Woodworker's Central Woodworker's Gazette Article Guidelines
	Guidelines for submitting articles for the Gazette
	The WWA welcomes woodworking articles from visitors to this website. Anyone interested in submitting a woodworking related article, book or tool review needs to read these guidelines before sending us your work. Copyrights and Editing The only right the WWA reserves is the right to host the article for as long as deemed timely. Aside from that, the article is yours to do with as you please. Feel free to shop it around to other print and online magazines - it's up to you and we wish you success. We do as little editing as possible. Unless your article contains information we think is unsafe or suggests practices or ideas which aren't easily substantiated, your article will be published essentially as is. We do not prejudice content nor attempt to steer attitude. Your honest opinions are what we seek. We do have a spell-checker and we will work with those woodworkers who don't feel confident in the writing department. Not everyone is a writing scholar but that doesn't mean you don't have something valuable to say. If you have any questions about anything pertaining to the appropriateness of an idea, it's much better to contact us before you spend hours on your article. The link is at the bottom of the page. You should also remember the web is a purely digital medium. Anything you submit can be updated or improved at any time - just let us know! Sending us Text Everyone has their own favorite program for writing on the computer. So far we've been able to convert all documents sent to us but it hasn't always been easy. Many programs apply their own special characters which don't translate well to the html format used for displaying webpages. Sometimes when we 'crack' these documents, we get more information than we anticipated. We've discovered, among other things, the writer's computer manufacturer, printer configuration, social security number and in one case, the last woodworking proposal sent to a prospective client. (Word users - watch out!) Without doubt, the most convenient way for us to receive articles is to have them copied and pasted into an email. This gives us just the basic building blocks for your article without any special characters. You can reference any included photos or graphics in the text by simply writing '(photo1.jpg here)' or '(graph2.gif here)'. We'll take it from there. Text should be sent to Jim Mattson by clicking HERE Sending us Pictures We can open and convert most any graphics format you might want to send. Pictures will be converted to .jpgs and drawings will be converted to .gifs. You can help us out by pre-converting these images beforehand and keeping the file size to less than 100k each. Nothing makes our day more than receiving a 5Mg email file which ties up our modems for an hour. That was sarcasm...;) Graphics should be attached (enclosed) to an email, preferably with a copy of the article, and sent HERE. If you don't have a scanner or digital camera, that's OK; we can scan the images for you from your photographs. Send them to: The WWA 203 Riggs Ave. Severna Park MD 21146 Please let us know if you need them returned and we'll get them back to you as soon as we can. Shooting/Processing Pictures Most woodworkers are fairly artistic in nature and they instinctively know what constitutes a great image. For those who are new to taking pictures, here are some tips you might want to consider. The most important aspect for a great picture is adequate and even lighting. Several soft lights applied from many directions are better than just one bright flash. Also keep in mind the background for your images. Do you really want to display your favorite calender for everyone to see on a webpage? <wink> An image which is wider than normal is better than one that is too narrow - we can crop out any unnnecessary edges. Also keep in mind what information you want to portray. If the text of your article is focused on a particular subject, then the photo should compliment that text. Often you may realize the appropriate photo will let you convey your thoughts with far fewer words. It's what makes pictures so valuable to any article. Photographs displayed by the WWA use a resolution of 72 dpi (dots per inch). This is the standard which has been carried over from the paper publishing medium. If you are scanning images into your computer, the best resolution for your archive and sending to us is a multiple of 72 dpi (144, 288, etc). When the images are re-sampled downward to the standard, less information is lost. Please don't send us high resolution images - 72 dpi is fine. If you want to do any image processing before sending in your photos, it's best if you know that your monitor is adjusted properly. Often folks will get a computer without having much experience with what images normally look like. You can test your images for proper brightness and color saturation by sending a sample to a friend who will let you view your image on their monitor. If it looks the same, you're probably OK. We can make some adjustments but it's extremely difficult to add color or brightness to an image which has been removed by processing. When in doubt, less image processing is usually better. We hope this page has proved useful and helped your understanding of our procedures. Everyone has their own take on woodworking and often these insights should be shared. If you have any questions, please feel free to send them in - thanks! Chuck Ring WWA Information Director Jim Mattson WWA Webmaster