ACR SECTION NEWSLETTER GUIDELINES

The ACR editorial staff is eager to support Section leaders in their efforts to grow ACR Section membership, and believes that Section newsletters will make a positive contribution to this important goal. ACR’s Section newsletters provide information targeted to the specific needs of practitioners in special-interest areas of conflict resolution. The newsletters include case studies and how-to articles, along with information about trends and news in each Section’s specialty area. Section newsletter submission categories include: feature articles, general interest columns, news updates, Section updates, calendar information, and Letters to the Editor.

If you have comments or questions about these guidelines, please contact Walt Bitler at wabitl@aol.com

All Section newsletters produced by ACR are produced in Adobe PDF format. They are posted to a special section of the ACR Web site which is accessible only to Section members. ACR’s publication staff sends an e-mail to all Section members when a new newsletter has been posted. Section members connect to the newsletters through a hyperlink in this e-mail. Upon request to the Publications Manager, the PDF can be printed out and sent via regular mail to members who do not have access to e-mail or the Internet. The frequency of newsletter distribution ranges from 1 to 4 times per year, depending on the Section. Each newsletter follows a regular production schedule. Two newsletters, Family Mediation News (Family Section) and The Fourth R (Education Section) are also professionally printed.

The number of pages of each Section newsletter is determined by the Section’s membership as follows:

Number of Members                 Number of Pages

2,000 +                                                 16

1,000–1,999                                           12

500–999                                                8

1–499                                                   4–6

If you need to inquire about your Section’s membership total, please contact ACR’s Membership Development Associate for Sections and Publicity, Lynne Kinnucan, at 202-464-9700 ext. 247, or via e-mail at lkinnucan@acresolution.org.

The Role of the Volunteer Section Newsletter Editor

The publication of each ACR Section newsletter, regardless of format or method of distribution, is contingent upon a Section’s ability to provide a volunteer newsletter editor from within its own ranks. The editor will be responsible for soliciting articles from authors; screening, editing, and assembling the newsletter’s content (including graphics, if any); securing from contributors signed Permission to Publish agreements; and forwarding all of these items to the ACR Publications Manager.

Please note that a Section newsletter editor is responsible for editing the articles in consultation with the authors BEFORE e-mailing a clean draft to the Publications Manager for final editing and layout. Articles should be written in paragraphs—wherever possible, avoid sending articles that consist entirely of bulleted, numbered, or outlined text. If Section Chairs or any other Section leaders wish to assist the newsletter editor, we ask that all edits be made through the newsletter editor, so that the Publications Manager receives only one set of editorial changes. Please be sure to send the Publications Manager text in a timely manner according to the established schedule, or your newsletter may be delayed.

Each article for the newsletter should be sent as a separate e-mail attachment in Microsoft Word format. The page should be set with 1-inch margins, text should be aligned to the left (not justified), and text should be saved in 12 point Times New Roman font. Please send an appropriate amount of text for the size of your newsletter. Each newsletter page (except page 1) can fit approximately 450–500 words of text.

Permission to Publish agreements can be faxed to Mark at the ACR office. Newsletter layout cannot begin until he has received permission to publish agreements from all authors in a newsletter. Please note that all requests for reprint or reproduction approval must be forwarded to the ACR publications staff for review and approval.

The Role of the Publications Manager

Once all Section newsletter content has been received, the ACR Publications Manager will perform the final text edit (in consultation with the Section Editor). Mark generally edits for punctuation, grammar, and spelling, although some articles may require some stylistic editing. If the staff determines that substantial editing is needed, newsletter editors are responsible for passing revised drafts to the author for his/her approval. All Section newsletter content must be approved by ACR staff before it is distributed to Section members.

After the Publications Manager and the newsletter editor have agreed on final text, the Publications Manager will lay out the newsletter, post it to the Web site, and send the announcement e-mail to the Section members. Final text editing and layout takes approximately four (4) weeks from the time the Publications Manager receives the initial drafts. (If the Section has budgeted for a print newsletter, the Publications Manager will then see that it is printed).

There are two reasons for this arrangement between Section newsletter editors and the Publications Manager. First of all, a Section newsletter editor is ideally situated to solicit and screen relevant, appropriate, and timely material in a given conflict resolution practice area. Second, the Publications Manager needs the direct support of the newsletter editors to manage the editorial processes related to the production of 8 regularly publishing ACR Section newsletters, many of which are published quarterly.