Connections for Quilters - Editorial Guidelines

Editorial Guidelines

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Introduction
Our styles are pretty much the same as you will find in the better magazines and newspapers you will read in Canada, with few exceptions. For that reason we will primarily review some of the nuts and bolts of modern writing for a mass audience and discuss some of those exceptions.
In general, treat our readers with respect and don’t patronize them but don’t try to display the depth of your vocabulary except when it would be silly not to use that just-right word. Our readers are usually of above average intelligence and self-educated where they didn’t have the benefit of extensive formal education. Also, they thirst for information and will use your words as a springboard to refining and enhancing their quilting and sewing experience, so first and foremost make sure those words impart your information fully and as completely as possible. Always remember that although we have space limitations we will never trim more than the fat from any submission; solid information will always survive the editor’s delete key.

Words fitly spoken
We ask that you keep your submissions to a maximum of approximately 600 to 1,000 words, but, and this is important, if you have an idea for an article that cannot be contained within that word count, please, please contact us! We can always make an exception and we can always find different ways to deal with the size of an article, including serializing it. Don’t chop it up just to make it fit. On the other hand, please stop when you’re finished, be it with 600, 800 or 400 words!

We are Canadian!
Importantly, Connections FOR QUILTERS uses Canadian or English spellings, instead of those found in the spell checkers of our American-based computer programs. That means mostly that where your computer will want neighbor, we will use neighbour.
Tip: To make your life easier, you might want to set up a custom dictionary for Connections FOR QUILTERS in particular and quilting in general. Then when your computer is at a loss for a choice of words or spellings you can merely add them to the dictionary. From then on you will only be prompted for a real spelling mistake.

Possessive or plural?
One other area where we will depart from what is growing more popular, south of the border, is in the use of the apostrophe (‘). We will always use the apostrophe to designate the possessive, i.e., quilter’s or quilters’. Not using the apostrophe makes the reader have to stop and determine the meaning from the context in which the word is used, which is counter productive and annoying, not to mention improper.

No zeros please
Please use no zeros not absolutely necessary, e.g., 9:00 a.m., $250.00. For the sake clarity and to make as much room for the real information, we just have to take them off. If you are an offender you may have noticed your ears burning sometimes late into the night…

If it needs it, use it
          Speaking of time, when writing a specific time please use a.m. or p.m., not am or pm. A spell-checker may catch variations in the former but it won’t be triggered by am. Also avoid the term o’clock, unless it is being used for emphasis in a reference to time or lyrically, as in a poem or song.
          If you are going to be using an abbreviation often in an article, first use the term in full, i.e., Fraser Valley Quilters Guild. Then immediately after, insert the abbreviation in brackets – Fraser Valley Quilters Guild (FVQG). Periods are not necessary in this case. From there on it is clear what FVQG is.
          Avoid the growing tendency to make two words into one. Our style is to join the words with a dash, to make it clear.

Dashes and dots
Our use of hyphens, dashes and em dashes is standard, but to review… a hyphen is the longest dash. It is used to join two complete thoughts with more flow than a period. An elipse… three dots followed by a space, is used in exactly the same way and is less formal. Note: A proper elipse is typed using your Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac) key with the semi-colon key. A dash is used to join two words or terms (American-based, two-day, three-way). There are no spaces on either side of a hyphen or a dash. An Em dash (Opt.- or Alt.-Dash) is used primarily to separate information for emphasis (as in – insert the abbreviation in brackets – Fraser Valley Quilters Guild (FVQG), or clarity. An em dash is always separated by a space on either side. Finally, whatever you do, do not use two dashes for a hyphen.

Wise use of space
Also avoid adding the “th”, “rd” or “nd” to numbers; this was a practice that dated back to hand-written letter days. At that time it added clarity to formal writing; today it just takes up space and slows the reader down. The only exception is when talking about special occasions – “20th anniversary”.
Unnecessary use of the word “on” is another road-block to smooth reader – “… will be held on September 4.” The “on” is redundant. The word “of” also falls into this category, and “the”.

Capital idea… not
Please avoid unnecessary use of capital letters. Again they slow readers down and date back to the archaic, stilted formal writing of a day now gone, or legal documents, and even lawyers are trying to avoid them. We commonly see something like this, “The President of our Guild has had to resign, so our Vice President now heads our Executive.” All the capitals after The are unnecessary. Caps should only be used to begin a sentence or in a proper name, or in abbreviations. When in doubt, leave them out; we would rather add them than have to delete them.

No stone tablets
Please use this guide as just that, a guide. We welcome a certain flourish and any writing that can add zip and zest for our readers, and you, will find us fair, always. For us, right behind information comes entertainment… Connections FOR QUILTERS should always be fun and enjoyable to read.
This guide will evolve as we turn up more things to give our newsletter its own identity. If in doubt, just run it by us.

Submission formats
We prefer submissions by email but sometimes that can be a problem. You can help by saving your story in the RichText Format (RTF), to preserve your formatting and to eliminate computer language misinterpretations of your symbols, such as dashes, quotes, numbers and ellipses. Our next choice is to have you copy the story into your email, but there again we can run afoul of computers trying to interpret symbols. In any case, whenever we see a potential problem we will contact you for clarification.