This year's second quarter issue of the
Philatelic Communicator features an article
by Armand Singer titled "How To Soothe and
Impress Your Editor".
I'd like to share Armand's opening
comments and his twenty-one points hopefully,
with the blessings of the Journal:
If you've reached the point where you
don't need advice, I doff my editorial hat. I
used to give all of you contributors the
benefit of the doubt. But either, like
students, you're getting younger each year,
or I'm getting more punctilious (read
nitpicking), or the times are becoming
increasingly disjointed. Whatever is wrong,
the editorial board is
finding problems in your submissions. The
following pages offer simple suggestions on
how to improve the packaging of your product.
Said hints are in no way intended as
exhaustive, but they represent the commonest
objections appearing on the referees' opinion
sheets. Since I read all the manuscripts, I
have thrown in my own pet peeves along with
the others.
- Research First
- Avoid Being a Paperback Citer
- Submit Electronically
- Be Conventional
- Simplify Notes
- Leave Those Quotes Alone
- Omit Commas
- Beware the Hyphen
- Ban Capital Punishment
- Notes on Footnotes
- Put Them in their Place
- Exile the Ellipsis
- Say It Simply
- Spare the Parentheses and Dashes
- Downplay Emphasis
- Quote Out
- Be Neither Definite nor Indefinite
- Watch the Manure
- Literacy for the Literate
- Age and Polish
- Let the Guilty Tremble
I've chosen one of the shorter guidelines to
give you an
idea of the article's tone and direction:
18. Watch the Manure. Speaking
of Russian and French reminds me: please
forbear heavy use of foreign words (and that
goes for jargon as well) to show off.
Judiciously spread around, fine and dandy,
but too much manure can kill all sorts of
flowers verbal or other.
Read the complete article here (PDF document).