Grow Your Business
by Advertising in the Magazine That Reaches 18,000 Readers
Per Issue
For information about advertising contact:
Christopher Sutton csutton@hearingloss.org
301/657-2248.
Hearing Loss Magazine
2006
Author's Guidelines
Thank you for your interest in writing
for Hearing Loss Magazine ((published by the
Hearing Loss Association of America [HLAA], http://www.hearingloss.org).
These author's guidelines are designed to help our authors
and proposed authors prepare manuscripts that meet the
editorial requirements, styles and publication standards,
and express the interests of our wide-ranging readership.
The guidelines are also to make the writing and preparation
process easier for you.
Our goal, like yours, is to create and present, in magazine
format, articles and other informational materials that
are useful, interesting and accurate.
At first glance, this packet may look imposing. However,
the guidelines are easy to follow and enhance the quality
and the publication potential of articles submitted
to Hearing Loss Magazine.
Readers have come to depend on Hearing Loss Magazine
for helpful and timely articles on the entire spectrum
of hearing loss. Our valued readership is maintained
through effective writership. We value you as an author
and invite you to submit articles for Hearing Loss
Magazine.
Contact:
Barbara Kelley, Editor-in-Chief
Hearing Loss Magazine
7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 1200
Bethesda, MD 20814
301/ 657-2248 Voice/TTY
E-mail: bkelley@hearingloss.org www.hearingloss.org
Copyright 2006
It's important to submit articles electronically.
Please see 4 page for specifics.
Who Reads Hearing Loss Magazine?
• Consumers with hearing loss.
• Parents of children with hearing loss.
• Family members and friends who do not have hearing
loss who want to learn more about hearing loss and how
it impacts on families and relationships.
• Professionals in the hearing health care field
who refer their clients to HLAA and who use the magazine
as a resource.
• Educators and counselors.
Readers look to Hearing Loss Magazine
to provide them with the latest information on products,
services, research, and technology in the hearing health
care field. They also look for personal stories of hard
of hearing people to find encouragement, and give them
the feeling that they're not alone in living with a
hearing loss. They look for practical and useful information.
Hearing Loss readers view the magazine as a "lifeline"
to help them help themselves and live well with hearing
loss.
In addition, professional members of the hearing health
care community are another valuable sector of our readership,
and do not hesitate to comment on, add their expertise
to, and use Hearing Loss Magazine as a valuable resource
for information and patient referral.
What Do We Print? We print articles and information pieces that
discuss anything related to hearing loss. Our goal is
to educate readers in all aspects of hearing loss, so
that they, in turn, can make choices about how they
will live their lives as hard of hearing persons. Feature
editorial in each issue covers technology, cochlear
implants, legislation, HLAA issues (including but not
limited to board of trustees issues, state organizations
and chapters, fundraising), medical, psychosocial topics
and personal stories
Our broad publication range is evident in these examples
of articles and topics:
• Cochlear Implants and Music Enjoyment
• Consumers Guide to Purchasing a Hearing Aid
• The Fitting: Hearing Aid Selection & Evaluation
• Hospitalized with a Hearing Loss
• Communications Access and the Americans with
Disabilities Act
• Denial and Hearing Loss
• Parents' Reactions, Parents' Roles: Early Intervention
• Taking the Mystery Out of Cochlear Implants
• The Forgotten Family
• Getting Help with a Job: Exploring Vocational
Rehabilitation
• Suggestions for the College-Bound Hard of Hearing
Student
• Low-Tech Assistive Listening Devices You Can
Use
• When You Have Both Hearing and Vision Loss
• When Closed Captioning Goes Wrong: Some Things
You Can Do
• Why Use Assistive Listening Devices?
• What Employers Want to Know About Assistive
Technology
• Tips to Go to...the Movies, the Hospital, a
Restaurant
• Noise-Induced Hearing Loss
• Emergency Preparedness and Hearing Loss
The best article in the world is of
little value if no one reads it except the author. By
the same token, the best story ideas can die if the
author's writing style is not clear, appealing, interesting
and concise. If you would like to discuss an idea you
might have for a possible article, feel free to call
the editor.
