Author’s style guide

Author’s style guide


Free Software Magazine’s style guide

A quick list of rules to follow while writing articles for Free Software Magazine




Here is a list of points which must be followed while writing for Free Software Magazine:

The technical side

  • Hand in your article using the online interface. Don't send your article as an attachment.
  • The figures must be 9.1cm wide, and between 5cm and 10 cm high and in JPEG format. All images must be at 300 DPI. In pixels, that is 1075 x (591 - 1181).
  • Download a new, up to date article template file (XML) from the Write for us page) before writing your article.
  • Do not abuse the bold (like I just did with the not).

Words, words, words

  • Refer to the Linux kernel as Linux. Refer to GNU/Linux (as in the kernel + all the support programs and libraries) as GNU/Linux.
  • Use free software (NOT freeware) for free or open source software, shareware for shareware software, and proprietary software (NOT commercial software) for software that is not free.
  • Do not use Capital Letters at the beginning of Words unless you are typing a Proper Noun (like Linus Torvalds, Microsoft, etc.). Improper capitalisation is a real pain for editors.
  • Do capitalise acronyms (like IBM which means International business Machines, TCP which means Transport Control Protocol, and so on).
  • Spell check your article before sending it. If you are writing them 5 minutes before the deadline, jump on a time machine and re-read them 48 hours after finishing them.
  • Write the word internet with a small i. We are trying to create a new trend.
  • Do not capitalise headings (in this section I wrote Words, words, words rather than Words, Words, Words).

Style issues

  • If you are the sole author of the article, refer to yourself as I (rather than we). For example: In this article I will show how to .... If you are writing (and signing) the article with somebody else, refer to yourselves as we.
  • When addressing the readers, use you. Avoid Prince Charles’ one (one should be careful [...]).
  • Use either English spellings or American spellings, but be consistent throughout the article.
  • Separate each section of the article with a heading (like Style issues here). If you can’t, the article probably has a structural problem.
  • Write in a semi-informal way.

Most forwarded

Interview with Dave Mohyla, of DTIDATA

Dave Mohyla is the president and founder of dtidata.com, a hard drive recovery facility based in Tampa, Florida.

TM: Where are you based? What does your company do?
DTI Data recovery is based in South Pasadena, Florida which is a suburb of Tampa. We have been here for over 10 years. We operate a bio-metrically secured class 100 clean room where we perform hard drive recovery on all types of hard disks, from laptop hard drives to multi drive RAID systems.

Anybody up to writing good directory software?

Since the very beginning, directories (of any kind) have had a very central role in the internet. (I have recently grown fond of Free Web Directory. Even Slashdot can be considered a directory: a collection of great news and invaluable user-generated comments. As far as software is concerned, doing a quick search on Google about software directories will return the free (as in freedom) software directories like Savannah, SourceForge, Freshmeat and so on, followed by shareware and freeware sites such as FileBuzz, PCWin Download Center and All Freeware (great if you're looking for shareware and freeware, but definitely less comprehensive than their free-as-in-freedom counterparts).

Interview with Mark Shuttleworth

Mark Shuttleworth is the founder of Thawte, the first Certification Authority to sell public SSL certificates. After selling Thawte to Verisign, Mark moved on to training as an astronaut in Russia and visiting space. Once he got back he founded Ubuntu, the leading GNU/Linux distribution. He agreed on releasing a quick interview to Free Software Magazine.

Is better education the key to finding better software?

I read David Jonathon's article Anybody Up To Writing Good Directory Software? the other day, which got me thinking about software directories in general. As David mentioned, many of the software directories one finds when doing a quick google search are free as in beer, not as in freedom. But what interests me is the software directories that already exist, providing a combination of both free as in beer software, and open source software. Sites such as Freeware Downloads and Shareware Download don't advertise themselves as providing free as in liberty software, but each of them have a good selection of open source software available... if you know where to look.

Most emailed

Free Open Document label templates

If you’ve ever spent hours at work doing mailings, cursed your printer for printing outside the lines on your labels, or moaned “There has got to be a better way to do this,” here’s the solution you’ve been looking for. Working smarter, not harder! Worldlabel.com, a manufacture of labels offers Open Office / Libre Office labels templates for downloading in ODF format which will save you time, effort, and (if you want) make really cool-looking labels

Creating a user-centric site in Drupal

A little while ago, while talking in the #drupal mailing list, I showed my latest creation to one of the core developers there. His reaction was "Wow, I am always surprised what people use Drupal for". His surprise is somehow justified: I did create a site for a bunch of entertainers in Perth, a company set to use Drupal to take over the world with Entertainers.Biz.

Update: since writing this article, I have updated the system so that the whole booking process happens online. I will update the article accordingly!

So, why, why do people and companies develop free software?

More and more people are discovering free software. Many people only do so after weeks, or even months, of using it. I wonder, for example, how many Firefox users actually know how free Firefox really is—many of them realise that you can get it for free, but find it hard to believe that anybody can modify it and even redistribute it legally.

When the discovery is made, the first instinct is to ask: why do they do it? Programming is hard work. Even though most (if not all) programmers are driven by their higher-than-normal IQs and their amazing passion for solving problems, it’s still hard to understand why so many of them would donate so much of their time to creating something that they can’t really show off to anybody but their colleagues or geek friends.

Sure, anybody can buy laptops, and just program. No need to get a full-on lab or spend thousands of dollars in equipment. But... is that the full story?

Fun articles

Santa Claus - the most successful open source project

It dawned on me the other day, as I was shopping for the dozens of gifts it seems I have to buy every December, that Santa Claus is the most successful open source project in history. (Bridget @ Illiterarty would agree with that). Santa Claus is essentially a marketing development that is embodied by everyone who stuffs a sock, gives a gift, hosts a dinner or wishes Merry Christmas over the holiday season.

Most emailed

Editorial

When I first started thinking about Free Software Magazine, I was feeling enthusiastic about the dream. I had Dave, Gianluca, and Alan willing to help me, I had established members of the free software community willing to help me out, I had writers volunteering their time and energy for free, and I had a generous offer from OpenHosting for servers, all before I'd proved myself. There was a sense of excitement in the air, and I thought maybe, just maybe, I could make this work.

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