About TME
TME—The Military Engineer, since 1909 under its original masthead Professional Memoirs, and since January 1920 in its current form as the official journal of SAME, has been the leading voice championing the contributions, achievements, legacy and impact of military engineers, America’s industrial base, and all those aligned with ensuring the national security of the United States.
Published bi-monthly, each issue of TME includes technical articles authored by subject matter experts throughout military, government, industry, and academia; stories and features from across SAME; and news related to engineering, energy, resilience, technology and other subjects aligned with national security.
How to Get Published
SAME invites professionals from military, government, industry, and academia to submit articles for possible publication in The Military Engineer magazine throughout the year.
Becoming a TME Author is a Two-Step Process
- Submit a 100- to 200-word article proposal summarizing the proposed topic and direction of the article. TME editors will review the proposal and provide feedback to help you shape the article so that it best serves TME readers.
- Upon approval of the proposal, you will be asked to write and submit a 1200- to 1400-word article based on TME writer guidelines, as well as supply high-resolution images.
About the Submission & Review Procedure
- Approval of an article proposal and an invitation to submit a complete article does not guarantee publication;
- Article submissions that do not follow the Writers’ Guidelines below will be returned as incomplete and you will be asked to resubmit;
- Articles are chosen for publication based on multiple factors including technical accuracy; usefulness to readers; timeliness; and quality of writing.
- Articles rejected often are outdated, overly broad, inappropriate in tone, written for the wrong audience, too promotional or “infomercial” in nature, or inadequately supported/researched.
- TME editors reserve the right to edit all submissions for length and content;
- TME does not compensate authors or photographers;
- All articles that appear in the print version of The Military Engineer also will appear in the digital edition of the magazine. At the sole discretion of the editors, select articles may appear as exclusive features on TME Online in mobile-friendly format.
- Toulmin Medal consideration (most outstanding article in TME): All listed authors must be SAME members for an article to be eligible for this annual award.
- Following publication, authors of certain articles published in TME may be invited by editorial staff to present the topic in webinar format, under the “TME Presents” format; additional information will be shared with authors at a later date during the process.
Copyright Information for Authors
Articles selected for publication in The Military Engineer (in print and online) are subject to editing at the discretion of the TME editorial staff.
SAME will hold the copyright to all published articles. As such, SAME can post published articles online and can authorize reprints and other uses. Reprints may be granted with permission from the editorial staff provided the individual/organization requesting permission includes copyright information, clearly visible.
The Military Engineer, Volume (input volume number), Issue (input issue number), months of issue, pages (input page numbers), Copyright (input year). Reprinted with permission of the Society of American Military Engineers (SAME).
Authors will retain copyright to the original, unedited material that was first submitted to TME, unless they indicate approval for SAME to hold all copyrights, free and clear.
Submitting an Article Proposal
The proposal (125 to 200 words max) should concisely state the proposed topic and planned focus for the article. To better target your article proposal, please refer to the TME Editorial Calendar that outlines the subject matter to be covered in upcoming issues of the magazine.
The proposal should establish the “who, what, when, where, why and how.”
At the end of the proposal, briefly describe the photos, graphics or illustrations that you plan to submit and believe will best enhance the article. Preferably, enough variety in images should be considered to allow for flexible in layout/design of the article.
Send the proposal by e-mail to editor@same.org. In the subject line, use “TME Article Proposal.”
Preparing the Article & Images
- All submissions must be original works; articles may never before been published and not under consideration by another publisher at the time of submission.
- Write in a clear, concise, expository style, generally third-person.
- Successful articles contain strong examples, anecdotes, up-to-date facts and figures, answers to “why” and “how” the information is important, case studies illustrating innovative production methods and processes, and sound approaches to solving problems.
- Write using AP Style; TME also uses AP Style for many abbreviations, to include military ranks.
- Although articles may feature a particular company, product or project, care should be taken to avoid an “infomercial” approach. (It is best to avoid repeated references to a company or product.)
- Articles should address the cost benefits to users and the impact of the method, technology or system in the years ahead (such as, how this might be employed in other ways and for other purposes in the future).
- Avoid jargon, spell out acronyms on first reference, limit overall use of acronyms and need for them, and explain technical concepts in layman’s terms, using examples to clarify.
Proper Formatting for Submissions
- At the top of the document, provide a 50-word summary statement.
- Do not exceed 1,400 words unless agreed upon with the TME editorial staff. Longer articles will be returned to the author for editing and will need to be resubmitted.
- Text should be single-spaced; double-spaced between paragraphs. (Do not use columns.) Save text as a Microsoft Word document or rich text format.
- At the end of the text, provide the full name, rank/title, mailing address, e-mail address, telephone number, academic or professional titles and designations, licenses and certifications, name of employer and location of office for each author to be listed in the byline.
High-Resolution Images
- A minimum of three, high-resolution photos must be submitted with the manuscript. They should be at minimum 3″x5” at 300 dpi (preferably larger) and in either .jpg or .tif formats. Larger images may be requested by the editorial staff.
- Do not embed photos in Word documents, PowerPoint presentations or PDFs. These will be returned and the author will be asked to resubmit in original .jpg or .tif form.
- If using a digital camera to take photographs to illustrate the article, be sure to use a 3.3 mega pixel or higher digital camera and photo file sizes at least 400K.
- Captions and photo credits (the name of the person who took the photo) must be included with each photograph. (If no individual’s name is provided, credit will be given to the lead author’s organization.)
- You may use tables, graphs and charts in place of images—provided they are supplied in .jpg format or .tif format. Please be sure these provide supplemental information so that if the editorial staff decides not to use them, the article will still be coherent. An issue with tables/charts is that they must be run at a certain size to be legible in many cases, which can complicate article design and length.
Submitting Completed Articles & Images
Submit your manuscript using our online form, which makes submitting articles and images both efficient and trackable.
Complete the form, check the box verifying you have read and agree to SAME’s copyright for authors information, and then hit submit at the bottom of the page.
Submission Checklist for The Military Engineer
Use this checklist to ensure a complete submission package and timely review of your manuscript/article submission for possible publication in an upcoming issue of The Military Engineer.
Incomplete or improperly formatted submissions will be returned.
- Summary of the Article—50 words or fewer—at the top of article.
- The article is between 1,200 and 1,400 words long, single-spaced with double spaces between paragraphs.
- For each author: Have you provided the individual’s full name, snail-mail address, e-mail address, telephone and fax numbers, academic and professional titles, licenses and certifications, job title and location of employment?
- At least three images at 300 dpi in .jpg or .tif format. These should not be embedded in a Word, PDF or PowerPoint documents.
- Captions and photo credits (the name of the person who took the photos) for images are placed at the end of the manuscript.
