How to publish an article about safety or industrial hygiene

Picture this: You're an accomplished safety/industrial hygiene professional, and you've just completed a project that you think would make a great case study - and you have permission from the client to share the results of the project.

Or this: You're an undergraduate or graduate student in a safety/industrial hygiene program, and you're working on some compelling research that you'd like to share.

Or this: You're a semi-retired (because we all love to stay busy) safety/industrial hygiene professional, and you want to share the best practices you've learned with the new generation.

If this sounds like you, why not consider writing an article to share your expertise?

Now, if you're thinking, "Oh, no. I could never. I'm a terrible writer." Please allow me to disagree - you've likely written a boatload of technical reports, maybe even edited reports as a senior reviewer. You'd be writing for your peers - we want the information and knowledge, and if your writing is a little "rough around the edges," we'll be pretty forgiving. 

So, what are your options for publishing an article about safety or industrial hygiene?

If you're an academic and planning to stay in academia, you'll want to publish in peer-reviewed journals with strong impact factors. Some options:

• Safety Science
• Journal of Safety Research
• Accident Analysis and Prevention
• Journal of Chemical Health and Safety
• Journal of Safety, Health, and Environmental Research
• Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
• Annals of Occupational Hygiene
• International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health

But if you're not an academic, chances are that you'll rarely see the research articles that are included in the above-listed journals. If you're a practicing safety or industrial hygiene professional, your exposure to new research and new regulatory information probably comes from industry or trade publications, such as:

• Professional Safety (Journal of the American Society of Safety Engineers)
• The Synergist (Magazine of the American Industrial Hygiene Association)
• ISHN: Industrial Hygiene and Safety News
• Safety + Health Magazine (Magazine of the National Safety Council)

If you've read some of the articles in the trade publications listed above, you know they are usually more focused on answering questions that the practicing safety and industrial hygiene professional needs to know. These are questions like: What kind of insurance would I need to start my own consulting firm? What are some practical solutions for preventing musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) in construction? How do I enhance collaboration with other safety professionals I work with in a geographical region?

Industry groups such as the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) also have practice specialty groups that publish monthly or quarterly publications for members of their practice specialty. Some examples of practice specialties are: Academics, Consultants, Healthcare, Industrial Hygiene, Military, Risk Management, and many others. 

Since I am the volunteer Publications Coordinator for the ASSE Industrial Hygiene Practice Specialty (IHPS), I've learned the challenges associated with finding quality articles to support our monthly members-only publication, The Monitor. I have personally emailed dozens of people, including academics, consultants, trainers, fellow safety bloggers, you name it, asking them if they have an interest in writing an article about industrial hygiene for The Monitor. 

My normal spiel is shown below.

"Hello Mr/s. ___________,

I serve as the volunteer Content Coordinator for the American Society of Safety Engineers – Industrial Hygiene Practice Specialty (IHPS). I’m tasked with soliciting research/technical articles, opinion pieces, case studies, and other interesting content for our new IHPS web portal. This web portal is called “The Monitor,” which was the previous IHPS triannual electronic publication. We’ve moved to a web portal to allow more timely articles to be presented to ASSE members.

If you or one of your colleagues have an interest in publishing an article/case study to share your expertise with practicing industrial hygienists and safety professionals, please let me know. Articles of >1,500 words can qualify for recertification points from BCSP. There is a non-exclusive copyright agreement that must be submitted with each article – I would be happy to send it for review if you're interested.

Thank you for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

The Industrious Hygienist"

It's "meh" effective at getting responses from people. Most of the people who respond tell me that they would love to publish an article, but they're too busy right now. I usually pester them a few times to gauge if they are still interested or just being polite. 

So, to all those of you who think this sounds fun, or you're interested in publishing an article, case study, book review, or research about industrial hygiene or safety for working professionals, here's a simple way to do it. 

1) You do not have to be a member of ASSE or IHPS to publish in The Monitor.*

2) You will receive a PDF copy of your article for your files.

3) Information about IHPS is located here (get to know your audience).

4) Publication guidelines for ASSE practice specialty portals are here.

5) Submit your article using the online submission form. 

6) If your article fits the IHPS standards, we'll email you the non-exclusive copyright agreement, which we need to have signed before we can publish your article.

