General Writer's and Submission Guidelines

  Readers and Mission

The qualified subscribers to Communication Systems Designaren't just anyone - they are hands-on working communications design engineers. They're people like you, who are trying to bring the most sophisticated equipment to market faster than ever before, while trying to control costs, stay on top of new technologies and competitive products, and are trying to meet regulatory and market pressures.

Communication Systems Design's editorial mission is three-fold:

• Help our readers learn about and understand new technologies, standard, protocols, regulatory restrictions, and other design criteria.

• Help our readers take advantage of the above in their designs, while reducing time-to-market and design costs.

• Help our readers choose products and services useful in the design, testing, prototyping, and manufacturing stages that will improve the quality of their designed products.

To best meet these editorial goals, Communication Systems Design publishes four types of editorial content: features, product buyer's guides, columns, and departments.

• Feature articles examine technical topics in detail, focusing on technology overviews, in-depth discussions of design issues, and presentation of new algorithms or methodologies. Feature articles are written by working design engineers and are highly technical in content. The articles should be in-depth presenting design information down to the component level.

• Buyer's guides examine specific third party product areas. The purpose of a Buyer's Guide is to help the reader understand the product category from which he/she will make a purchase. Readers can decide if a product category is useful to their design, and, if so, which products to select for in-house evaluation. Product guides are written only by working design engineers or consultant, not vendors.

• Columns offer monthy information briefs on topics important to many communications design engineers. Columns address such topics as emerging or confusing protocols, time-to-market issues, and the future directions of telecommunications technology. Rngineers, instructors, analysts, or consultants, all experts in their chosen field, write the columns.

• Departments include articles covering technology, letters from our readers, and new product announcements. The only Department written by contributors is "Top 10". This Department looks at specific issues surrounding a technology or methodology, such as ATM, digital signal processing, or MMDS.

The magazine also publishes special sections focusing on specific trends and an Emerging Technologies series that looks at new and promising technology. See our Editorial Calendar for more.

Features and Reviews

Let's go into more detail on those two areas written by expert freelance authors: feature articles and buyer's guides.

Feature articles give plenty of hands-on, low-level examples of the nuts-and-bolts of actual communications design. These may be step-by-step instructions for implementing a new algorithm, working with a new protocol, sample code, selecting a certain type of component, or an awareness-raising discussion of the dangers of thermal effects on silicon. Feature articles can also go into detailed analysis of important trends, such as embedding DSPs into ASICs or FPGAs, SOC Implementation, Homeline/PNA, ATM, Voice over IP (VoIP) and so forth.

We strive to maintain our editorial position at the leading edge of technology journalism, meaning we don't write just about the plain vanilla technology, we write about how it's implemented in the most innovatve way for communications products.

Unlike many magazines, we usually chose working design engineers as authors, not journalists or vendor public-relations writers. We want articles written from the expert's own experiences, with the goal of helping our readers solve their own problems. That means no case studies, no end-user or vendor profiles. The goal is to educate: A successful article will answer reader questions, teach readers skills.

Buyer's guides look at several products within a category, such as memory ICs, FPGAs, and testers. A good overview helps readers distinguish between competing products by highlighting key differences, questions to ask vendors when evaluating, and how using the product helps (or hurts) the design of a communication device. As a reminder, vendors may not write the product buyer's guides.

The editors have performed extensive research into subscriber demographics and reader/editorial relationships, which has led to the conclusion that the publication should adopt a stylistic methodology optimized for maximum readability coexisting with an emphasis on reducing obfuscation and excessive verbiage, towards the oft-desired but seldom-realized goal of reducing cerebral-tension syndrome.

Or, to put it another way, our readers will have fewer headaches if you stick to an informal, easy-to-read style.

Our readers are busy, and are looking to Communication Systems Design for answers. Not for hyperbole, not for propaganda. They want information that they can apply today, and use to plan their company's products of tomorrow.

