The content provided by Smart Meetings is designed to inform and inspire our readers. Most of the content is generated by our Editorial Department staff, although we also employ freelance writers. We welcome story suggestions and submissions for our magazine and website. Any story attached to Smart Meetings must comply with the following guidelines.
Acceptance and Editing of Stories
Acceptance of stories is based on several factors, including quality of writing, relevance to the meetings industry, interest to readers and timeliness.
Stories must display professionalism, both in style and content. Our main style guide is The Associated Press Stylebook. Stories should be written in compliance with its policies.
Smart Meetings edits stories as needed for clarity, accuracy, quality and length, as well as to comply with our style. Writers may be consulted about changes, but their acceptance of them is not required.
Story Content
Stories must be original: They cannot have appeared—or appear in the future—on websites or in magazines, books, blogs, newsletters, etc. Smart Meetings reserves the right to reprint stories, with no additional compensation given to the writer.
Submissions should not be promotional in any way. They should contain information that provides clear takeaways for readers without including self-promotion or unprofessionally promoting a particular company, brand or individual.
Stories should be submitted via email. Include a 50-word author bio that includes the writer’s name, title, company and email address.
Story Parameters
Columns should be 700 to 800 words long; features and destination stories should be 2,200 to 2,500 words long, unless advised otherwise.
Refrain from using footnotes, endnotes or lists of references, although a list of resources is needed for destination stories.
Writers are encouraged to break up stories by using subheads, sidebars, stat boxes, etc.
If images, charts or graphs are included, they should be sent as attachments rather than embedded in a Word document. It is the writer’s responsibility to secure publishing rights to any of them that are submitted. Images should be as high-resolution as possible.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is never permitted. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as “to steal and pass off the ideas or words of another as one’s own,” “use another’s production without crediting the source” or “present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.” Smart Meetings also considers plagiarism as cases in which writers borrow from their previously published work without proper citation.
Conflicts of Interest
Writers are required to be completely transparent if they have any existing or potential conflict of interest related to a submission.
Post-Publication
Once their stories are published by Smart Meetings, writers are encouraged to promote their contributions on personal and company websites, social media outlets, emails to colleagues and peers, etc.
