UZIG Newsletters
Guidelines for articles:
Anything that is of interest to the majority of UZIG members is desirable. In general this means anything that concerns the unsaturated zone (broadly defined, including interactions with the saturated zone, atmosphere, surface water, etc.) in a scientific way. Emphasize what is challenging, interesting, and broadly appealing. It is not necessary topresent a completed study--works in progress, ideas to be pursued, and questions to think about are all quite reasonable. Types of articles include:(1) Description of specific research--proposed, in progress, or completed. (2) Review or summary of one or more publications. (3) Proposal of a question or topic of discussion or investigation. (4) Note on a useful technique, instrument, algorithm, etc. (5) Information related to UZIG activities.
General
Articles should be informal and lively. It's fine to include questions, and to use common expressions (in grammatically correct form) from everyday speech. Keep specific data to a minimum, favoring expressions like "nearly twice as much as" and "falling 10% short of" over numbers with units. Remember that the audience is a broad one and mostly not unsaturated-zone specialists.
Illustrations
Illustrations can be in the form of photographs, graphs, or diagrams. They should be colorful and interesting. Illustrations should be saved as image files (.jpg or .tif are preferred), with least 300 dpi resolution.
Length
Keep it brief--we want the soul of wit. 80 lines or less is good. There is no limit to how short an article can be, as long as it has something interesting to say.
Format
In the past, the newsletter was sent by email as ascii text. Our new format for newsletters is .pdf. Send text material to the editors by email as ascii text or in attached Word documents.
Editing & revision
Normally, articles will be read and edited by the editors and one or more other people. The editing process includes some revision that, for a publication, would normally be done by the author. It's a process that is faster, and potentially more brutal to the original draft, than what we are used to in the publication-approval process.
General
Remember that this is not an official publication, but it is distributed to more than 100 people in the USGS, outside agencies, and universities--and we want them to read it!
Please send ideas for articles, upcoming events (meetings or training), and information on publications and websites to the editor, Katie Aurand, USGS, South Dakota kt.aurand@gmail.com.