Make our Lives Easier... Please!

Alexander E. Braun, Associate Editor -- Semiconductor International, 12/1/1999

All companies have news and developments they want to see in publications such as SI. However, they often go about it in the worst way, leading to frustration, wasted time and the loss of good will of precisely the people they want to reach: the editors.

This is so common that we've put together a free seminar for companies and PR agencies, outlining what technical publications' editors (not just us) want in articles and media information. Some of the guidelines here are taken from that seminar, and if you follow them you're more likely to get not only our attention, but your material published as well.

Make sure we're the right publication! Sometimes we get article proposals on subjects completely beyond SI's coverage area, such as wireless telephony. Our readers are decision-making semiconductor professionals; the majority are engineering managers and engineers working with process equipment, facilities, packaging, metrology, software, automation, design, test and R&D.

Query us. We prefer to see an abstract and outline first. If you go ahead and write the article, although its general subject may interest us, its focus may be off, requiring a complete rewrite before we can reconsider it. An outline tells us whether the subject is appropriate and how you plan to cover it. Then, when we ask you to write it, you'll start off on the right track.

Press releases masquerading as articles, with multiple mentions of your company and products, won't see the light of day. Your article should be technology-oriented, not product-oriented; and should explain why the subject is important, what problems are solved, what's done better, and how and why. If there are alternate or competing technologies, mention them. Usually we prefer contributed articles to be co-authored with one or more of your end users -- those who directly benefit from what you write about -- to add to credibility.

Don't call us on Monday to ask if we received the press release you sent last Friday. We don't have time for those calls. If you wrote it properly and it has the necessary information, it will make it to the 'publish' stack instead of the round file. Don't write a page of glittering generalities and pointless CEO quotes before getting to the point. If it's a new product, give us specs, numbers such as throughput, MTBF, impartial information on why your product is unique vis-à-vis the competition's, and stats about your market.

Practically any non-electronic photographic material is acceptable: photos, slides, transparencies. However, electronic images carry some special requirements. Make sure they have sufficiently high resolution: 300 dpi for four-color photos, 1200 dpi for black-and-white, at the size they are to be printed, such as 4 x 5 inches. Just because it appears large, clear and sharp on your monitor, it doesn't mean an image is suitable for use in print. If you're unsure, ask us. As for charts and graphs, almost any electronic format is workable.

The times, they are a'changin'. There's another outlet for your articles: Web publishing. Because our Web site, www.semiconductor.net, isn't subject to the print world's page limitations, we can get more (and longer) articles published sooner. And we list these in SI's table of contents for that month. This is the new wave, not a consolation prize because your article isn't good enough for the magazine; otherwise, we wouldn't offer it to our worldwide audience.

Tear out this page, and keep it handy. Not only will it give your articles and news a better chance to get out into the world; it also will earn you our undying gratitude.