Terms and Guidelines

I. Terms

A. The Entry: Contributors are responsible for providing a tagged essay on their essay topic, as well as a list of key terms, and a list of resources, as shown in the sample entry. Contributors are responsible for conducting their own research.

B. Documentation: Each entry must be documented. Please submit, with your manuscript, labeled photocopies of all reference book, electronic data, and periodical articles used to prepare the entry. Labeling should include the author/editor, title, publisher, date, and page number(s). If you use books devoted entirely to your essay topic, a photocopy of the title and copyright pages will suffice. Entries submitted without documentation will be returned to the author.

C. Original Material: All essays submitted for the How Products Are Made must be original and previously unpublished. With the exception of attributed quotations, all source material must be thoroughly paraphrased. Plagiarism will result in contract termination.

D. Manuscript Submission: We prefer that you submit your assignments as you complete them, regardless of the number you've been contracted for. As noted in the "Submitting Manuscript" component of this guidelines package, entries must be sent in electronic form, via e-mail or disk. For contributors with e-mail, an attached file is the preferred means of article submission. Hard copies of the source materials must still be mailed.

E. Manuscript Acceptance Policy: Manuscript deemed unacceptable for publication by the editors will be returned and will void any agreement. Manuscript that fails to meet the criteria outlined in these guidelines, or is in any other way deemed unacceptable for publication by the editors, will not be compensated for by Gale. If only a certain portion of a submission is deemed acceptable, you may be asked to rewrite the unacceptable sections; otherwise payment may be made on a prorated basis corresponding to the amount of acceptable manuscript.

F. Copyright: Gale will be the sole owner and proprietor of the copyright on all material published in the How Products Are Made series.

G. Contributor Acknowledgment: Contributors will receive bylines that will appear at the end of substantive essays, as well as on a Contributors page in the publication's front matter.

H. Contract: You will receive a Memorandum of Agreement that covers your initial assignment. You will receive new contracts for ongoing assignments, should you continue to write for the project. You will receive three copies of each contract. Please fill out all three and return two to us immediately. Keep one copy for your records. You will be sent a countersigned copy.

I. Payment: Please include an invoice with each batch of manuscript you send in. Be sure to include your Social Security/IRS Tax ID number, a list of the entries completed, the amount due for each entry, and the total amount due for the invoice. Your check will usually be mailed within 45 days of our receipt of your manuscript.

A. Audience: Because How Products Are Made will be used by junior high and high school students your essays should be tailored to a more general audience. Please avoid jargon. We're looking for straightforward but engaging prose.

B. Length of Essays: All entries are 2,000 words in length and are paid $300 a piece. These word count ranges do not include Resources or tags.

Please keep your assignments within these parameters. Contact the project editor as soon as possible if you are having difficulty locating material on your subject or if you feel it cannot be adequately covered within the assigned length.

C. Sample Entry: A component of this guidelines package is a sample entry on the topic "Aluminum." One version is formatted for easy reading; the other is tagged in manuscript submission style. Used in conjunction with the article sections descriptions in the "Overview" document, this sample will serve as a model for the appropriate organization, content, style, and reading level of the entries you'll be compiling. It will also help you understand the template structure and data tags we're asking contributors to use.

D. Writing style: Please do not use a second person writing style. Writing should always be in third person.

E. Template diskette: The diskette included with the guidelines package contains one ASCII file Ba tag template for the different types of entries. You'll need to make a copy of the template for each entry you compile. Note that a corresponding printout of the tag template is also included in the guidelines.

F. Acronyms: For the first reference, spell out the word or phrase and place the acronym in parens following—e.g., National Health Service (NHS). Thereafter, you may use the acronym.

G. Timeliness: It is essential that entries be as up-to-date as possible. Make every effort to review current literature on the Internet, in books, or in periodicals. Information published within the last three years is preferable; within the last five years is acceptable, if nothing else is available. Since this product has a shelf life of approximately three years, essays should not be dated by the use of phrases like "now," "currently," and "most recently." Whenever possible, give the specific year, e.g., "As of 2003..."

H. Accuracy: Contributors should keep in mind that, as a reference work, How Products Are Made will be consulted as an objective, authoritative source of reliable information. Accuracy is of primary importance. Double-check all names, dates, quotations, and other data for accuracy. Errors of fact or misquotations in newspaper or magazine articles are regrettable; in medical reference sources, they are disastrous.

I. Attribution of original sources: This would occur where the source cited is not the original source of the information. For instance, a table may be taken from USA Today, but the data may have been provided by the Department of Health and Human Services. Please acknowledge this by stating, "According to a survey done by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in May of 2003..."

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