* You do not have to be a member of ASSE or IHPS, but it is encouraged! We're a fun group to work with if you're also interested in volunteering. Here's a sample of The Monitor as provided by ASSE. 

Challenging Epic Fantasy Novels - The Sanctuary Duet by Carol Berg

I'm an unapologetic fan/writer of fantasy and science fiction novels - even before it was cool to be nerdy. My all-time favorite author is Carol Berg. Since I'm not keen on social media, I decided to write reviews of her two most recent novels on Amazon. I figured I would post the more thorough reviews here on my blog.

So, here goes. Happy New Year, Carol!

Dust and Light by Carol Berg

As a dedicated follower of Carol Berg’s work, I’ve read and own every single one of her novels. After finishing one of her novels, I often find myself needing time to reflect on the scope of the story before singing its praises. I’ve waited to review the Sanctuary Duet until Ash and Silver was released. This review is for Dust and Light, the first novel in the Sanctuary Duet.

I devoured this book, since I was so excited to return to the world of the Lighthouse Duet.

You don’t necessarily need to read the Lighthouse Duet (Flesh and Spirit/Breath and Bone) before reading Dust and Light, but it will help you to understand the complexities of the world and its magic. Just like Flesh and Spirit/Breath and Bone, which starts with the “Canticle of the Autumn,” the first pages of Dust and Light starts with the “Canticle of the Winter.” In this poem, we are given the lovely words: “My heart yearns for warmth, for companionship, for glory. Yet waking is storm. ‘Tis harsh magic to dance on ice.” You can really learn everything you need to know about this story from those few lines.

The novel is broken into four parts. In Part One, we meet our main character, Lucian de Remeni-Masson, a Pureblood artist who has just lost his cushy desk job painting portraits for the Pureblood Registry. (If your brain immediately went to the purebloods of Vampire Knight, no worries, mine did too.) He is quickly pushed into a job working for the city’s coroner, doing identification portraits for the dead. One of the first portraits he does for Bastien the coroner is of a murdered preteen – but the image his magical “bent” reveals is markedly different from the murdered girl. Thus begins the unraveling of a mystery and the gradual unmaking of Lucian de Remeni-Masson.

Things you’ll encounter in this book:

• Pureblood customs (like wearing a mask while in public)
• The Danae, whose speech patterns are one of my favorite elements of this world 
• An oubliette, which always makes me think of the movie Mio in the Land of Faraway 
• A necropolis, where Lucian and Bastien work to identify lost souls 
• A coroner's inquest 
• Excruciating descriptions of Lucian’s efforts to maintain sanity while confined for 158 days by the Pureblood Registry
• Lovely prose describing Lucien's magic and art
• Hints of lost love between a Pureblood and a human (at university, of course) 
• Forbidden magic 
• A mystery of magical talent, royal succession, the Everlasting, a hidden land called Sanctuary, a lost city named Xanchiera, a murder inquest, and treachery within the walls of the Pureblood Registry 

SPOILER: At the end of the novel, Lucian is at a crossroads - accused of murder, his sister safe in Sanctuary, his options severely limited. He encounters two horsemen who offer to take him to “a house of cleansing, where a man can erase what’s past and building his life anew.” In the last 3 pages, Lucian willingly gives up all memories of his past and joins the Equites Cineré. He and his two companions ride off to Fortress Evanide. This leads us straight to the next novel in the series, Ash and Silver.

I've posted a drawing of a Danae on this blog before, so here it is for reference.

Ash and Silver by Carol Berg

I loan copies of Carol Berg's books out frequently, but rarely get them back. After finishing Ash and Silver, I was conflicted and not sure how I felt about the story. I felt the same way after reading her Collegia Magica series, so I knew it was a good sign, since I grew to love that series after I had some time to think about it. Dante from Collegia Magica and Seyonne from the Rai-Kirah series rank among my favorite characters.  

I read the Kindle version in one night (the day after it was released), and re-read the paperback version over several days before the winter holidays, then re-read both Dust and Light/Ash and Silver in one marathon weekend. This review is for Ash and Silver, the second/final novel in the Sanctuary Duet.

You (obviously) need to read Ash and Silver after Dust and Light, else the transformation of the main character will be meaningless.

