Guidelines to Contributors

NATIONAL COALITION ON POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY (N-COPA)
A Project of Citizens Alert
59 East Van Buren, Suite 2418
Chicago, Illinois 60605
(312) 663-5392, FAX (312) 663-5396

Coordinator: Mary D. Powers
_________________________________________________________________

Policing by Consent
Editor: Nancy Rhodes
(315) 474-6603, email nkrhodes@mailbox.syr.edu

Guidelines for PBC Authors and Contributors
We may not have covered every detail when you agreed to write your PBC article. What follows will answer some questions, let you know what to expect, make my job as editor easier and help assure that your article is presented to our readers as effectively as possible.

Deadlines
Final, clean copies of articles are generally due on the 27th of the month preceding publication. The first Monday of publication month is our scheduled print date. The regular deadline for the upcoming issue is always printed in the masthead box on page 2.

Your deadline falls on __________, the 27th of __________. This is the date when I should already have your article. So, your article for the __________ PBC is scheduled to go to press on ___________, which is _____ days after the deadline.

Production occurs between the 27th and that first Monday, usually a period of about a week. We use a "movement press" and our printer gives us a "movement discount." But he is tightly scheduled. If we are late for the print-date, it could significantly delay our job getting printed and out to you after that. Neither he nor I can "just do it next week instead."

You can expect that I will contact you before the deadline to see how you're coming, and I'll call you if it's not in on time. It's important that you communicate with me if you're having any difficulty meeting the deadline so we can figure out together what needs to happen.

Because we are juggling both space and unforeseen events that we can't predict but may want to cover, there may be times when a planned article is delayed or held from publication.

Typing
It helps immensely if your article comes in on a new disc in WordPerfect 5.1 format (either 3 1/2" or 5" will do). If the article is coming in on disc it should not be double spaced and should retain a format of "straight typing." My desktop program works best when articles are justified left (no centering, etc.), have tabs at the beginning of paragraphs, and a single space after a period (forget what your typing teacher taught you).

If you are sending hard-copy only, then please make it a typed, double-spaced, clean copy. Please remember to keep a copy for yourself.

If you are emailing material to me, DO NOT send attachments. Cut and paste your text directly into the email posting.

Readership
PBC readers reflect a wide range of income, occupation, culture and ethnicity, age, experience in political organizing and encounters with policing, and privilege with regard to education. Some have had lots of schooling, others haven't had the opportunity or inclination for "higher" learning. It's important that PBC be grammatical and literate, though not too formal. Please avoid long or obscure words when shorter, more common ones will do. If you must use obscure terms, please include a clear explanation within the text. The articles in PBC should reflect a diversity of voices and styles consistent with the diversity of readership.

Articles should be consistent with the N-COPA Mission Statement, which can be found in the masthead box on page 2 of every issue. It's helpful if you explicitly state the connection your topic has to furthering police accountability.

Length
When we spoke I probably gave you a word count or range for your article. Reviews are generally 250-500 words. A "one page article" should aim for 8-900 words ("two pages," 1,800 words). In some cases we can look at 2,500 words, or consider printing in two parts. If your article comes in over the allocated word count, we may have to cut it. Please indicate the precise word count on your copy. If you're having trouble keeping your copy to proper length, I'll be glad to work with you. Remember, the closer your article comes in to production week, the more important that it fits the agreed length.

Editing
You can expect that I'll do standard copy editing for length and clarity (to repair obscurities, misspellings, repetitions, run-on sentences, typos, sexist language slips, over-use of the passive voice, etc.).

Beyond this, PBC employs "active editing." We may work together to develop an article. I may request additional details to make your article more suitable for national readers who are not familiar with local context, issues and background that you may tend to take for granted. I will try to clear any significant changes with you before going to press.

You may be an old hand at writing for publication, or you may never have done it before. I'm already on your side. Be sure you include your phone numbers on your copy.

