage of the photo as a
magazine cover.
5. Ideal photos show researchers interacting with
technology. Photo-
graphed subjects must wear safety glasses if they
are appropriate to
the photographed situation. Subjects should not appear
posed or
smile directly into the camera. Technology photos
without researchers
may be acceptable, but photos developed for product
marketing
purposes generally will not do.
6. The photo should be composed so as to leave space
for cover
text. See past covers for examples.
7. We prefer receiving cover image candidates as
300 dpi or better.
If possible, submit several candidate photos.
News and Developments, R&D eNewsletters
If you know about late-breaking news or important research findings
affecting R&D, email the information to R&D Magazine’s
Managing Editor. Public policy issues, human interest stories, laboratory
grand openings, major personnel appointments, and important studies or reports
are among the topics that R&D covers each month. We encourage news items
from organizations outside the U.S.
Contributed Feature Articles
R&D Magazine employs a professional staff of
award-winning editors
whose technical training and experience span the scientific
disciplines.
Nonetheless, we are always looking for good story ideas
and articles,
and we welcome your contribution.
However, due to increasing workloads and the complexity
of new technologies, MOST TECHNICAL FEATURES
IN R&D
WILL NOW BE CONTRIBUTED, rather than staff written.
Contributed technical articles will continue to be
edited by R&D editors and strictly enforced to
prevent advertorial bias.
These contributed technical articles will be published
in two formats: 1) A 1-page summary in the print version
of R&D
of a generally longer manuscript.
2) A full-length manuscript on R&D Magazine’s
web site, www.rdmag.com/onlineexclusives
Each version will obviously be published in the same
month, with a pointer on the one-page summary to
the exact web site location of its associated full-length
online manuscript.
To be published in this format, contributed technical
features must be submitted as:
1) A 700-word, 1 page summary of the longer feature,
along with one high-resolution graphic (300 dpi or
better), and
2) An up to 2,500-word full length feature, along
with no more than eight graphics (60 dpi or better).
In general, edited drafts of articles are returned
to the authors for technical review prior to publishing.
This contributed feature strategy will accommodate
a larger number of monthly technical features within
R&D Magazine. Six or more technical features
in this new format will generally be able to be accommodated.
This contributed feature strategy also does not
preclude R&D editorial staff from authoring an
occasional technical feature in place of a contributed
feature. The fluidity of this strategy also allows
additional topics to be covered than may be noted
even in the latest version of the R&D Magazine
editorial calendar. Please contact the editorial
staff for additional details and topic suggestions.
Special focus features, including the R&D Funding
Forecast, Lab of the Year, Innovator of the Year,
Scientist of the Year, Corporation of the Year, R&D
100, Government CEO Roundtable, IRDO CEO Roundtable,
Hot Topics, and the R&D S/E Profiles will generally
continue to be written by R&D editors. These
features will be published in their entirety within
the print version of R&D and similarly on our
web site.
Virtually all of our articles, whether contributed
or staff-written, emphasize technical applications
and are written from the user’s point of view.
They include how-to articles on techniques, procedures
related to specific instruments, processes, or technologies,
and reports explaining how significant new products
are being used in the laboratory.
All such articles must tell our readers how the
instrument or new product being described has helped
researchers save time, money, and effort; how it
has improved their research results; or how it has
allowed them to perform activities that previously
were not possible.
Important: Product/process application articles
must describe user benefits and applications, not
merely product features.
Contact: Editor-in-Chief.
Photos and Illustrations
Good photos and illustrations
are crucial to the success of your
article.
They attract readers to the article, and by supplying
information on
their own, they support or enhance the text.
R&D Magazine’s editors and artists work
from electronic images, color transparencies and
prints, black-and-white photos, line drawings, pencil
sketches, blueprints, and printouts or tracings from
various kinds of recorders and plotters.
All photos
and illustrations should be of high quality, with
good contrast
and sharpness.
Electronic images are requested in TIF or EPS format,
with 300 dpi
or higher resolution. If possible, submit several
photos.
Bar charts, diagrams, sketches, etc., should be drawn
accurately and
clearly, but need not be suitable for reproduction
as submitted. R&D Magazine’s staff can prepare them for publication.
Don’t write on photos or other artwork. Don’t
crop, crease, or fold them;
you could render them unusable.
A caption should accompany each graphic and should accurately describe what
is represented in the graphic including company name and location, product,
application, and researcher names. Too much information is better than
too little.
Contact: Production Editor
Staff-Written Departments and Articles
Most special focus features in
R&D Magazine are written by the
staff. However, the editors welcome
your input on these articles. You
can contribute by sending us articles,
research reports, pertinent product
releases, conference proceedings,
and other article ideas. If you are an expert in a field
we are covering (see R&D’s
Editorial
Calendar at www.rdmag.com/eventcalendar.aspx
), or if you can point us to experts
within your company or organization,
we want to hear from you.
Contact: Editor-in-Chief will direct you to the appropriate
editor.
Emerging Technologies
Each month, our Emerging Technologies
section showcases novel technologies.
Items typically describe important
or unusual new devices. These
columns are staff-written.
Good color photos of a technology
can go far to selling an Emerging
Technology idea to the editors.
Photos that show readers how the
technology works or what the device
looks like are especially valued.
Always include plenty of information
describing the technology, what’s
new and important about it, how it is being used,
and what its future
applications might be.
Contact: Senior
Editor
Tech Newsletters
Each month, R&D Magazine publishes both print
and electronic
newsletters with subjects including data acquisition,
laboratory design,
and micronano technology. These newsletters include
industry news,
late-breaking advances, case studies, technical tips
and new product
information.
