Connected
Guidelines for contributors
About Connected
Editorial considerations
Illustrations
Presentation of scripts
Dealing with your script
Publication rights
Address
Connected is a magazine for New Zealand schoolchildren. Through it, the Ministry of Education aims to foster an interest in mathematics, science, and technology and help children to understand that they encounter mathematics, science, and technology in their everyday life.
Connected gives teachers new New Zealand-related topics and activities that can be used in the classroom and can also be taken home and shared with families on a regular basis.
The idea for Connected comes from the popular School Journal, which Learning Media publishes for the Ministry of Education. The Ministry has asked Learning Media to publish collections of articles and stories similar to those in the School Journal that focus on mathematics, science, and technology and that help improve students’ knowledge and interest in these areas.
The publication has two main uses. It is used as a magazine that children can read for their own interest and enjoyment and as a source of activities that they can enjoy. It is also intended for use as a classroom resource for the teaching of science, mathematics, and technology. Connected is accompanied by notes for teachers that suggest ways of extending the activities and provide background information to help teachers make good use of the material.
Connected is published in graded parts and contains material appropriate to the interests and experience of these age groups:
Connected 1: 7- to 8-year-olds
Connected 2: 8- to 9-year olds
Connected 3: 9- to 11-year olds
In selecting and shaping items for Connected, we need to bear in mind the following points:
If your idea is for a photo-article, we prefer articles to be accompanied by photographs that have been taken by a competent photographer. They should be good-quality colour transparencies, negatives, or prints, which will be return to you after use. If you supply prints, don’t write on their backs. You should aim in your sequence of photographs to cover in detail the same ground as your script does. Ideally, they should show action or tell a story. If there is a person at the centre of the article, that person’s face needs to be seen clearly in at least some of the photographs. For more information on photographs, read the Suggestions for amateur photographers
If photographs need to be of a technical nature, we can often access these from photo-libraries or appropriate scientific institutions. If you already have access to these or know of their source, it is helpful if you can advise us of this when you submit your script.
Almost all items, apart from photo-articles, are published with accompanying illustrations by freelance artists. These are normally commissioned by us at the production stage, and it is rare that illustrations, apart from photographs, are accepted with a manuscript.
However, if you are an illustrator and are providing a visual piece, such as a puzzle, then it would be appropriate to send in a rough of the idea. If you wish to be considered as an illustrator, read the Artwork guidelines
We prefer scripts to be typewritten, double spaced, and presented on one side of the page only. If you post the script, you should also include a self-addressed, stamped envelope in case we decide to return your script. Faxed contributions are acceptable, but please note they will be acknowledged by mail. Email contributions will be acknowledged by email.
Your covering letter or email should include your full contact details, the title of the story/article and a short synopsis (one paragraph).
Let us know if you are sending us work that has already appeared elsewhere, and please do not send us work currently being considered by another publisher.
Dealing with your script
As soon as possible after receiving your script (normally within five working days), we send you a letter (or an email) to acknowledge its arrival. We try to inform you about acceptance or rejection as quickly as possible, though due to the large number of manuscripts we receive, this reply may sometimes be delayed. If you have not had a reply from us after two months, and wish to submit your manuscript elsewhere, please feel free to contact us and enquire about your script.
Our prime concern with scripts that we accept is with the needs of the children who will be reading your work. Sometimes, considerable changes are necessary so that the work will meet these needs or so that it fits into our publishing programme as a whole. In such a case, we will send you an edited copy of your script showing how we would like to present your work. If you are unhappy with this, you should write back to us as soon as possible so that we can work out a compromise or arrange to use other material in its place.
For all freelance contributions, we secure a first publication right and a first option to publish. By granting us first publication rights, you retain the copyright in the material, but you may not sell it in any form for publication elsewhere, in New Zealand or overseas, until it has appeared in Connected.
By granting us a first option to publish, you allow us to reuse your material, subject to the payment of an additional fee, in any one of several ways: in translation into Māori or a Pacific Island language, in the School Journal, in the form of an audio-tape, or in a special edition or anthology.
Accordingly, if you wish to sell your work elsewhere after it has appeared in Connected, you will need to inform us of this fact.
If we commission you to do a piece of work, then the work becomes Crown copyright and you have no further right to this work.
Please send enquiries or submissions to:
The Editor
Connected
Learning Media
Box 3293
Wellington
Phone (04) 472 5522
Fax (04) 472 6444
Email: connected@learningmedia.co.nz
About Connected
Editorial considerations
Illustrations
Presentation of scripts
Dealing with your script
Publication rights
Address
About Connected
Connected is a magazine for New Zealand schoolchildren. Through it, the Ministry of Education aims to foster an interest in mathematics, science, and technology and help children to understand that they encounter mathematics, science, and technology in their everyday life.
Connected gives teachers new New Zealand-related topics and activities that can be used in the classroom and can also be taken home and shared with families on a regular basis.
The idea for Connected comes from the popular School Journal, which Learning Media publishes for the Ministry of Education. The Ministry has asked Learning Media to publish collections of articles and stories similar to those in the School Journal that focus on mathematics, science, and technology and that help improve students’ knowledge and interest in these areas.
