General
I accept guest articles and press releases for posting on this site. There is no charge for posting. The item must be about metals, metallurgy, the metal industry or a closely related field.
All items should be e-mailed to Jason Nadeau at metals.guide@about.com. Total file size should not exceed about 500 kb. If it is larger, please contact me before sending the file. Put multiple files into a ZIP archive. Small images or diagrams may be included in guest articles, if relevant to the subject. Submit images in jpeg (.jpg) format only, at 72 dpi, no wider than 400 pixels.
Press Releases
Press releases are permanently archived online. Links initially appear on the news page, and are later moved to the press release archive. Headlines are featured in the Spotlight section.
Suitable topics for press releases include new product or service announcements, corporate news, and research news. Other topics may also be acceptable. I reserve the right to reject releases which I feel are not appropriate for this site.
Press releases should be submitted in plain text or simple HTML format. If HTML, please
try to limit tags to paragraph (<p>), heading (<h4></h4>
only), and character formatting (such as <i></i>). Links to
your site or e-mail address may also be used. Word processor files (such as MS Word)
are also acceptable, but please keep them simple. Images will not be used in press releases,
so please do not send them.
You may suggest title, keyword, and description meta tags, as well as a headline for the article. I reserve the right to edit these items. In general, I do not edit press releases unless there is an obvious problem.
Guest Articles
Articles and press releases are permanently archived online. They will be featured in the Spotlight section for a minimum of one week. You will be given a permanent URL for the article to which you can link. The article will be indexed on the site, and will be spidered by the leading internal and external search engines.
About.com requires a nonfiction release form for all submitted articles. Please print a copy and mail it to me (e-mail me for my mailing address). If you are in a hurry, send me a plain text version via e-mail with the month of your birth in place of your signature. This is a temporary substitute until the hard copy arrives. If you have any questions about the form, please feel free to contact me.
Suitable topics for articles include product or service case studies, book or software reviews, conference summaries, or tutorials. Case studies may promote a product or service, but they should not be a pure advertisement.
As with press releases, I reserve the right to reject or edit article submissions. Because more effort is involved in producing articles, please contact me before you start writing to make sure it is an appropriate item for this site.
HTML is the preferred format for articles. Plain text or word processing files are also acceptable, but the format should be fairly simple. Please do not use macros (such as Javascript) or dynamic HTML (DHTML, CSS, etc.).
There is no restriction on article length, but remember that online
attention spans can be short. Use headings to separate sections in the
article - this also makes it easier to divide the article into
multiple pages if necessary. Use <h3></h3>
for major headings and <h4></h4> for minor
headings.
Images should be no wider than 400 pixels. If you require a larger
image, include a smaller format (thumbnail) in the article as a link
to the larger image. Name the thumbnail and full-size image similarly
(such as image.jpg and image-tn.jpg). Please use width,
height, and alt attributes in the image tag.
Tables are acceptable, but try to make them look good at 400-600
pixels wide. Wider templates can break our templates, and it is
difficult to edit them. Likewise, text between
<pre></pre> tags should be limited to about
the same width.
The bulk of the article should be formatted without any
<font></font> tags - in other words, it
should use the default text fonts and colors. Limited use of alternate
fonts and colors is acceptable. Similarly, avoid changing background
colors or other such formats, either for the entire document or within
tables.
Do not optimize your article for a specific browser. I test pages in both Netscape and Internet Explorer. If a page causes trouble in either, I will ask you to fix it.
Finally, you may include suggestions for title, keyword, and description meta tags.