Break-In: Guidelines for Authors
As with all things, it helps if you follow some simple guidelines.
Text Presentation
Look at a current copy of Break-In and try to match the format of headings and titles: e.g. use of Capitals, bolding, etc. For example, Break-In does not use Capitalised or underlined headings.
Please submit as a MSWord *.doc or docx or OpenOffice .odt. If that is not possible then submit as plain text .txt or Rich Text Format .rtf Set the Language default to English (New Zealand) when using your word processor.
Remember the difference between mHz (milliherz) and MHz (megaherz) and between metre (a measurement of length) and a meter (a test tool used to measure two or more electrical values) – so spelling and grammar are important to get your message across correctly.
Our preference is for 12-point Times New Roman for all text including headings, with single line spacing and one blank line between paragraphs, along with no tabs, including no tabs at the start of each paragraph. Submitters should avoid multiple presentations of superscripts, subscripts, and formatted equations in the text of articles.
Break-In and Call Book are always written in italic.
Although length of the article shouldn’t deter you from writing any article, a word count of between 2000-2500 should be aimed for as a maximum. If longer than this then the article may have to be split across two issues of Break-In, not perhaps an ideal outcome as we only have issues every second month through the year.
Pictures
Please do not embed pictures in the text but do indicate where they are to be inserted if you wish. There is no guarantee that they will be inserted in that position because of picture size and design layout. If you are referring to a particular picture or diagram in the text of the article it is best to say see Picture 1 or see Figure 1. (i.e. Picture 1. Map of the World) (Figure 1. Circuit diagram). Also change the picture file name to the caption title, keep them terse. This saves a lot of work because we are presenting only one file name to be the same as the caption title name. Please submit photographs and diagrams as JPEG, PNG or SVG files. Send pictures as attachment in the same email.
For pictures to be presented on the front cover or the inside back cover in colour, a high resolution 300 dpi is recommended and at around 3 or 4 MB or larger which most cameras/phones can easily produce. The aspect ratio for a cover picture is about 0.88 (width:height) so portrait rather than landscape originals work best.
Circuit Diagrams
If you don’t have a way to produce circuit diagrams then hand draw and take a photo. The Technical Editor can then re-produce them correctly for you.
Tables
Tables are best made using an Excel spreadsheet; contest results are one example. Use 12-point Times New Roman for all text including headings. Send as an Excel .xls or .xlsx or OpenOffice .ods file. External and internal line borders are created from the Tools menu. Please copy and paste the spreadsheet into a formatted text document and present that also.
References
References are best tabulated at the bottom of your article. Those references may be a book or other publication or an internet URL. Within the scribe of your article, at the end of your sentence insert [1]. At the bottom of your article also present [1] and include the written reference or URL you are referring to, for example:
References:
[1] Transformer equivalent circuit https://tinyurl.com/CoupledInductors
[2] Article with Morse photo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Morse
Web and Email addresses
Web addresses should include a hyperlink eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Morse
Email addresses should be enclosed in angle brackets and should include a hyperlink e.g. <zl2ufi@nzart.org.nz>
Some web addresses are too long for readers to key in, or contain too many characters for them to get right. So, go to https://tinyurl.com and use this web site to reduce the number of characters, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Morse. could become https://tinyurl.com/gocmulu but where possible, choose a “tiny” URL that is meaningful, eg https://tinyurl.com/MorseWiki
Writing the article
The best way to do this is to start it, and just keep chipping away at it until it is done. Perhaps have a friend read it through. Just like writing a story it needs a beginning, a middle and an end. Apart from that it can be very easy to do; the hardest thing is starting it to begin with!
How to send
Send your articles or thoughts about writing an article via email to <editor@nzart.org.nz>