Wanted: Philatelic-Related Articles for the Forum Newsletter

Beginning in October, the Forum will publish a bi-monthly newsletter that will be distributed to the membership electronically. We welcome articles written by our members on any aspect of philately, so long as they are original works. Submissions found to have been copied from online sources, in whole or in part, will be declined or returned to their authors for reworking.

Members are encouraged to submit one or more articles for publication in the newsletter. Anything related to philately is acceptable and articles reflecting your personal experiences or expertise are preferred. When preparing and submitting an article, the following guidelines apply:

a. Write in the first person using a conversational style. Provide enough background so that readers can follow your discussion.

b. When conducting research, use primary sources whenever possible; websites such as Wikipedia are not reliable sources of factual information. Cite your sources, as appropriate, and provide a bibliography. Take care to ensure that submitted images are not copyrighted.

c. Try to keep your article to between 1 and 3 pages in length. If more length is required, the article may be published in parts.

d. Text that is written using most word processing programs will be accepted.

e. Don’t embed images; place markers in the text indicating where accompanying images should be positioned. Keep recommended captions short.

f. Scanned images 800 pixels or larger in size are preferred in .jpg, .tiff or.png format. Please don’t upload them to image sites as many downgrade the resolution to conserve space. Images that are dark or lacking color can be modified but blurred images are unacceptable for publication.

g. Submit manuscripts and images as attachments to an email sent to ckdorn47 (at) yahoo.com. Send a follow-up email to the same address letting us know what you sent so we can be sure that all attachments have been received.

h. The Forum’s editorial staff reserves the right to edit all material accepted for publication. Authors will receive a copy of the edited manuscript for review prior to publication.

i. In submitting an article, the author is giving consent for its publication in the newsletter and posting on the APS website.

One benefit of being an APS Chapter is that we can participate in the society’s Philatelic Articles of Distinction program. Each September we will hold a competition to select the best philatelic-related article published in the newsletter during the preceding year. All members who have had articles published are eligible, regardless of their APS membership status. The author of the selected work will be recognized by the APS and his or her article will be posted on the APS website along with a link to our Forum. The APS Articles of Distinction website may be viewed at stamps.org/articles-of-distinction.

In order to make the publication target of October 1, articles submitted for inclusion in the inaugural issue of the newsletter must be received not later than September 10, 2016. Submissions for publication in subsequent issues of the newsletter must be received by the 10th of November, January, March, May, July or September.