Editorial Guidelines

1. Editorial Guidelines 

1.1 Submission Requirements 

• The submission of all articles and article ideas must be approved by the Managing Editor. 
• All submissions must be original material that has not been previously published. 
• It is incumbent that GFSR provide our readers with relevant and up-to-date information. Please do not submit content that is outdated.  
• Authors must provide proof of ownership or usage approvals for all images and graphics in adherence to applicable copyright laws. 
• Submissions must be relevant and timely contributions to the subject of food safety that are written for a business-to-business audience.  
• Submissions should cover the scope of the global food safety industry. Local issues may be addressed if they are attracting attention from a global audience. 
• Article submissions must include source citations and links where applicable. Also, at least one quotation must be included. 
• Submissions must be sent to Global Food Safety Resource (GFSR) in English. 
• Submissions should be between 800-1000 words. 
• Submissions must be non-promotional in nature. Articles submitted to GFSR for publishing should not directly promote or solicit any product or service.  
• All submissions must include a biography or “About the Author” section for each article. This biography must be no longer than 100 words. 
• Authors must adhere to all scheduled submission deadlines. GFSR reserves the right to publish any articles that are submitted after an agreed-upon deadline at a later date.  
• GFSR reserves the right to copyedit all submissions, including the addition of keywords for search engine optimization purposes. 
• All articles should be typed fully, and submitted to the Managing Editor via email in a Microsoft Word (.docx) file and/or PDF (.pdf) file format. 

1.2 Copyright 

• All submissions must be original material that has not been previously published. Authors must provide proof of ownership or usage approvals for all images and graphics in adherence to applicable copyright laws. 
• By submitting an article to GFSR, authors agree to have their articles translated by our proprietary software into as many as sixty languages. GFSR assumes no responsibility for any inaccurate translations that may result from the use of this software. 
• All submissions will include author accreditation within the byline. Credits can include the author’s name, title, company name, and website address.  
• Global Food Safety Resource Inc. retains the World Wide Web copyright for all published articles. The reprinting of articles or blog posts is expressly prohibited unless permission is obtained from GFSR. 
• GFSR reserves the right to determine the suitability and final placement of any and all submissions.  
• While graphics and/or images are welcomed along with article submissions, GFSR reserves the right to select the most appropriate images to accompany a published article, including ones that may not have been submitted by the author.  
• GFSR reserves the right not to publish any unsolicited or unapproved articles or images. No article is guaranteed to be published. 

1.3 Best Practices 

• Authors are responsible for the integrity of their articles. Upon the request of the Managing Editor, you must investigate and solve any questions or concerns about research accuracy.   
• If the subject you are writing about has been covered in the food safety realm, ensure that your article is a timely, unique contribution to the ongoing discourse.  
• Always keep a business-to-business audience in mind and ask how industry experts and companies can benefit from your coverage of a subject.  
• Direct quotations from external sources are always recommended to bolster the credibility of your statements but should be limited to 3-4 direct quotes per 800-word piece, ideally by two or more people.  
• Quotes should be sourced from reputable sources pertinent to the subject being explored, and should be sourced through the author’s own research, not taken from a previous article.   
• If a topic is new to our readers or the public at large, the writer may spend several paragraphs explaining the topic before diving into the food safety ramifications  
• Do not plagiarize. Information found from other sources can be used as a point of reference, but these should be kept to a minimum. All articles are subject to fact-checking by GFSR to ensure the material is original and the information is accurate.  
• Keep track of any sources utilized during the writing process and forward them to the Managing Editor alongside your article. 
• Use primary sources wherever possible (ie. Original FDA guidelines, as opposed to a press release about the guidelines). 
• Wikipedia is not an acceptable secondary source. Acceptable secondary sources include official websites run by credible organizations (corporations, non-profits, governmental bodies, research institutions) and authoritative news sources (ie. the New York Times). 

1.4 Tone and Voice

• Remember to keep the issue of food safety at the forefront of your content while covering the broader article subject from a unique and resonant perspective. 
• Any claims or opinions stated should be based in fact and drawn from the author’s own expertise and/or experience.  
• Use active voice wherever possible. 

2. Style Guidelines 

2.1 Formatting 

• Standard fonts, including Times New Roman, Arial, Helvetica, and Calibri are recommended to avoid loss of data or text realignment that may result from unique fonts that need to be replaced. 
• Submissions should be in size 11- or 12-point font and have double line spacing.  
• There is no specific style required by GFSR for references within a submission, but your chosen reference style should be consistent throughout the article.  
• Footnotes or endnotes are not encouraged; Submit any applicable sources in a secondary document or a separate page of the article document. 

2.2 Content 

• A suggested title or headline should be provided with your submission, but is subject to change based on the input of the Managing Editor and GFSR team. 
• In general, terms should not be abbreviated unless they are used repeatedly and the abbreviation is helpful to the reader or aids in the brevity of the article. Non-standard abbreviations for governments, groups and/or organizations should be spelled out fully on their first mention, with their abbreviation in parentheses. The abbreviated form should be used consistently thereafter. 
• Numbers under 10 should be spelled out, except for measurements (ex. “8 millimetres”).  
• No article will be rejected for poor grammar or misspellings. However, grammar-checking software can be utilized before submissions to aid in the editing process and assist the author with legibility.  

After publishing, authors are highly encouraged to share their content on their personal social media channels using #GFSR. If you are interested in submitting an editorial article to GFSR, please contact our editor at editor@gfsr.ca