Contact: Managing Editor
New Products/Literature
Product announcements and literature
releases are selected based on
their technical significance and usefulness to our
readers. Please keep
your press releases short and to the point. Tell us
what’s new and
important about the product, how it advances the technology,
and where
and how it can be used.
Product announcements should include a digital
photo. Literature
announcements should include one perfect copy of
the actual piece of
literature or a digital equivalent.
Important: Do not write on literature announcements
or otherwise
damage it as we may need to photograph or scan it.
Send your releases to the Production Editor and
mark the outside of your
package in red ink or mark it with the words “New
Product Release” or “Literature Release.” This
will expedite
our processing of the materials.
Unfortunately, it is impossible for us to acknowledge
receipt of new
product and literature releases. Materials submitted
for the New Products/Literature section cannot be
returned.
Contact: Production Editor.
Exclusive New Product Introduction
Do you have a new product that truly stands out
from the crowd, one that
will have a significant effect on research activities?
We’d be glad to
consider it for our exclusive new product introduction
section.
The rules are simple: The product must be brand
new. It must be a
significant, state-of-the-art introduction that will
attract a high level of
reader interest. Anything you must give us must be
exclusive. That means no other publicity in any competing
publication for at least 30 days following publication
in R&D Magazine. In return, we’ll provide
about a 1/2 page article in the magazine accompanied
by a color photo.
Contact: Editor-in-Chief.
Events Calendar
The events calendar on our website
lists upcoming technical meetings,
seminars, conferences, symposia, and expositions. To
add your event
to our listing, send an email including the exact name
of the conference, the date, location and a contact
name and phone number.
Contact: Managing Editor.
R&D Executive SupplementThrough this quarterly
supplement, R&D Magazine offers advice to R&D
managers. The supplement sometimes employs a Q&A
format. Topic
areas include personnel management, laboratory practice,
budgeting,
strategic planning, corporate survival tactics, capital
equipment purchasing, product development, and day-to-day
operations.
Submissions for articles in R&D Executive are
welcome. Make them real-world, and include examples
and short case studies from your personal experience
to illustrate your main points. Be prescriptive—give
our readers advice, based on your experience.
Contact: Editor-in-Chief.
DOs & DON'Ts for Contributors
DO get to the point. R&D Magazine’s
readers
are busy. They want to
know right away why they should be reading your article.
If they have to
wade through unnecessary material, you could lose them.
DO remember that R&D Magazine’s readers
come from a broad range of
disciplines. While they are experts in their own
fields, they may not be
knowledgeable in yours. Don’t be condescending,
but help them out with
examples and comparisons whenever possible. Spell
out all acronyms
in first reference.
DON’T submit your article to another publication
while it is under consider-
ation for use in R&D Magazine. So-called simultaneous
submissions will
mean that your article will automatically be rejected
by R&D Magazine.
DO submit your articles via email. Avoid special
key codes for under-
lining, boldface or centering.
DON’T submit handwritten articles.
DO keep a copy of your article for your records
(R&D Magazine is not
responsible for lost manuscripts).
DON’T send manuscripts or illustrations that
have not been properly re-
leased by your organization, the US Government, or
any other respon-
sible body. It is not possible to make major changes
in a manuscript
after it has gone into production.
DO give the full name, title, affiliation, and
location (city, state) of all
individuals in your first references to them.
DO convert all measurements to metric units, except
those that would
sound ridiculous when converted.
DON’T use footnotes. If the material is important,
put it in the article.
DON’T use references. R&D is a magazine,
not a scholarly journal. If you
must cite an important paper, do so within the text
of the article.
DON’T include acknowledgments. If someone
else’s work is important
enough to the article, that person should share the
byline.
Important Policies & Procedures
Deadlines: Most material is due
two months before
the projected date of
publication, but anything you can do to get articles,
press releases, photos
and artwork to us sooner than that would be appreciated.
Your supervising
editor will give you specific dates when materials
are due.
Biographical Data: Articles published in R&D Magazine or its newsletters
usually are accompanied by a brief biographical sketch
for each author.
Include your correct name, title, affiliation, location,
technical responsi-
bilities, and educational background.
Contact information: Always include
your fax number and email address
in correspondence, especially if you’re located
outside the US. If you will
be away form the office during the editing process,
please make sure we
know how to get in touch with you.
Payment: In general, R&D Magazine does not
pay contributors for articles, nor does it charge
authors to have articles published in the
Magazine.
Preprints and reprints: Preprints
are not made available to authors, but
reprints can be ordered. Price quotations are available
on request.
Online articles: R&D Magazine
reserves the right to post all articles that
appear in the magazine online at www.rdmag.com.
Copyright: All articles appearing in R&D Magazine
are copyrighted by Advantage Business Media. You may be asked to sign
a standard copy- right transfer agreement, which is designed to protect
you and R&D Magazine. You are encouraged to create a link
from your website to the online version of your article, but you may not
copy the article onto your site without copyright transfer agreement.
Complimentary copies: If requested,
upon publication of the article, authors will be
mailed four copies
of the issue. For co-authored articles, the senior
author will receive four copies, the other authors,
two each. Additional copies may be purchased. Good
luck! Our editors look
forward to having your contribution in an upcoming
issue of R&D Magazine.
To Reach the Editors
A full list of R&D Magazine’s editors with
phone numbers and email
addresses is available at www.rdmag.com/EdInfo.aspx.
A similar list is also printed in the front of each
magazine.
Editorial Staff Contact Information
Editorial Assistant
Genevieve Jeziorski
973.920.7751
genevieve.jeziorski@advantagemedia.com |
