Style Guide for CCSD's Perception Magazine

Perception Magazine is published by the Canadian Council on Social Development. It serves a Canadian audience that is interested in social and community development with a mix of articles, commentaries, book reviews, analysis, fact sheets and photographs.

Perception editors look for materials that examine social development issues from international, national, provincial or community perspectives. We also look for stories and experiences about best practices and ongoing challenges, and that illustrate what social and community development mean.

Our readers appreciate straightforward language and focused articles and we work with our writers to avoid buzzwords.

Got an idea?

Written proposals for potential contributions should be sent to publications@ccsd.ca.They should outline the idea and indicate the timelines and resources required to prepare the article. We will acknowledge receipt of your proposals as quickly as we can.

In some circumstances we will consider a version of material that has appeared in other publications.

Writing your article:

1. For questions of spelling, capitalization, word division, use of numbers, punctuation and other matters of style please follow the CP Stylebook.

2. The first time any person is mentioned in the text, the individual must be fully identified with first and last names. Women are not identified as Mrs. or Miss. The use of titles such as Dr. or Rev. is discouraged.

3. Acronyms (CCSD, CBC, UPP) should not be used as identifiers until the whole name has been provided in full and the acronym indicated. For instance, Canadian Council on Social Development (CCSD).

4. Double space your copy.

5. Whole numbers from one to nine are written out in text. For higher values numerals are acceptable (i.e., 10 and higher).

Once you've got a product:

1. Submissions should be sent as an attachment in Microsoft Word to publications@ccsd.ca.

2. We need contact information for anyone who you have quoted in your article.

3. We need your contact information.

4. We work hard to preserve the tone and style of your material. However we reserve the right to edit for clarity and accuracy.

Photographs:

We love them.

1. You can send them as a low resolution file for review. But for printing purposes we require electronic files of at least 300dpi. A PDF containing mroe detailed tips on photo resolution is available at www.ccsd.ca/perception/phototips.pdf.

2. Send the material to publications@ccsd.ca.

3. We will credit the photographer. And we require written permission for us to use the photograph in the magazine.

4. The more information you have about the photograph the better.

Fees:

We generally do not pay for articles or commentaries. But we do provide a complimentary one-year CCSD membership to our contributors. In addition we provide them with extra copies of Perception.

We sometimes negotiate fees, depending on circumstances.

Background:

Back issues of Perception are available at www.ccsd.ca/percintr.html.

Thanks for considering Perception Magazine.

Canadian Council on Social Development, 190 Cooper Street, Suite 100, Ottawa, Ontario, K2P 2R3
Tel: (613) 236-8977, Fax: (613) 236-2750, Web: www.ccsd.ca, Email: council@ccsd.ca