Editorial Guidelines

These notes are intended to give our authors some guidance and direction for articles submitted to Cutter IT Journal (CITJ) for publication.

Editorial Guidelines

These notes are intended to give our authors some guidance and direction for articles submitted to Cutter IT Journal (CITJ) for publication.

Length: The average article in CITJ is about 2,500-3,500 words. We are flexible and can accommodate longer articles with some warning. If you think you are going to be more than 50 percent longer or shorter, please alert us!

Audience: Typical readers of Cutter IT Journal range from CIOs and vice presidents of software organizations to IT managers, directors, project leaders, and very senior technical staff. Most work in fairly large organizations: Fortune 500 IT shops, large computer vendors (IBM, DEC, HP, etc.), and government agencies. 48% of our readership is outside of the US (15% from Canada, 14% Europe, 5% Australia/NZ, 14% elsewhere).

Editorial advice: Introductory-level, tutorial coverage of a topic is not very popular with our readership because they're fairly senior people. Delete the introductory "fluff" and get to the meat of the topic. Assume you're writing for someone who has been in the industry for 10 to 20 years, is very busy, and very impatient. Assume he or she is mentally asking, while reading your article, "What's the point? What do I do with this information?" Apply the "So what?" test to everything you write.

General comments: We enjoy controversy and strong opinion; we like the fact that we can provide an alternative to standard "refereed" journals that sanitize articles. Because we don't carry any advertising, we can publish critical or negative comments about specific vendors or products. However, we obviously don't want to publish anything libelous or slanderous. Conversely, we don't want to publish self-serving commercial messages praising one's own product or service.

Style, grammar, and mechanics: For advice on good writing style, we recommend Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11^th ed., The Chicago Manual of Style, and The Elements of Style (Strunk and White). We are fanatics about the editorial quality of Cutter IT Journal; anything you can do to help us in this regard will be greatly appreciated.

Graphics: If you have created graphics or line drawings, please let us know what format they are in and/or the package you used to create them. We can work with a number of formats, but please check with CITJ's production editor, Linda Dias (ldias@cutter.com, or +1 781 641 5130), before sending us numerous graphics files.

Deadlines: The deadline you agree to when you commit to writing an article is a "hard" deadline; if you're going to be late, let us know and we'll negotiate a mutually agreeable delivery date. If the deadline passes without our having heard from you, we will assume that you have vanished and are unable to provide the article.

Editorial process: Once we get your article, we commence two parallel editorial passes: one for content (by the guest editor) and one for substance, grammar, and style (by our managing editor, Karen Pasley). Either or both of these editorial reviews may result in some questions or feedback from us. In any case, we will send you a first draft "page proof" of your article for your review and approval.

Biographical sketch: At the end of each CITJ article, we like to print a brief (200 words or less) biographical sketch of each author. We also like to provide the author's business mailing address, phone and fax numbers, and e-mail address so that interested readers can contact you. If you don't have a bio written up and would like to see a sample, please contact Karen.

Copyrights: When you submit an article to us, you warrant that you (or your employer) are the sole owner of the article and that you have full power and authority to copyright it and publish it. You also warrant that it does not infringe on any copyright, violate any property rights, or contain scandalous, libelous, or unlawful matter. If you request, we will grant you, or your designee, copyright of the article providing you extend first-time publishing privileges, in print and electronic formats to Cutter Information LLC; otherwise, the article will be copyrighted by Cutter Information LLC.

Reprints: We will provide you, at no cost, 10 copies of the CITJ issue in which your article appears. You are entitled to reprint your article for any use, as long as it is not a copy of the actual published pages of CITJ containing your article. In other words, whatever you do with your own printed or typeset version of your article is fine with us, but don't photocopy pages of CITJ without the express written permission of Cutter Information Corp. If you want reprints of your article directly from the journal, contact Customer Service (Tel: +1 781 648 8700; E-mail: service@cutter.com) for more information. We can arrange for a reprint with the Cutter IT Journal cover, logo, and other details.

References While Cutter IT Journal doesn't aspire to be an academic literature review, we do want to give credit where credit is due. When you draw on the work of other authors and researchers, please cite your sources. References should be cited in the relevant part of the text, listed in alphabetical order (i.e., not in order of appearance) at the end, and use the following reference formats:

Books:

DeMarco, Tom, and Timothy Lister. Waltzing with Bears: Managing Risk on Software Projects. Dorset House, 2003.

Highsmith, Jim. Agile Project Management. Addison-Wesley, 2004.

Articles.

Constantine, Larry. "Peer Reviews for Usability." Cutter IT Journal, Vol. 18, No. 1, January 2005, pp. 5-13.

Lindstrom, Lowell, and Kent Beck. "It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better: Changing to XP." Cutter IT Journal, Vol. 16, No. 2, February 2003, pp. 12-17.

Graphics Guide

• View the graphics guidelines for Cutter IT Journal Authors (Adobe Acrobat PDF)

If the file type you use is not listed here, please contact Linda Dias (781-641-5130) for a workable solution that meets our criteria.