The publication has two main uses. It is used as a magazine that children can read for their own interest and enjoyment and as a source of activities that they can enjoy. It is also intended for use as a classroom resource for the teaching of science, mathematics, and technology. Connected is accompanied by notes for teachers that suggest ways of extending the activities and provide background information to help teachers make good use of the material.
Connected is published in graded parts and contains material appropriate to the interests and experience of these age groups:
Connected 1: 7- to 8-year-olds
Connected 2: 8- to 9-year olds
Connected 3: 9- to 11-year olds
Editorial considerations
In selecting and shaping items for Connected, we need to bear in mind the following points:
- Connected reaches children from all types of homes, from all parts of New Zealand, and from many racial and cultural backgrounds. Our readership also has widely different abilities and interests. We seek material that reflects this diversity.
- Material for Connected should be able to be used in classroom programmes. Topics selected will therefore often be those that fit into the curriculum objectives for that particular level of schooling. Scripts that come with a brief outline of the achievement objectives of the science, mathematics, or technology curriculum that the story or article addresses will have an immediate advantage. Similarly, any ideas for science, mathematics, or technology activities based on the article or story will also be received with interest.
- Connected will be kept in schools as a resource for a number of years, and so items need to be of lasting interest rather than of a short-term, topical nature.
- We seek to provide a range of activities and topics that vary from those that a whole class has undertaken or could undertake to those that a small group or an individual could tackle.
- Material needs to be presented in such a way that children will want to read it with or without teacher direction. We are looking for articles that take the child’s-eye view of events, phenomena, experiences, or activities (for example, activities that children can actually undertake themselves and themes that will interest children and in which they can recognise elements of their own experience). The activities presented need, if possible, to be fun, cheap, and achievable for children working unassisted, and they should be able to be carried out with easily available materials.
- We are seeking articles, interviews, activities, photo-articles,
puzzles, and (appropriately conceived) fiction items that will
encourage students to think about mathematical or scientific concepts
or ideas.
Illustrations
If your idea is for a photo-article, we prefer articles to be accompanied by photographs that have been taken by a competent photographer. They should be good-quality colour transparencies, negatives, or prints, which will be return to you after use. If you supply prints, don’t write on their backs. You should aim in your sequence of photographs to cover in detail the same ground as your script does. Ideally, they should show action or tell a story. If there is a person at the centre of the article, that person’s face needs to be seen clearly in at least some of the photographs. For more information on photographs, read the Suggestions for amateur photographers
If photographs need to be of a technical nature, we can often access these from photo-libraries or appropriate scientific institutions. If you already have access to these or know of their source, it is helpful if you can advise us of this when you submit your script.
Almost all items, apart from photo-articles, are published with accompanying illustrations by freelance artists. These are normally commissioned by us at the production stage, and it is rare that illustrations, apart from photographs, are accepted with a manuscript.
However, if you are an illustrator and are providing a visual piece, such as a puzzle, then it would be appropriate to send in a rough of the idea. If you wish to be considered as an illustrator, read the Artwork guidelines
Presentation of scripts
We prefer scripts to be typewritten, double spaced, and presented on one side of the page only. If you post the script, you should also include a self-addressed, stamped envelope in case we decide to return your script. Faxed contributions are acceptable, but please note they will be acknowledged by mail. Email contributions will be acknowledged by email.
Your covering letter or email should include your full contact details, the title of the story/article and a short synopsis (one paragraph).
Let us know if you are sending us work that has already appeared elsewhere, and please do not send us work currently being considered by another publisher.
Dealing with your script
As soon as possible after receiving your script (normally within five working days), we send you a letter (or an email) to acknowledge its arrival. We try to inform you about acceptance or rejection as quickly as possible, though due to the large number of manuscripts we receive, this reply may sometimes be delayed. If you have not had a reply from us after two months, and wish to submit your manuscript elsewhere, please feel free to contact us and enquire about your script.
Our prime concern with scripts that we accept is with the needs of the children who will be reading your work. Sometimes, considerable changes are necessary so that the work will meet these needs or so that it fits into our publishing programme as a whole. In such a case, we will send you an edited copy of your script showing how we would like to present your work. If you are unhappy with this, you should write back to us as soon as possible so that we can work out a compromise or arrange to use other material in its place.
Publication rights
For all freelance contributions, we secure a first publication right and a first option to publish. By granting us first publication rights, you retain the copyright in the material, but you may not sell it in any form for publication elsewhere, in New Zealand or overseas, until it has appeared in Connected.
By granting us a first option to publish, you allow us to reuse your material, subject to the payment of an additional fee, in any one of several ways: in translation into Māori or a Pacific Island language, in the School Journal, in the form of an audio-tape, or in a special edition or anthology.
Accordingly, if you wish to sell your work elsewhere after it has appeared in Connected, you will need to inform us of this fact.
If we commission you to do a piece of work, then the work becomes Crown copyright and you have no further right to this work.
Address
Please send enquiries or submissions to:
The Editor
Connected
Learning Media
Box 3293
Wellington
Phone (04) 472 5522
Fax (04) 472 6444
Email: connected@learningmedia.co.nz