Want to write for R8 News? Here’s how…

We welcome your contributions to IEEE Region 8 News. Use the information on this page to help you prepare and submit articles for inclusion in the newsletter.

Section / Chapter / Branch / Affinity Group / conference reports

These reports are the lifeblood of IEEE Region 8 News, keeping members all over the Region up to date with what you’re up to. However, to make sure we can fit all the reports into each issue, it helps if they are brief and to the point.

An ideal Section / Chapter/ Branch report should be between 200 and 400 words. That’s not very long – in many cases that’s only a few sentences! Here are some tips on how to keep your reports concise:

• Always begin the article with your biggest news
• Concentrate on your most successful recent events only
• Include dates, locations and numbers of attendees
• State the name of your Section / Chapter / Branch / conference clearly
• Tell us if you want the writer’s name printed with the article
• Don’t waste words on off-topic detail (such as the gala dinner menu)
• Avoid long lists of ‘thank you’s
• Write like a news reporter: who / what / where / when / why / how

In other words, just try to stick to key facts, and avoid exposition. Also be wary of redundant sentences such as “The workshop was well received” (if the lecture had been badly received, you wouldn’t be writing about it) or “The attendees thanked Professor X” (readers will already take this for granted). Remember, you only have a limited word count, so make the most of it.

Opinion articles and more

We welcome articles on just about any subject you think might be of interest to IEEE members, including opinion pieces, topical discussions, and book reviews. You might even like to challenge readers with a quiz. Feel free to discuss your idea with the editors before you start writing.

Remember that IEEE Region 8 News has limited space, so don’t try to write more than 600 words for a special article like this. In a newsletter, you can dispense with essay style – no need for introductions and conclusions. Instead, get right to the point and say what you want to say.

Photos and captions

We welcome your photos and will make room for them in the newsletter wherever we can.

• Photos taken with smartphones are great. Get in close to your subject matter and the results will be perfect.
• Don’t try to downsample, enhance or correct your images: a clean original always produces the best results!
• Please don’t superimpose logos and timestamps: we may not be able to use the photos.
• Write a caption for each image so that we know who or what they show.
• Remember to give us the photographers’ names if they want a photo credit.

File formats and submission

By using your GoogleApps@IEEE account (available to members at no additional cost), you may submit your article through the IEEE R8 Publications & Communications (PnC) Contribution Submission Form. Please mark “Region 8 News” when asked about “Targeted domain for Content/Information publishing”.

Alternatively, send your articles directly to R8 News Editors at r8news@ieee.org. You can attach documents in any file format or just paste your text into the message body. If you are concerned about attaching lots of high-resolution pictures, share them with us via a Google Drive folder, Dropbox, or alike, or, use a free file transfer service such as WeTransfer.

Please also do not send your photos to us embedded into PDF files, though – this nearly always has the effect of converting, downsampling and blurring them. Embedded into Word docx files is usually fine.

Copy deadlines

The best way of ensuring your reports and articles are timely is to plan ahead according to our copy deadlines. Region 8 News is a quarterly publication, so missing an issue deadline will set you back three months! Also note that our print ‘lead’ times are such that we need to receive your articles TWO MONTHS before the cover date, due to printing and distribution to all members around Region 8!