[Gizmo]

Starting this month, we are pleased to announce that AOA will begin offering $25/article for each article submitted AND PUBLISHED by AOA. We are still working out all of the wrinkles and guidelines, but the upshot of it is that we are willing to pay you for a little bit of your time, in return for the exclusive right to publish your review or article. Payment for articles will be made within 30 days of publication by AOA, and may be done by PayPal transfer, Personal Check/Money Order, subscription or trade-for-value for such AOA services as may be made available, as desired by the author of the article.

So, what are we looking for? Simple:

• Articles:
  • Guides on doing hardware mods.
  • Guides on fine-tuning for performance.
  • Guides on building machines.
  Now, when I say guide, I'm not talking about a collection of tips and tweaks thrown together in a hodge-podge and called an article. I'm talking about step-by-step, hold-the-reader's-hand, explain-exactly-what-is-going-on, guides, with lots of pictures. Ideally, a submission should work out to be at least 3 pages long when formatted, with an ideal length of about 5 pages. As we recognize that longer articles take more effort to create, we are willing to negotiate a higher rate for larger articles, but this must be done PRIOR to article publication. Any images included in the article will have thumbnails automatically generated when formatted for publication, so you should bear this in mind. It is not necessary for you to include thumbnail images as part of your article.
  As a rough idea of what we are looking for, take a look at my article on replacing the caps in the 8RDA+, or Áedán's guide to NVRaid on Windows XP.
  
• Reviews: Sofware or Hardware - we are obviously a hardware enthusiast oriented site, but without software, the hardware is just a bunch of parts. To that end, we are interested in reviews of just about anything that allows us to get the maximum enjoyment and use from our machines.
  • Software: Operating Systems, Games, utilities.
  • Hardware: Pretty much anything tech related. Note that this does not necessarily have to be directly related to our computers. For example, a particularly nice desk chair that makes sitting in front of our computers more comfortable might be a candidate for a review. For an example of what we are looking for in a review, see Danrok's review of the APC SmartUps 1000, or Cadaveca's review of the Asus A7V880.
    Note that when it comes to reviews of motherboards, memory, CPUs, and video cards, people are going to want to see benchmarks. At a minimum, you should do two benchmark sets (one at stock settings, one overclocked, if applicable). You should do a MINIMUM of THREE benchmark runs in each set (FIVE would be better), and you should publish ALL of the benchmark results, not an average of the runs, or a weighted average. Benchmarks to be run should include the standard set of stuff - Sandra, PCMark, SuperPI, 3DMark, etc., as applicable.

Note that we may (and probably WILL) change these guidelines as we refine things; this is our starting point, not our destination.

Note also that just because you submit an article for publication does NOT mean that it will be accepted.

Reasons an article may be rejected:

• While we will do a minimal amount of editing, if it requires too much work, it will be refused. This means that you should run a spell checker and grammar checker on it. If it uses too much slang, or short-cut spelling (like U R for 'You are'), odds are it won't be accepted. This is an article for publication, not a post to your buddies.
• An article that is just a regurgitation of something that has already been published in the forums will not be accepted. In other words, if you posted a review in the forums, don't plan on just going into the forum, copying the text and links from a post, and submitting it as an article. If you have something that you have previously posted in the forums, and you are willing to rework it with additional information (more benchmarks, etc.) then we will be more likely to consider it for publication.
• If something stinks, say so. Don't be afraid to step on toes; we want honest reviews, not soft-soaping to keep manufacturers happy. However, if you are going to criticize, be specific and objective. Saying 'I don't like this' is not sufficient; be prepared to offer reasoned explanations as to why you don't like something, and be prepared to defend your opinion in a rational fashion. If you can't, we won't publish.
• Our financial resources are limited. We may simply not be able to AFFORD to purchase your article at the time you submit it. So don't take it personally if we refuse to publish your article.
• Articles must be submitted in Word2000 Doc, Open Office ODF, or standard HTML formats (the HTML format may include extra files such as pictures that are linked to from the main html document, just be sure to zip them all together in the proper directory structure). Anything else will be refused.

An article MAY be submitted to any member of AOA Staff, however the preferred method is to send it to one of the following:

• Gizmo
• Danrok
• Pitch

Submission to anyone else may result in the article being lost or delayed in publication.

Ok, now that's out of the way.

I realize that not everyone has the ability to write an article, even though they may have a piece of hardware they want to review. That's ok; ask in the forums and someone probably will be willing to provide you with some pointers.

Also, please DO use the forums as a resource for your articles. There is a lot of good information buried in various threads, just waiting for someone to come along, dig it out, and organize it into an entertaining and useful format. While, as I said, we won't pay you to just go gather stuff up and regurgitate it, that doesn't mean that you can't take information from a thread (or several), massage it a bit, and turn it into an article. Good etiquette, however, requires that if you intend to take a thread and turn it into an article, you announce your intentions so that there are no hard feelings if someone else has the same idea.