Facilities Manager Magazine Editorial Guidelines

Facilities Manager is published online by APPA, the leading authority for the educational facilities professional.

Published six times a year, Facilities Manager covers key trends and practices in facilities leadership, campus renewal and modernization, sustainability, campus operations, custodial and grounds maintenance, energy and utilities management, and much more.

Our Audience

APPA is the association of choice for educational facilities professionals at colleges, universities, K-12 schools, and museums throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, and abroad. This includes top decision makers—vice presidents, chief engineers, facilities directors, supervisors, and managers. They read Facilities Manager because it addresses the latest trends, issues, and solutions in educational facilities management.

Facilities Manager Features

• Detailed articles written by facilities professionals for facilities professionals, giving readers practical and big-picture perspectives on issues and challenges shared across the community.
• Recurring columns that provide the personal experiences, advice, and research from the people behind the facilities operations.
• Industry news on current research findings and indicators; cutting-edge solutions, creative strategies, and products and services to inform and transform educational facilities management.

 Editorial Advice for Feature Articles

Facilities Manager is the leading resource for facilities professionals seeking to build their careers, transform their institutions, and elevate the value and recognition of the built environment in education. Readers are focused on enhancing, maintaining, and protecting the quality of their educational facilities.

We look for articles that are comprehensive and encompass our total international membership base. To establish relevance, strive to write beyond your perspective by providing specific institutional examples, diverse references, and quotes from qualified sources. We find that current, innovative, and/or best-practice examples and information resonate best with our readership.

NOTE: We do not accept articles that are solely promotional in nature to any specific product, company, or proprietary service. However, we do run product releases in our New Products column. Additionally, APPA Business Partner members are encouraged to submit product and service information for consideration in the APPA Business Partner Whitepaper Series.

Column Description Guide

We accept submissions for seven of our columns:

• The Bookshelf: Book reviews on current publications relevant to the profession, trends, and working environment of facilities and educational managers and professionals. If you would like to write a book review, please contact Ted Weidner, editor of the column, directly at tjweidne@purdue.edu.
• Code Talkers: Highlights the various codes, laws, and standards specific to educational facilities and explains the compliance issues and implications of enforcing these measures.
• Facility Asset Management: Covers the issues and challenges surrounding the management of a facilities department, including solutions for benchmarking performance measures, database and reporting systems, and professional and educational trends in facilities management.
• Knowledge Builders: Examines findings and implications from APPA’s Center for Facilities Research, the annual Facilities Performance Indicators survey, and other research projects. Encourages increased participation in reporting data for the benefit of the facilities management field, allowing professionals to utilize the information to better serve their campus initiatives.
• Membership Matters: Explores the community benefits of leadership in educational facilities for professionals seeking to build their careers, transform their institutions, and elevate the value and recognition of facilities in education.
• New Products: New product listings are provided by the manufacturers and suppliers and selected by the editors based on available space and relevance to our readership. If you have a new industry product to submit, please send a detailed press release and an image of the product to Gerry Van Treeck at gvtgvt@earthlink.net.
• Perspective: Provides opinion and commentary on aspects of education administration, funding, and campus facilities management.
• Power Tools: Seeks to engage multiple voices from among FM ranks to bring fresh insight and real knowledge from the trenches on what’s working in planning and implementation for energy-related projects and innovations.
• Press Submissions: If you have a news item for the Facilities Digest (News), please send a detailed press release to the editorial office for consideration. This information will be used based on available space and relevance to our readership. You may submit any facilities-related webinar or conference to our Events page at https://www.appa.org/event-submission/.
• Technology & Trends: Seeks to identify technology and trends evolving and emerging in educational facilities. If you would like to write an article for this column, you can reach John Cook, editor of this column. He can be reached at john.cook@nv5.com. 

Submission Requirements

E-mail all submissions, as a Microsoft Word attachment, to Managing Editor Anita Dosik at anita@appa.org.  We do not accept hard copy submissions. Name all files in this format:

• Features: FM [author last name] issue date (e.g., FMGlaznerMay/June24)
• Columns: FM [author last name] issue date (e.g., FMGlaznerMay/June24)

Abstract: Please include a 100-word abstract and five keywords for your article to be included in the Facilities Manager archives, and the APPA Reference Library.

Length: At the editor’s discretion, articles may be edited for clarity and to accommodate space. Our advice: Comprehensive yet concise articles result in light editing and the best material. The following are the length requirements for articles:

• Columns: 750 – 1,000 words
• Features: 1,700 – 2,000 words

Editorial Review: The editorial staff ultimately decides the content of the publication and reserves the right to edit your submission for length; extraneous content; and/or product, service, or company pitches. While the publisher and printer will make every effort to correct low-quality photos and images, they are not responsible for the results of photos and images printed from low-resolution or poor quality submissions.

Style: Submitted articles should be double-spaced, aligned left, using Times New Roman 12-point font. Do not embed graphics in the Word file; instead send separate electronic image files (see Graphics & Images below). We encourage you to include subheads, bullets, and sidebar text suggestions in your text submissions. Please do not use headers or footers. We prefer that you cite references in the body of the text; however, those with a long list of citations should provide a bibliography at the end of the article.

Facilities Manager uses the Chicago Manual of Style (17th ed.). Our preferred style is streamlined and straightforward, with minimal jargon, and with all acronyms spelled out on the first reference. Authors should write in active, rather than passive, voice.

Biography/Byline: In your article, include the author name(s) as you want it to appear in print and include any professional titles (e.g., P.E., AIA, CEFP, Ph.D.). Also include the author(s) title, institution/organization, and e-mail address.

Graphics & Images: Facilities Manager encourages the use of graphics and photographs to illustrate submissions. With photographs, we assume that the contributor owns the right to have the photograph reproduced. Email articles and images to anita@appa.org. Photos, graphics, and other images should be sent separately (not embedded into Word files). Please provide raw data for tables and charts, as opposed to graphics. Our designer will create an accurate and appealing table/chart using the data.

Photos and images should be sent as EPS, TIFF, JPEG, or PSD files. Please include short caption suggestions or explanations in the article file to accompany all photographs and images.

Copyrights: Facilities Manager assumes that submissions are original works and owned by the author. We do not accept articles that have been previously published or accepted for publication elsewhere, unless approved by the editorial staff. Authors will be sent a copyright agreement for APPA’s non-exclusive rights to the submitted material. The agreement allows APPA to use the material freely in all media, but it does not restrict the right of the author(s) to use the material elsewhere.

Deadlines: Facilities Manager is a bimonthly digital magazine. The editorial staff schedules articles at least six weeks before the editorial deadline. Contact the managing editor for details.