Editorial guidelines for contributors

Editorial policy and guidelines for contributors

We want to make sure that World Streets is a good read, and a fast one, for our overloaded colleagues who are struggling with these challenges in cities and countries around the world, as well for others trying to follow the full range of issues involved.



Before taking the trouble to prepare your piece for publication, kindly drop a line to editor@worldstreets.org first, with a short note outlining your intentions. We can then discuss so as to make best use of your time and contribution. If we have any questions, we will get in touch first to iron them out. If we find the piece out of our main focus, we will let you know immediately with a short note of explanation.

(Please note: W/S does not publish announcements concerning events, conferences, books, etc.  On the other hand our Facebook group page at http://www.facebook.com/NewMobilityConsult  does, so feel free to contact us there. All W/S  articles are based on independent analysis. That said, when an interesting conference or event in any of the areas what we cover becomes known to us, if it is relevant for specific focus groups we often are happy to pass on the basic information to that forum.  See the posting on Getting the most out of World Streets: Stocks and flows for more on how these parallel groups work. )

Posting routine: All entries to the journal are made by the Editor-in-chief, who reviews each project and final draft with the contributing editors and the copy editor before posting.

Article length: Relatively compact – say enough for a good read in 5/15 minute max. 300-2000 words looks good. Anything longer should be handled as clickable URL; but that readable engaging summary is critical.

References:  Critical.  This is the other shoe of each W/S piece.  The author basically opens up a door for our readers of a topic of special interest, with information, analysis, perhaps contrasting views,  and an initial round of comments that map the broad lines of the topic and engage the learning/information process.  And then if our  reader wishes to dig deeper, all s/he has to do is click to that or those key URL links in order to access a useful set of references which will permit the reader to further explore the matters introduced by the author. (Please however do not go beyond an absolute max of ten biblio references in the article itself. Just the most important sources for our busy readers.)

Languages: World Streets takes the challenge of a polyglot world seriously. Click the Languages/Translations link on the top menu to see how we are trying to be useful to our non-English language colleagues. Have an idea for a good piece but need to write in another language. Let's talk about it, may not be a problem.

Language: Not quite the same thing, and this refers specifically to presentation, phrasing and word choice with a close eye to your readers. We have to bear in mind that more than half of the people who come into World Streets do not have English as their first language. This means that to get your idea across shorter sentences are generally going to be more effective than longer ones, slang expressions, insider jokes and jargon are to be set aside, and the emphasis should be placed on the reader and not the writer.  Even within these constraints, it will be possible to be creative and effective, and your editor is confident that this is exactly what you are going to do. if English is not your preferred writing language, no problem we will be pleased to work with you to ensure a readable article.

Spell-check: Please, very carefully, and thank you. Also, for the record, we tend to favour US spelling, not for reasons of preference per se, but because uniform spelling facilitates key word searches. However, as you wish.

Fair use: Our policy on this important point is spelled out here.

Photograph/image credits: We try to make sure we cite the name/source of all photographs or images that appear in our pages.

Author identification: Please identify yourself as a courtesy to the reader: A good signature block would show: your full name, email; Organization (if any, with URL); City, Country.

We do in fact like to profile short bio-notes on authors, 4 to 8 lines being a target. Also as you will see, we do like to have a small photograph of the author. It's a big impersonal world out there and World Streets tries to do its bit to make it smaller.

Reading the comments: If you do end up publishing a piece, you are invited to have a look every once in a while to see if comments or questions have come in from our readers. If so, you may wish to respond. We favor collegial dialogue. (Comments are reviewed by the editor before publication, just to make sure that we keep to the topic and tone of this cordial collaborative effort.)

Questions? Suggestions? Nominations? This is the place to come. Write, call or Skype to . . .

Eric Britton, Editor
| editor@worldstreets.org  | +336 5088 0787  or (USA) +1 (213) 985 3501 | Skype newmobility | | 9, rue Gabillot | 69003 Lyon | France |

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