Contribute to Thomas Insights

Thomas Insights - Market Expert Style Guide

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When developing your Thomas Insights content, please keep the following style guidelines in mind. 

Subject Matter 

• Content should be engaging, educational, and informative — not promotional. Articles should be written in a newsy, professional tone and aimed at an audience of professionals with 5/10/25+ years of experience in the industry. 
• Article topics should provide a new angle on a subject rather than providing an overview or background information, such as "applications of XYZ" or "benefits of XYZ." As our audience comprises industry professionals across a range of fields, they likely are already familiar with the basics and are instead reading Thomas Insights to find elevated perspectives or new information on a topic.  
• Articles should reflect relevant, current topics of interest to the Thomas Insights audience of engineers, procurement professionals, plant/facilities managers, business owners, and sales & marketing professionals.
• Articles should align with one of Thomas Insights’ main subject areas:

1. Supply Chain
2. Engineering & Design
3. Manufacturing & Innovation 
4. Industry Trends
5. Career & Workforce
6. Industrial Sales & Marketing

Unique Content 

• All written content must be unique. Our Editorial team checks all submissions to avoid plagiarized or duplicate content.

Backlinks

• Backlinks to the contributing Expert's company or other companies incorporated throughout the body of the article draft will not be included in final publication. Our focus is to provide educational, informative content for our readers - not to promote products or services. Company links will be included on the contributor's Expert Page.
• Backlinks to reputable sources, such as media outlets, trade journals, educational resources, or recognized research publications, will be reviewed by our editorial team and included at their discretion. Backlinks to sources such as Wikipedia, unknown sources, or promotional content will be removed prior to publication. 

Word Count 

• Articles should have a minimum of 350 words and a general maximum of 800 words. (There is some flexibility for maximum word count for certain content types and subjects.)

Font

• All submissions should use Times New Roman 11pt font.

Paragraph Styles 

• Most paragraphs in our content have a maximum length of 3-4 lines. This is to create visual appeal and more white space, which translates to more time spent on a web page online. 
• All content should have subheadings. This improves readability and highlights relevant keywords for SEO purposes.

General Guidelines 

• For general style, Thomas follows AP Style. That said, we do follow a few specific rules:
  • Use “%” rather than writing out “percent”
  • In lists, shorten measurement units (inches, feet, etc.) to their abbreviations (“in.,” “ft.,” etc.)
  • Use degrees symbol (°) rather than writing out “degrees,” and use “F” or “C” rather than writing out “Fahrenheit” or ‘Celsius” or “Temperatures up to 20 °C”
  • Do not capitalize millennial or baby boomer
  • Use serial commas
  • Write out fractions when client prefers or whenever fractions make more sense with the type of content; keep consistent throughout the piece
  • Use “eBook” rather than “e-book”

Our Editorial Team will review all submissions, but publication is not guaranteed.