These writing guidelines specifically deal with issues that arise when you write for Zine5. Before submitting a work to Zine5, please go through these guidelines carefully and adhere to them strictly. We receive a lot of submissions and it helps a lot if they follow a standard.

Formatting

There should be no indent at the beginning of paragraphs. The sentence begins at the left margin.

There should be two line spaces between paragraphs.

Words should be in italics in the following cases:

• Terms in languages other than in English (Achtung, sacre bleu, ayyo)

• Names of books, newspapers, magazines, movies, songs, works of art etc. (The New York Times, Three Men on a Boat, National Geographic, The Lord of the Rings, I want to break free, The Nightwatch)

• To show emphasis, but this has to be used with a lot of discretion ("So you want to go to Art school?" he asked mockingly.)

Sub-headings, if any, should be bold, italicised and left aligned.

Conversations in direct speech should have each participant's words on a separate paragraph.

Example:

The horses approached the Raja Viharam. The elder warrior hailed them.

"Buddham saranam kachami!"

"Sangam saranam kachami!" answered the elder bikshu.

"Dharmam saranam kachami!" echoed the younger monk.

"Swami! Don't you know that no one is supposed to be wandering about at this hour of the night?" enquired the older warrior.

"I do; but I wasn't aware that the rule applied to hermits too," replied the bikshu.

Punctuation

Full stop / Period

• Use it only to end a sentence.

• Make sure there is no space before it.

• Leave one space between it and the first letter of the next sentence.

• If a sentence does not follow immediately, do not leave any space after it.

Punctuation in direct speech

• Use double quotes to completely enclose direct speech statements, including the punctuation at the end, be it full stop, question mark, exclamation mark or ellipsis. Note that there is no comma after a question/exclamation mark when it is used in direct speech.

  Examples:

"I saw him yesterday," said Mark

Mark said, "I saw him yesterday."

"Did you see him?" asked Mark

Mark asked, "Did you see him?"

"Stop thief!" shouted Mark

Mark exclaimed, "What a fool I have been!"

"It was here..." began Mark.

Mark began, "It was here..."

Quotes

All quotes, whether single or double, enclose the following punctuation mark, regardless of whether it is in the middle of the sentence or at the end.

Examples:

I wanted to try a glass of the 'tea,' supposedly a vile and treacherous drink.

The waiter got me a glass of the 'tea.'

According to the weatherman, today will be "rainy and windy, with heavy thundershowers later in the day," though the sponsors are still hopeful of seeing some cricket played.

The sponsors are hopeful of some cricket today, though the weatherman has said that today will be "rainy and windy, with heavy thundershowers later in the day."

Capital Letters

Use capital letters only in the following cases:

• To begin a sentence.

• To begin each fresh line of poetry.

• To begin all proper nouns and adjectives derived from them.

• For all nouns and pronouns indicating a deity.

• For the pronoun 'I' and the interjection 'O.'

Submission

There are two ways in which you can submit your works to Zine5. One is through the online submission form and the other is by sending your work to editor@zine5.com.

You can use a simple rule of thumb to decide which way is best for you - if your work contains a lot of formatting (like bold, italics, special positioning etc.), it would be best to send it in as an attachment in MS Word. If it is plain text without any formatting, then you can use the form.

When sending in your work to us through email, please keep in mind the following points:

• We would prefer that your attachments are in MS Word (.doc) format

• Please attach only one file per mail. If you are sending in more than one file, please send it as separate mails.

• If you are sending pictures, make sure they have already been optimised and their size is within 100 Kb. The resolution should be 72 pixels per inch and neither the width nor height should exceed 400 pixels.

• Pictures should be in jpeg or gif format

• Do not send pictures as part of a MS Word file.

• Indicate clearly the caption for each picture.

• Indicate clearly in your text where you would like each picture to appear.