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British Mensa Travel Special Interest Group |
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Travel SIG aims to promote travel and to foster contact among Mensans worldwide. We do this through VISA, the SIG newsletter, which is crucial in encouraging the exchange of travel news, views and information for the mutual interest of the SIG's members. Our membership includes some journalists and other professional writers; it also includes people who may never have written for publication before. VISA has published, and will continue to publish, contributions from both - as well as contributions from members who work in the travel industry, and from members who don't fall into any of these categories, but are simply interested in travel. We aim to be a broad church, not a narrow sect, and we hope these guidelines will encourage you to contribute your own comments, experiences and views. What follows are guidelines - not rules or commandments, but guidelines. VISA is written in the main by Travel SIG members, for Travel SIG members. We positively encourage new member contributors to VISA, and give preference to contributions from Travel SIG members over those from outside sources. Your contribution on a particular location may well be interesting and valuable for other members, because:-
No member
has to contribute to a SIG publication or participate in the SIG's other
activities. Nevertheless, we believe that the more members who do participate,
the better are the chances of the SIG providing a good service and added
interest for all its members, contributors or not.
Rights and wrongs… There is no 'right' or 'wrong' way to write for VISA. Contributions can be serious or light-hearted, factual or impressionistic, or a mixture of these. They can consider anything from an entire continent to one landmark or tourist attraction in one location. There is no minimum or maximum length - an article can be 500 words or 5,000. In the case of longer contributions, the Editor may opt to abbreviate them, or to print them in instalments over successive issues. Your views... …are important. While it is often relevant to provide some background facts or statistics, in most cases there is little point in you writing something so factual and dry that members could have read the same article in a travel guide! Use your article to tell us what you thought of your trip to XYZ, and why? What amused, interested, intrigued, frustrated or maddened you - and why? Would you go again, or recommend others to go there? You may read an article by another member on a destination or travel subject and find that you disagree with them. Write in and tell us why - debate and the exchange of views are what the SIG is all about. Also, if another member has written about a specific subject or destination, that doesn't mean the subject / location is off limits. Maybe you can add something to enhance fellow members' understanding, or engage them in debate. …and the facts When you travelled, particularly off the beaten track or independently, remember to tell us about:-
How useful were these in helping you to decide to make this journey or stay in this location? What kind of advice did the tour operator or organiser give you? Were your guidebooks clear, relevant and informative? Was the website easy to use? Tell us - we're sure to have readers who are interested! A picture tells 1,000 words We encourage
you to send photos to illustrate your article or letter. These can be
in the form of prints or transparencies, or in digital format (on CD/DVD
or sent by email). Please remember to add an explanation of the subject
matter. When we publish articles in VISA, copyright remains with you, the author. If another publication (in Mensa or elsewhere) wishes to use your article, British Mensa stipulates that they must obtain your permission, contacting the SIGSec in the first instance. By the same token, anything published elsewhere is invariably copyright of someone - usually, but not always, the author or publisher. If you quote someone else's work, please show who published it and when. You can quote limited extracts from publications, but we discourage wholesale copying of articles from other publications. It isn't original and, unless you obtain specific permission to reproduce it, will almost certainly infringe copyright. The same goes for material culled from the Internet, whether from emails or websites. Just because something is on the Internet does not mean it is fair game for anyone to steal. On the other hand, you are welcome to review travel-related publications (e.g. books, articles, TV or radio programmes or websites), where you can quote limited extracts for the purpose of putting your own views into the appropriate context. Editing of contributions The Editor reserves the right to edit, defer or omit material for space, legal or other reasons. Just because you are a Mensan, neither the Editor nor the SIGSec makes any assumptions about your writing abilities or experience. No contributor - SIG Member, Mensan or guest - has any automatic right to publication, or to see their contribution appear exactly verbatim as they submitted it. We do not often omit a member's contribution entirely, but this may happen - for instance, if the contribution has nothing to do with travel; or if it contains personal attacks or libellous material. As a Mensa publication we must protect the Society's interests and standing and be mindful of the law of the land. If your contribution contains sexist, ageist or racist material, offensive language or other material that, in the Editor's view, may cause offence, you may well find that the text is edited! The Editor also reserves the right to edit contributions if, by doing so, (s)he believes it will aid readers' understanding of the piece. Nonetheless, if a contribution is edited, the Editor does so for a reason or reasons. If the Editor believes that your contribution needs major revisions, (s)he will normally contact you to explain why this is so. But you probably won't get a letter, email or call asking for your permission to change a comma to a full stop. Some practical information about contributions Letters,
articles or opinion pieces can be handwritten, typed, sent on IBM PC compatible
CD or DVD, or emailed. If your contribution is in electronic format, the
Editor uses Word as part of Microsoft Office 2000 and can read any file
which Word can import. If in doubt, save it as a .TXT file or email it
and we can sort something out. Publication cycle VISA is published six times a year, as an A4 publication in booklet format, with the option to print up to 4 pages in colour each issue. Occasionally we produce additional issues. The newsletter is published in print format and as a PDF distributed by email; members choose the format they prefer to receive. Our website Please let us know if you are willing for your article, letter or photo to appear, not just in VISA, but also in future on the SIG website www.travelsig.co.uk. The website is a great additional medium for photos, because members can view them in colour; and for articles, for any members who can't locate the back issue where they read the original article. So as not to detract from the newsletter, we do not normally publish articles on the website until 6 months after publication in VISA. Postcards do not appear on the website for reasons of copyright. For further information... We hope that these guidelines help you in contributing to your SIG. If you find any of the above unclear, have any further queries, would like some further advice or wish to send a contribution for publication in VISA, please contact us. We look forward
to publishing your contribution in VISA soon. |