If you are reading this then one must assume a degree of computer literacy and so these few notes will perforce be aimed at those who have the use of a computer. First of all there are one or two technical points regarding submission of an article to GardenRail (or indeed to any magazine). If you already know this stuff then do feel free to browse other areas of the site.
Now traditionally, articles were submitted hard copy and typed double-spaced to enable editing and scanning. The ever-increasing speed of technology advance has rendered this method largely redundant (after all the hard copy has to go ‘back’ into computer form for processing and printing). Articles nowadays can more simply be forwarded via email or on disc and whichever method is used it is important to keep everything together with contact details on all media. Emails may be kept together if annotated, for instance, ‘1 of 7’ and so on.
Most people, whether using a PC or a Mac, will be using Word in Microsoft Office or perhaps one of the free Microsoft compatible Open Office programs and this, most certainly, is fine. Watch out for ‘Word for Windows’ however, because this program is carefully designed not to be compatible with anything, presumably so that nice Mr Gates can sell you the full Office program if you intend to do more than write and print the odd letter to the gas company.
Here be Dragons
If you only have the above ‘Word for Windows’ then – don’t panic – but write your article and save as ‘plain text’ or cut and paste to the body of an email. No doubt there will be photographs to go with your article – and if you are using a chemical process camera then numbered prints sent by snail mail with your disk and with the captions written below the main body of your article will be fine.
When it comes to digital photography then perhaps the words ‘here be dragons’ will be a warning to the unwary. The most important thing to note here is that photographs are published at 300dpi and so will need to be fairly hefty in terms of byte size. A 400kilobyte file will look just fine on your computer screen at the standard display 72dpi, but will be very small at publishable size.
Now there is no need for us to worry our pretty little heads about resolution or ‘dots per inch’ Just set your camera to ‘best quality’ or ‘fine’ and on all but the oldest cameras this will provide a publishable photograph as long as you send the original file as it comes out of the camera. For guidance a jpeg file size of around one
megabyte will be fine for most articles. For a main feature photographic article then you will need a camera of at least six megapixel size set at ‘best quality’ because we need a photograph to fill an A4 cover. If you are considering this sort of article it is a good idea also to use a tripod. There is no need to get expensive here – the tripod I use is a little one with bendy legs that I have seen given away free on the cover of photographic magazines – or around a fiver from a photographic shop. The advantage of these little tripods is that they enable trackside view from, more or less, a scale eyelevel, which looks far more impressive than taking shots from way above the railway.
No need to send hundreds of photographs either – you pick the ones you want to illustrate your article with; then list the captions below the body of the main article text. Please do not embed them in the Word document. Send as separate files but on the same disk or in the same run of emails.
A Black Art?
For many people (including some of the most skilled and effective modellers amongst us) the writing of an article is often perceived as something of a black art. Indeed this is not the case and, in terms of writing, is merely a matter of getting all the information you wish to provide in order. Many people start off with a list of what they want to say. After all, if you were explaining what to do to a couple of 
friends at a garden meeting then you would have little problem would you? I often feel people worry too much about this aspect of providing an article. This is not an English language exam – words can be changed and remember that an editor gets paid, well to edit – and if the photographs & captions are right then we can soon sort out a bit of text that needs tidying.
Is it worth it? Well you know I have garnered an enormous amount of pleasure from writing. Certainly it is nice to see one’s work in print and indeed writing articles has most certainly swelled the coffers of my modelling fund. Give it a go – and not just for GardenRail – I have written many articles for ‘mainstream’ railway modelling magazines over the years and I do feel that this increases the garden railway modelling base – something that is good for all of us!