Oil & Gas Journal editors are pleased to receive manuscripts from new or experienced authors. Articles in specific petroleum-industry fields (upstream, downstream, economics, for example) should be submitted directly to the responsible section editor. Each is listed in the magazine (on p. 3 following the Table of Contents) and on www.ogj.com. But any manuscript may also be sent to Editor-in-Chief Christopher E. Smith ([email protected]). A submission checklist provides a list of desired items.
A submitted article should include the name, company, mailing address, telephone numbers, and e-mail addresses for each author. It should also indicate in a cover e-mail message or letter whether the article is being submitted exclusively to OGJ or has appeared in another forum (publication, conference, or seminar, for example).
SUBJECT MATTER
OGJ editors evaluate a submitted manuscript based on:
- Audience. The manuscript should primarily target engineers, engineering managers, scientists, planners, or analysts who are employed in operating oil and gas companies and assumed to be broadly familiar with the petroleum industry.
- Motive. The manuscript should provide engineer, technical specialist readers with useful information or data, analyses, instructions, tools, calculations, comparisons, or solutions for running and maintaining oil and gas operations or for designing processes, plants, and projects.
- Content and context. Manuscripts presenting products or services (including computer programs, simulations, etc.) must include the contexts of actual operations with technical specifics and detailed results.
Please note the following are NOT considered technical articles:
- Simple descriptions of products and services, new or existing, and their benefits.
- Sales presentations.
- Features based on interviews or testimonials.
There is a place in OGJ for the following: short technical releases; report or study abstracts; and standalone photographs or drawings (with captions). To be publishable, however, these short technical releases, report-study abstracts, and standalone photographs-drawings must have elements of Points 1 or 2 (above) or have some other noteworthy quality.
LENGTH AND FORMAT
Reviewing the industry-specific sections in previous issues of OGJ provides the best guide for lengths and formats of OGJ articles. Following are the main requirements in this area:
- OGJ does not employ the traditional technical-paper format.
- The beginning sentence or sentences (“lead”) must give the essence (not detail) of the information to be presented and briefly explain why it is important to the intended reader or technology.
- In general, such a lead is often found in the conclusions of many traditional technical papers.
- For length, OGJ is flexible; short articles are acceptable. An ideal length is 2,000-3,000 words plus 6-8 illustrations (see below). A series of articles is also an option.
ILLUSTRATIONS
- Figures (graphs, maps, charts, drawings, photographs) and tables must be numbered and mentioned by this number in the text.
- Each should be presented on a separate page or in separate electronic files.
- PLEASE DO NOT EMBED figure, table, reference numbers, or hyperlinks in the text of the article.
- Tables and figures should have titles or headlines.
- For charts, the title wording should reflect the reason for presenting the figure and not simply repeat the axes (time vs. temperature, for example).
- Diagrams and illustrations need only be legible and accurate. OGJ artists will redraw most.
- A very complicated figure or chart with intricate scaling, however,
- Also, please remember that large, detailed illustrations must remain legible when reduced to 7 or 4- 1/4 in. in width. should be “camera-ready”: reproduced with crisp lines on white background to be used as a photograph, if necessary.
- Color photos in electronic format (see below) are preferable.
- Minimum-width requirements for prints is 3-1/2 in with a scanned resolution of at least 250-300 dpi (color mode).
- Each picture or slide should be given a figure number and include a caption that explains it.
EQUATIONS
All lengthy equations should be numbered and presented in a separate equations box along with definitions of necessary nomenclature.
ELECTRONIC SUBMISSIONS
If possible, an article and its graphics should be submitted as attachments to one or more e-mail messages (see below for more items). The latest version of MSWord is OGJ’s preference.
If digital photographs are submitted, please provide them in .tif, .eps, .jpg, or .bmp formats with a scanned resolution of at least 250-300 dpi (color mode). PowerPoint files may also be submitted.
EDITING
Inexperienced writers or those for whom English is a second language are encouraged to submit manuscripts.
OGJ editors edit only what is necessary to meet our standards for style and tone.
Depending on the paper, these edits may be extensive. But the author will have an opportunity to review the completed article before publication to ensure that no factual or technical errors have been inadvertently introduced.
If major changes, deletions, or reorganization outside of what is described above seem necessary, but the paper is nonetheless of potential interest to Oil & Gas Journal, the author will be contacted before the paper is accepted for publication so that these can be discussed.
Although we have requirements, we are flexible. So, if there is any question about your manuscript meeting any of them, please send it anyway.
In the final analysis, it is content, not format, that is most important.