Story and Essay Manuscript Formatting
for Computer Typesetting

Our Webmaster asks for your help. He has a lot to do in a short period of time. He asks that you make his life easier.

Please submit your manuscripts (stories, essays, op-ed pieces, and other written material) as described below. (This formatting is necessary because all stories, essays, and op-ed pieces are automatically formatted into HTML by the computer using a Cascading Style Sheet.)

Manuscript Formatting

1. All story and essay manuscripts must be submitted in Rich Text (.rtf) format. Your word processing software can save in RTF format. Use the "Save As" feature of your word processing software and save your ms in either the text or rich text format.

2. Please do not submit manuscripts in their native word processing format, such as MS Word (.doc file extension) or WordPerfect (.wpd file extension). If manuscripts are submitted in formats other than rich text, they will not be accepted, and you will be asked to resubmit them in the required format. Believe it or not, there is a good reason for this!

3. Line spacing must be single spaced.

4. Underline words that should be in italcs.

5. Double space between paragraphs. Use the Enter key to do this. This will automatically put an indent in a paragraph's first line. No Space-Bar paragraph indents, puhleeze! I have to take these out manually.

6. Your name, mailing address, telephone number, email address, and word count must be on your manuscript. Sometimes an email address changes or is typed incorrectly. That is why I need a telephone number and mailing address.

7. Only one space after each sentence, please. All publishing today uses single spaces after punctuation marks. The use of two spaces after a punctuation mark harks back to the good old Underwood days when proportional type was not available.

Your manuscript will now look like this.

My Name
My email address
My telephone number
My mailing address
XXXX words

Story Title
by Author's Name

     This is the first paragraph. Notice that there is only one space after each period. The paragraph is indented one tab entry by hitting the Tab key. Double space using the Enter key before starting the next paragraph.

     This is the second indented paragraph. Notice again that it is separated from the first paragraph by a space that is created by clicking "Enter"(or"Return") twice.

     The other paragrpahs should follow as described above. At the end of the story, type "The End". This lets the editors know that the end of the manuscript has been reached and that pages are not missing.

The End

Please spell check your document, and follow all appropriate grammatical suggestions made by your word processor.

Thank you.

The Webmaster

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9.15.07