Author Guidelines

Content and length of article    

Articles should be written in english.
Both English and American spelling are permitted.
Non-native speakers are asked to have the article checked.
The editor will make further correction, if necessary.
Before starting of the printing job, the authors will receive a draft layout of their articles and will be asked for checking it as soon as possible.

• Please include an abstract with an approximate length of 100-150 words.
• Please include a contact name with full mail, phone, fax & email addresses.
• Eye-catching photos or explanatory illustrations are highly welcome!

The length of an article normally is agreed with the responsible editor during the first contacts. Contributions to the technical main topic usually have the length of two mstnews pages totally (including abstract, figures and photos, caption, contact information and references).

Please note:
Articles, which exceed the given length essentially, cannot be regarded by the editorial office because of the unbearable efforts and delays for performing the shortennings and additional coordination with the author! Please use the following information for adjusting the proper length of your article, e.g. by making use of the "Statistics" function of your text processing system:

•   A mstnews page has 3 columns with 63 lines with up to 35 strokes each. That means that one mstnews page can be filled with a maximum of 6,600 stroke approximately.
• From this amount you have to subtract the space for incomplete and blank lines. 25 % of the given space is the mean value, which leads to 5,000, possible strokes / mstnews page.
• From this amount you have to subtract the space needed for your figures and pictures. 
• Please do not use footnotes. Footnotes do not fit to our mstnews style
  

Guidance on level and style    

The following instructions are intended to provide the author with guidelines on how to address his article to the broad audience of mstnews readers.
Keep in mind that the mstnews audience is made up of readers from industry as well as from research.
Include a good introduction which can be understood in particular by those readers from industry who are interested in the application aspects, but do not necessarily have the specific knowledge to understand material of a highly scientific or technical nature.
State why the subject matter is of current or future importance and include a brief history which present the innovative nature of your work and subject matter.
Please avoid the mathematical formulas and comprehensive reference lists. Limit number of quotations and references to the necessary extent.    

Author and contact information

Please indicate prename and family name of all authors directly under the headline. If you do not have own guidelines on the sequence of the authors, please give the names in alphabetical order. If there are several authors from different institutions, please append a list of assignments at the end of the article before the contact information. Please complete the your article with information on one selected contact person: Title, complete name, complete company / institution name, location information (city, country), phone number and email address. Please provide a portrait photo of the main author and - if wanted - up to two photos of further authors.

Instruction for submission    

The text should be submitted in Microsoft or Mac or textformat. It may contain the figures as embedded objects for showing their position within the text and the captions as proposed by the author, but the figures nevertheless are needed separately as data file!
Illustrations (drawings, photos, figures) can be submitted as data file (TIFF or EPS format is preferred). Please do not forget to indicate clearly the captions of the illustrations each! You can deliver the text and the illustrations electronically by E-Mail (limitation: 5 MB), or by regular mail on CD-ROM.
If you should have any questions or difficulties regarding the electronic format, please contact the technical editor for further assistance well in advance of the deadline.     

Author´s declaration of liability    

By submitting his article at mstnews the author declares implicitly to VDI/VDE-IT GmbH, that the articles, the used names and all enclosed illustrations are free of legal claims of third parties. Possible exceptions the are explicitly indicated by the author.
If there are legal claims to be regarded, for each of the respective item(s) the author will provide a written permission from the third party of making use ofthe item(s) for the intended mstnews article, the author will clearly indicate the respective item(s) in his article and the kind of legal right (e.g. copyright)

Send articles and questions to    

mstnews
VDI/VDE-IT
Steinplatz 1
D-10623 Berlin
Germany

phone     +49 30 310078-167      
fax     +049 30 310078-223      
E-mail: mstnews@vdivde-it.de