If an article isn't read, its information is worthless. How do you encourage Communication Systems Design subscribers to actively read your article? Talk to them the way that you'd like to be talked to, by writing an article that's fact-filled yet informal, informative yet inviting. Never forget that your article is not about you, and what you've done, or about other communications design and what they have done. The article's certainly not about your company, and products that it's trying to sell to communications designer engineers. It's about the reader, and what he or she can do.

Keep in mind that you are writing to a group of colleagues, and you will have the tone we want. Discuss. Don't lecture, pontificate, bash, whine, or sell. The same is true of diagrams: Use ones that help explain the topic. Simple charts - like those you'd draw on a blackboard or scribble on a napkin - are the best.

Sidebars are an excellent way of handling information peripheral to your main topics, such as an historical perspective, a case study, or a related interview. Similarly, list of books, web sites, and other sources for further research are a helpful addition to many articles. Note: We can post source code, equations, and other data-rich information on this web site.

When developing your article idea, make sure the main point is broad enough to be interesting to people working in a variety of hardware and software environments. Assume the reader has only limited exposure to the communications-design topic you're covering but is aware of relevant general principals.

Creating a Submission

If you have an article idea, we prefer to receive an e-mailed abstract. Include a brief outline/abstract (and be specific!), along with a note explaining your credentials. If you have previously published writing samples, send along one or two; magazine samples are preferred over academic papers published in technical journals or proceedings papers -- but if that's what you have, that's okay too. We prefer that you send us an initial outline, instead of sending a ready-to-print manuscript.

Be sure to include your daytime telephone number, fax number, and e-mail address.

Send your submissions via email to Patrick Mannion, Editor in Chief, at 516-562-5060, and e-mail at pmannion@cmp.com. Patrick perfers email, however, and will respond more quickly using this media.

Remember, we work approximately three months in advance on the magazine. Our editorial calendar includes dates for submission of abstracts and manuscripts; we highly recommend checking it out.

You can also send your proposal via post to the address below:

Communication Systems Design
CMP Media Inc.
600 Community Drive
Manhasset, NY 11030

Creating a Manuscript

After we receive your outline, someone from the staff will call or write with comments if we're interested in pursuing your submission. An article should be about 2,700 words, but no more than 3,000 words. It is important to stick to your due dates, especially if you're interested in receiving a second article assignment. The earlier that you send in your first draft, the better we can work with you on possible revisions.

The finished article should be sent to Patrick Mannion via email or smail in basic text format. Any figures/illustrations should be mailed or faxed in a clear format, as we have all art redrawn by an artist. No more than 5 figures or tables should accompany the finished piece--so choose carefully, so we won't have to.

When we accept an article proposal by a freelance author, we expect to conduct this transaction in a professional manner. Stick to what we've agreed to, both in terms of the details of your outline, and of the requested article length. If you should experience difficulties in meeting the agreed-upon deadline, call the editorial offices as soon as possible, so that we may adjust our plans accordingly. We don't like surprises!

In a similar vein, we assume that all submissions have been offered to us exclusively for review, and are not being considered by other publications. If this is not the case, please tell us when you make the initial contact. Few things are worse than finding the same article we've published printed in another magazine. Also, please accord us the courtesy of telling us if you have written, or are planning to write, a similar article for another magazine or journal.

After the final article is received, we'll copy-edit the text according to our style guidelines and length requirements. You'll receive author proofs for correction, as well as our copyright form, and tax form. Communication Systems Design requests exclusive world-wide serial rights.

Please note that we never guarantee that an article will be published in a particular issue. (Some articles also will appear on our website, csdmag.com) We reserve the right to reject articles after initial acceptance. Finally, when we receive the magazine back from the printer, we'll send you three complimentary copies. We generally pay authors for published manuscripts. If you wish to be paid, please inquire before submitting your manuscript. U.S. authors: We cannot process payment without receiving a completed W-4 form with your social security number. To make things easier for us, please send that social security number, along with your fax number, with your final manuscript.

Again, thank you for your interest in Communication Systems Design . We look forward to working with you!