Want to contribute to ASTD Links? Here are the Author Guidelines.
ASTD Links is a monthly electronic newsletter for ASTD members. It features:
- In Practice articles written by your colleagues
- In-person interviews with members, authors, board members, chapter leaders, and others
- A highlighted recent publication
- News about events and offerings from ASTD
- The latest jobs from the ASTD Career Center
What you can contribute:
The In Practice section is the key area for member contributions. The purpose is for members to share information about how workplace theories are applied on the job and to give firsthand accounts of what’s happening in the real world of workplace learning and performance. This is hardly an exclusive list, but the types of stories that work well for In Practice include:
- Success stories – How you solved a problem, created a new program, or applied a concept (such as return on investment, performance improvement initiatives, e-learning technologies, succession planning, etc.) in a particular situation
- Lessons learned – Tips on what you learned in the process of tackling a tough problem or stumbling blocks you encountered that others may meet
- How workplace learning is changing in your particular industry or sector
- New challenges you face in your position, industry, or specific organization
- New skills you’re applying to your job
- Ideas for authors or people for us to interview (or for you to interview if you'd like!)
Here are some very general guidelines:
- Length: about 750 – 1,200 words
- Format: Microsoft Word, or other word processing progam. Please, no PDF files
- Graphics: If you embed graphics in the Word document, please also send them as separate files. JPGs are best.
- When: We welcome submissions at any time.
- How: You can contact a field editor who works in your field or submit directly to the editor: asouza@astd.org.
- About you: Please include your full name and position, a sentence or two about yourself, a phone number and email address where you can be reached, and a digital photo (JPG is best). PLUS indicate that you are an ASTD national member, and/or the chapter (or global network) to which you belong. All members of ASTD chapters are invited to send in articles.
- Copyright: ASTD will send you a release form giving ASTD rights to your article as written (except for your own use in your classes and on your website, etc.). We cannot publish articles that have been or will be published elsewhere. (But if you wrote a great substantive article about a terrific chapter program for your chapter newsletter, we might want to share it in Links.)
- Editing: Editors will be editors! Should changes be major, we’ll show you what we did, as a courtesy.
For more information, contact
Amy Souza
Editor, ASTD Links
asouza@astd.org
More About In Practice and How to be a Links Field Editor:
Here's how the In Practice section of ASTD Links works: There are numerous field editors (practitioners or academics) who use their professional networks to help us get articles in their areas of practice (HPI, ROI, OD/leadership, etc.) or in specific industries where there is a significant amount of interest among members.
We ask field editors to provide four articles a year in their area. Newly recruited field editors are encouraged to contribute the first article from their own experience to introduce themselves to readers.
The ideal article focuses on the practical application of training, learning, and performance theories: how you tackled a problem, what worked, lessons learned. The author's guidelines provide more detail on how to prepare and submit an article.
As field editor, your main job is to use your contacts to help us find people who are doing things that would be of interest to other ASTD members, and to read the articles to be sure their approach is sound.
The rewards of the job are professional, not monetary: a wider network, some recognition, and a stronger connection to ASTD. We put the field editor's name and contact information at the end of each article they solicit as a way of giving credit for otherwise unpaid work, and to encourage submissions of articles or ideas directly to the editors.
Volunteer now! Contact the editor for details. Email: LinksEditor@astd.org