Specifications for submissions

When writing for On Site review and submitting an essay, or a photo-essay, or a set of drawings, bear in mind a couple of things:

On Site review is not an academic journal, It is an independent unfunded publication that sometimes enters into collaboration with other groups and guest editors, who may, or may not, offer honoraria.

Excessive footnoting is not necessary: you are the expert in your own topic, at this moment. You are telling us something we’d like to know about, not proving or arguing a point. Direct quotes need sources, that is all; use the MLA source format.

Sophisticated ideas in accessible writing is what we like.

STYLE GUIDES

In general, we follow MLA guidelines for sources and bibliographies.

For anything to do with Indigenous Peoples, we use Geoffrey Younging. Elements of Indigenous style: a guide for writing by and about Indigenous Peoples, first edition. Edmonton: Brush Education, 2018. This guide is available for purchase here: https://www.brusheducation.ca/books/elements-of-indigenous-style and it is generally found in most Canadian public libraries.

FILES

Text: ideally Text Edit from a mac, but if not possible, a text document from whatever your operating system is. NOT a pdf. Do not use automatic footnotes wrapped to pages, just put them all together, numbered, at the end – in going from various text files to the plain text that goes into InDesign, none of these auto-functions work. Italics, symbols, interesting spacing, all have to be reconstructed manually at this end.

Word count: This varies according to subject. However, as a general rule 1000 words should be enough to say almost anything. 2500 is the maximum and this is for really complex discussions. Please don’t send 4000 words and expect it to be edited down by us to fit your subject and the pages available. Remember, more text means fewer, or smaller, images. We don’t expect everyone with an idea to be a supremo writer; we are architects, urbanists, artists, gardeners; we were trained to be visual designers and to have ideas. However, don’t use the editing process as the way to grope one’s way to a clear statement. Try to make it clear from the start.

Images: 300dpi jpegs. Check the pixel dimensions. dpi x px = size in inches. Our pages are 9” wide with margins, leaving an 8” working space. Thus, if you want an image to span the whole page, it must come as 2700 px wide. These, clearly, become large files, too large to send by a simple email. You can send it; I might not get it. We Transfer is the most reliable way to send these files. It is free.

Now, a note about WeTransfer. Once you have sent the files, you should get a WeTransfer email telling you it has been sent, and will give you an access code. If you don’t hear from them, it hasn’t gone through. If it does go through, and you don’t get a reply email from me at On Site, it hasn’t arrived. Send an email asking me if it has actually arrived and send me the access code. If not, then something went wrong and it must be sent again. Sorry for this added layer of confirmation and checking, but once in a while people send their files and I never get them.

DO NOT send any Illustrator or CAD files. If you want, construct your images in Illustrator or whatever, but send them to us as 300dpi jpgs.

DO NOT send any of this source material as pdfs. Plain jpgs are what we would like.

It is better to not put text onto diagrams, there will be font differences. Once embedded in an illustrator file and then saved as a jpg there is no way to proof the text or make changes to it. Not at this end anyway. So if possible, send the diagrams and the captions or notes for it separately and we will add the notes ourselves according to where you want them to be.

And please, do not sent a long list of images all named IMG_97xx or wherever you are in your camera numbers. It is very difficult for me to identify which ones are important, and to what they refer. You may have twenty images, but we won’t be using all twenty, unless it is a previously agreed photo-essay. Please edit your list, and name each image for me.

Mailing address: Although the main dissemination method to get On Site review content to readers is through the website, we also do a short print run for library subscriptions and contributors, who are automatically sent 2 print copies. If we don’t have your mailing address, we can’t send you your copies. Please add your mailing address to your text file.

PROCESS

The text is looked at first, and a rough edit is done, if necessary, for grammar, spelling, punctuation, repetition, excessive wordiness and jargon.

Then the text is assessed for clarity of thought, expression and logic. All this is marked up on a text file and sent back to you to approve, change, or correct.

Then the text and the images are put into the layout. A copy of this, as a low-resolution pdf, is sent to you to approve, change or correct.

Then, in an ideal world, this is it. It all comes together and a very interesting issue is produced.

HONORARIA

Funds are tight here, for various reasons that have crashed together over the past 5 or so years. However, ideas aren’t really connected to financial viability, other than in the size of a print run and Canada Post. This is why On Site review switched five years ago to an online presentation, cutting print and postage costs to a really small margin. The online version actually gets more readers than print copies per issue used to sell. I like print, I subscribe to print journals, I like print’s portability, but there simply is not the funding to continue to produce On Site review as it was at its peak from 2007-2015 with its high newsstand sales, its costly print runs, its sheer numbers.

The content is still just as brilliant as it has always been, and that is due entirely to the contributors, who still either want, or need, places to publish their work, their ideas, their research, their projects. And we want to see these things.

Even at our peak we only offered an honorarium of $75, insultingly small, but all that could be eked out of a budget assailed by diminishing returns as the magazine industry crumpled in the face of online competition. But the size of an honorarium has nothing to do with the quality of what’s being honoured. If that were so we would be paying thousands. Honoraria are tokens of gratitude. Some people do not need tokens, for others, it is not a token but part of their income. We are offering a $50 honorarium to contributors in need. We can guess who these might be, but would rather be told, specifically, who needs their honorarium.

All this said, if anyone would like to help us, specifically with the honoraria, you can donate however much you like using this paypal button below. Can’t offer a tax receipt however, being utterly independent, and not attached to any institutions, we do not have charitable status. We will send magazines and our infinite gratitude.