General Style
The HLAA editorial staff is trained to edit articles
to fit our editorial guidelines without changing the
author's impact or meaning. We edit everything for space
and other considerations.
Generally speaking, these guidelines should be followed:
• Develop a short and interesting
title for the story. Avoid long and dry headlines. Search
for headlines that will make the reader want to read
the story.
• Follow the headline with a short, descriptive
blurb to entice the reader to continue to read the rest
of the article. This can serve as a brief synopsis.
• Use the first paragraph of the story to draw
the reader into the article. Avoid beginning the article
with dry statistics or broad generalizations. Instead,
pick something unique about the material that will pique
the reader's interest. Tell the readers something they
can identify with.
• Use subheads to break up the article and keep
the reader interested.
• Articles shouldn't be too technical in nature.
Although our readers are educated, they are primarily
a lay audience. If unfamiliar scientific or technical
terms must be used, be sure to define them. If there
are many such terms in the article and they are absolutely
necessary, then prepare a glossary as a help to the
reader.
• Articles should be educational in nature to
provide useful information that hard of hearing people
can benefit from. In this regard, personal narratives
are also particularly welcomed, because their format
permits writers to use their own meaningful experience
to send a helpful message to the readers.
• Humor, too, is a valuable educational tool and
requires the same stringent publication guidelines --
deft handling, conciseness, originality, and, needless
to say, in good taste.
• Information that you wish to include in an article
that is not an inseparable part of the main subject
should be detached and formed into a "sidebar"
to highlight the article. Sidebars can cover information
which, if added to the main story, would distract the
reader from the central point of the story. They also
add interest. A long article may appear too overwhelming
for the reader to tackle, but the same story material,
using a sidebar to break-up the article into a visually
more appealing format, makes it easier for the reader
to approach and absorb the information.
The use of the sidebar piece also gives the editor added
flexibility in the layout. Space limitations can be
corrected with sidebars. Rather than being faced with
an "all-or-nothing" proposition, the sidebars
give the editor the ability to shorten manuscripts by
eliminating the extra material, if necessary.
• Use visual aids (illustrations, graphs, line
drawings, photos) where appropriate, to accompany the
article. These add reader interest and help get your
material read. Readers often read these first. Provide
captions for all of the above, keeping in mind that
the captions will pique the readers' interest. (See
page six for more on artwork considerations.)
• Check and re-check your facts. It is extremely
important that any questions about the completeness
or accuracy of a manuscript be worked out before the
article reaches the magazine editor.
• Important terminology to use for people with
hearing loss. The umbrella term for all people who have
hearing loss is "people with hearing loss."
The subcategories are "deaf people" and "hard
of hearing people." Please use these terms in their
proper context.
Do not say, “The hearing impaired, the deaf, or
the hard of hearing.”
Use “people with hearing loss, deaf people, and
hard of hearing people,” or “people who
are deaf or hard of hearing.”
People is the optimum word. Similarly, use “people
with disabilities,” or “people who are disabled.”
Don't categorize the individual by his or her disability.
• Promotional material is not accepted in article
format. We do not print articles that promote one product
or service. Articles can contain mention of products
and services but the information must be put forth in
a fair, unbiased and educational way. Companies and
manufacturers are invited to advertise. Information
on rates and space is available on www.hearingloss.org.
Hearing Loss Magazine does not include a products information
section, as do some of the professional journals.
When Will We Contact You? Upon receipt of your manuscript, you will receive
a letter or e-mail stating that we have it and the editorial
staff will review it. A follow-up message to that could
be immediate or take several months depending on the
manuscript load and editorial review time.
If, by the determination of the editor, major changes
are desired in your manuscripts, you will be consulted
and the proposed changes will be detailed. This review
and revision process should not be considered criticism
of your work. The goal of this procedure is to generate
an article that is factual, understandable, and a credit
to the magazine and to the author. A poorly prepared
article will reflect poorly on both the magazine and
you.