Reprints and Multiple Publication
Please inform me if your article has been previously published and/or you expect it to appear elsewhere. I'll need name and date of the other publication(s). This is pretty standard custom. We want to give proper acknowledgement and be honest with our readers. If we have to edit your article we may use a term like "adapted" so as not to cause confusion among readers who'll see both versions because they may read both publications. Other editors also appreciate the courtesy of knowing if PBC publication comes first.

Publication elsewhere increases your credibility for some readers, and it will not lessen your chances of getting your article in PBC. In some cases, we may want a final paragraph or two "in retrospect" if more than a year has passed.

As you'll see in the page 2 masthead box, our general policy encourages readers to reproduce PBC articles (print media only) provided they give proper credit and inform PBC. If you prefer your article is an exception to this, let me know so that I may note in print that you need to be contacted directly for permission to reprint.

Headline
Please suggest a title and subtitle for your article.

Documentation
Use your judgement about the need to document facts or statistics or provide recommended reading. Please include dates in citations. I may ask you to document material some readers might view skeptically, or question allegations which might be libelous to individual law enforcement officers. I may ask you for concrete examples of broad general statements.

Authorship
Indicate the exact way you want your name to appear. Please provide a sentence or two I can use to identify you to the reader. This "writer's ID" can include your group affiliation(s), your experience regarding the issue, or whatever words you choose to describe yourself. We do not print anonymous articles, and our policy is to make an address and phone number available directly to readers so they may network with you without our gate-keeping.

Graphics, Photos and "Readability"
Most readers find unbroken text overwhelming. Good use of "white space" and graphics reinforce and deepen your message and draw readers to the page. Please try to provide some graphic with your article. It might be a photo of yourself, your group, a major figure or event, a political cartoon, even a chart or graph. Be sure to include the source, so we can give proper credit, even it's "only an amateur photo."

The printer uses a gray-scale scanner to input graphics (and some photos), so he prefers images that are no larger than four inches on one dimension. We can do some reduction and enlargement of non-photo graphics, but most size change for photos will involve simple cropping.

If possible, use black and white film. The scanner registers red tones much darker than they look in a color photo. This means that many skin tones in color photos -- and even pastels such as pink -- may reprint as black, making people unrecognizable. And many of us can't "see" the light/dark contrast in color photos well enough to judge what it will look like printed in black and white. Black and white film is making a come-back and is easier to purchase than it used to be. You do not need to send negatives.

Make sure that people's faces in your photos are big enough. Most cameras take photos with the images further away than they look to you in the view-finder. This means you need to get much closer for group shots than you may be used to doing. Faces smaller than a dime will not be recognizable when re-printed in PBC, and enlarging them will usually only blur the faces. As a guide, aim for nickel or quarter sized faces at a minimum in photos.

Return of Material
I will return all photos safely. I'll return other material on request if you provide a SASE.

Extra Copies
Steering Committee members regularly receive extra copies of PBC. We cannot pay authors and contributors except with extra copies of the issue in which their material appears. We may also mail courtesy copies to individuals or groups with an obvious interest in a particular article or issue that's covered.

If there's an issue of PBC that you'd find useful for local organizing efforts, or you want extra copies for a conference, you can request them directly from me. We hope that you'll actively invite others to join N-COPA.

Internet
In keeping with policy established at the October 1995 annual meeting of N-COPA, full issues of PBC are not available on the Internet at this time and the encouragement to re-print does not include permission to put PBC articles on the Internet at this time. However, N-COPA does now have a "home-page," established early in 1996, in order to let people know N-COPA exists, which will carry periodic updates regarding current issues of PBC, basic information about N-COPA and how to join or subscribe.

Thanks for you cooperation and all your work!

Nancy Rhodes

208 Slocum Avenue
Syracuse, New York 13204-3222
(315) 474-6603
FAX (315) 445-1744 - please call first
e-mail: nkrhodes@mailbox.syr.edu
http://web.syr.edu/~nkrhodes/N-COPA.html