Here's your chance!
Contribute to the ITStartPage Knowledge Bank. We're looking for articles, case studies and other knowledge-based material from people who know.
What's in it for you?
We credit accepted material to its author (actually, we insist on it --
sorry no anonymous submissions). In addition to your name, your credit
may also (optionally) include your job title, e-mail address, employer,
university degree(s), professional certifications/associations and a link
to you or your employer's Web site. All we ask is that you're truthful,
brief and avoid blatant hype. Readers will be turned off by a credit paragraph
that is implausible or longer than the rest of the article.
How can you submit material to the Knowledge Bank? It's is easy. We use Word for Windows, but have filters for all but any particularly recent versions of most popular word processors. We also accept plain text and HTML files. Attach the file to an e-mail and send it to admin@itstartpage.com. We'll also accept submissions as text typed into a simple e-mail sent to the same address. Submission is not a guarantee of acceptance.
When you send us your article, remember to include a short, one or two
paragraph biography that states your qualifications -- but without too
much hype. Also let us know if you want us to include a link to your e-mail
address from your byline (some people don't because of the potential for
spammers to pick that up). And tell us if you want us to link
to your company from the company name in your biographical paragraph.
Also, and very importantly, please state clearly in your e-mail that you
give us permission to publish your article on our site. If you send us
an article without stating specifically that we may publish it, we'll turf
it.
If you haven't already done so, please read the editorial guidelines
below.
What might cause your article to be rejected?
- Your article was not related to IT.
- Your article just hyped a product. We know that you want to promote you
and your company, but let your expertise speak for itself. Don't hype you
or your product.
- Your biographical paragraph contained too much hype. Our experience is
that, in general, if it sounds too good to be true, most people won't believe
it. That is particularly true of us.
- You didn't bother to read the guidelines below or you read them but decided
to ignore them.
- You included your article as an attachment and our virus scanner said it
contains a virus.
- You spam us by sending the same article multiple times.
Will we let you know of any deficiencies in your article? No, sorry. Unfortunately,
the economics of an advertising-funded information site like ours is such
that we are probably crazy for doing this at all. We don't have time to
negotiate back and forth with an author until we get something suitable.
If your article doesn't follow our guidelines we'll toss it without any
notification. Again, sorry.
Editorial Guidelines
- You must have full rights to publish the material here. DO NOT plagiarize. DO NOT submit material if you have already assigned exclusive publication rights to another person or organization.
- Contributions must be informational, not promotional.
- Any opinions expressed must be rational conclusions
based on facts and justified in the article.
- The article must be on a topic related to information technology -- but
that's a pretty wide area. It can be about the management of IT, software
development, IT usage, internal functioning, anything IT-related. But it
must be IT related. Sorry, we won't run articles about your amazing diet
plan.
- We will not knowingly publish product or
service reviews from the vendor or its ad
agency or PR firm. Please don't try to disguise
the real source. Every product has a few
weaknesses. If we receive a product/service
review that is not balanced we will be suspicious
and may reject it.
- We will not knowingly publish product or
service reviews from a vendor of a competitive
product/service or its ad agency or PR firm.
Redundancy notwithstanding, please don't
try to disguise the real source. Every product
has a few strengths. If we receive a product/service
review that is not balanced we will be suspicious
and may reject it.
- Don't bash a product or service just for
the sake of bashing it. If there is information
that should be out there, back up opinions
with hard facts.
- We will format the article to conform to
a common look and feel. However, we will
not intentionally change the content without
the author's permission. If we accidentally
alter content when reformatting it, please
let us know once it is published and we will
move quickly to correct the error.
- There are no set rules on length, but be concise. We will likely reject
an article that rambles.
- Focus your article on a single topic. If
you want to convey disparate information,
split it into multiple articles. There is
no limit on the number of articles we will
accept from a single author.
- If graphics will enhance your article, feel
free to include them. You must provide them
in a Web standard format -- GIF or JPEG.
Keep the graphics as small and clean as possible.
While there may be exceptional situations,
we would like to keep all articles, including
graphics, under 30K and preferably under
15K.
- You accept full responsibility for the accuracy
and liability of the published material.
We will include a disclaimer to that effect.
- ITStartPage reserves the right to reject any article for any reason. Reasons
may include such things as redundancy with another published or accepted
article, lack of focus on a marketing communications topic, or the article
breaks any of the other rules above.
- While you retain ownership of the material, by your submission you grant
us permission to run it indefinitely on the ITStartPage site.
All articles are reviewed before being published. Please be patient with us. While we want to work as fast as possible, we put quality ahead of speed on our list of priorities. |