If the article is accepted for publication, you will
be notified. A publication date is rarely given at that
time. We ask your patience. Once an article is accepted,
it can often take up to three years to be published,
especially if the article is not time sensitive. With
only six issues a year and limited space after regular
columns and advertisements, the wait to be published
can be lengthy. Please don’t let this discourage
you from writing an article or contacting the editor
once the article is published to see where your manuscript
is in the process.
Use of Graphics and Captions We welcome photos, charts, illustrations, etc.
They make the article interesting and help break up
long articles.
Photographs:
• We accept black & white and color photos.
We prefer color photos in high-resolution (300 dpi)
electronic JPG format. We will accept color snapshots
as well. We welcome photos that are less formal and
in the subject’s environment as long as the photo
is clear and it is clear who the photo subject is.
• Keep photos separate from the text, and number
each one to match with its caption.
• If the photographer should receive credit, make
that clear on the same sheet as the captions.
Drawings and Schematics:
• We don't assume you are an artist. However,
block diagrams, schematics and drawings if submitted,
should be clean and legible. Our art department will
give them the professional touch.
• Keep the artwork separate from the text, and
number each piece to match with its caption. If the
artwork is referred to in the text, it should be identified
as Figure 1, 2, etc.
• If the graph of other drawing is reprinted from
another source, give proper credit to the publication
along with the date on the caption sheet.
• If graphics can be submitted electronically,
that is our preference.
Captions:
• All photos, drawings, graphs, etc. should include
captions. The captions should be succinct and complete
thoughts. The reader shouldn't have to refer to the
article to understand the meaning. Many people read
only the captions and look at the photos. The captions
should lure them into the article.
• Type the captions in the Word doc. Don't attach
individual captions to individual graphics.
• Give credit to photos and graphics.
Mechanics
• Manuscripts should be typed, double-spaced and
only long enough to cover the topic adequately.
• Text should also be submitted electronically
to the editor. The preferred method is Microsoft Word
as an attached file. If you have no computer capability,
your article will certainly be considered. Send it in
hard copy, typed, double-spaced to the editor at HLAA
• Please do not use any program like PageMaker;
rather, type into a word processing program.
• Do not attempt to format the article into columns,
typeface or elaborate formats. You may use italics and
boldface, but no other graphic commands including special
fonts. Use a single tab space for indenting paragraphs.
Use only a single space after periods. Don't be concerned
with formatting and how the piece looks.
• Length: The maximum length is hard to set because
topics vary so widely. However, any article in excess
of 10 typed, double-spaced pages would be considered
too long. A benchmark rule is: 2-1/2 typed, double-spaced
pages equals one magazine page. Articles generally run
two to five pages. An approximate word length is 2,000
–3,000 words. Feature articles may run more than
that. One page personal narratives featured on page
38 may run 400-650 words.
• Include a short biographical sketch of yourself,
employment, credentials, along with your address and
phone number. Also include the names and pertinent biographical
information of contributing authors. If you would like
your email addressed published with the article, please
give permission for that.
Checklist for Manuscripts ? Manuscripts are to be typed, double-spaced,
with sufficient margins on top and bottom.
? Articles are submitted electronically with some exceptions.
(see page 7 for instructions).
? Include a short and appealing suggested title and
a two to four sentence descriptive blurb.
? Use subheads within the article to break up text.
? Provide biographical information on authors.
? Photos, graphics, etc., are numbered with proper captions
and submitted, if possible, in high resolution JPG electronic
format.
? Include your name, address, phone number, and e-mail
address.
We Appreciate Your Interest
Authors receive five copies of Hearing Loss when their
article appears along with the editors’ and readers’
appreciation. (There is no monetary remuneration for
articles published. We are happy to provide additional
copies of the magazine if you need them.) HLAA holds
the copyright unless authors state otherwise.
If you have further questions or would like to discuss
a story idea, contact Barbara Kelley, editor-in-chief,
bkelley@hearingloss.org
Thank you for reading through these guidelines. Finally,
you are strongly encouraged to send us your manuscript.
We look forward to reviewing it for possible publication.
If it weren’t for our authors who reach far into
the various topics of hearing loss and its implications,
the Hearing Loss Magazine would not be the award-winning,
valued magazine that it has evolved into over the past
26 years.