Just like Flesh and Spirit/Breath and Bone, which starts with the “Canticle of the Autumn,” and Dust and Light, which starts with the “Canticle of the Winter,” the first pages of Ash and Silver starts with the “Canticle of the Spring.” In this poem, we are given the hopeful words: “Dance, my brother. Spin, my sister. For root and sap, for wave and worm. Call glory to banish grief too long lingered.” You can learn everything you need to know about this story from those few lines.

Somewhere I've missed the "Canticle of the Summer" - if I find it, I'll update the post.

This novel is also broken into four parts. In Part One, we meet our main character, Greenshank, a member of the Equites Cineré, or Knights of the Ashes. He has been given fragments of his life back over the course of several years, as he trained with his brothers-in-arms at Fortress Evanide. From the fragments, we know he was once Lucian de Remeni-Masson. During one of his first solo outings in service to the Knights, he encounters a beautiful woman who claims to know him, calls him Lucian, and says she is his friend and needs his help. The experience of being near her rouses sensation and disconnected feeling, but no memory.

Carol Berg gifts us with wonderful language, as usual, with lines like: “Deception grew like a fungus.” It's a marvelous image. Lucian’s narration tells us that “[t]he emblem of the Equites Cineré ought to be a phoenix, as we were each of us built anew from the ashes of the past.” Another favorite line: “The world shook itself like a wet pup and trotted off in a new direction.”

Greenshank/Lucian eventually tells his Knight Commander of the encounter, which catalyzes the action of the story, and we are drawn further into the lost city of Xanchiera, the origin of the Knights of the Ashes, the history of the Pureblood Registry, and the connection between the Danae and the hidden lands of Sanctuary.

Things you’ll encounter in the book:

• Training montages (a must in modern fantasy!)
• Tense meetings with the Danae
• The concept of intaglio in art
• Hints of 200-year old memory magic, with individual memories contained in a stone relict (this made me think of Aeon Flux)
• A boat named Dorye, which is used frequently as Greenshank encounters more of his past (think Dory from Finding Nemo and you’ll be amused)
• Cameos from some of my favorite characters from the Lighthouse Duet
• The idea of magical threading – “affixing a sliver of metal or chip of a gemstone to the body with threads of magic to hold a particular spell”
• The idea that silver is a strong medium for spellwork
• The survivors of Xanchiera and their connections to both the Pureblood Registry and the Knights of the Ashes
• And, my personal favorite, a main character named Morgan!

SPOILER: Nearing the end of the novel, our main character is no longer Lucian de Remeni-Masson, not Greenshank, nor Axe – he names himself the One-Who-Waits, or Aros to his fellow Knights and few remaining friends. We are left with a magic-wielding hero with a minor savior complex, bearing a scarred face, who was a slave for a time, with a tantalizingly complicated past – which sounds just like both of my favorite characters mentioned above. 

I'll be patiently awaiting Carol Berg's next work, hopefully in a new world with new amazing characters. For now, I'll content myself with re-reading Song of the Beast, the Rai-Kirah Series, the Bridge of D'Arnath Series, the Collegia Magica Series, the Lighthouse Duet, and the Sanctuary Duet. 

Check out Carol Berg's "Big Idea" for this book from John Scalzi's Whatever blog - December 9, 2015. Thanks, Mr. Scalzi, for allowing Carol Berg to guest post her "Big Idea."

To an Educational and Exciting 2016 - Happy New Year!

Since each new year is supposed to bring a time of reflection and hope, I'm taking a look back at 2015 and making plans for 2016.

In 2015 I learned many interesting new things:

• I learned how to make and post a laboratory safety video featuring my Sock Puppet Safety team on YouTube, which won 3rd place at AIHce 2015's IH Fundance video competition.
• I learned what an exposome is.
• I facilitated a key issue roundtable on chemical disinfectants in healthcare facilities at Safety 2015 by the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) in Dallas, TX.
• In preparation for the key issue roundtable at Safety 2015, I co-authored a research article for the ASSE Industrial Hygiene Practice Specialty's web-based publication, The Monitor. 
• I learned a variety of new things at Safety 2015 in Dallas, and brought Piper Pangolin from Sock Puppet Safety to chronicle the adventure. 
• I researched occupational and environmental internships for graduate students.
• I learned about preventing Code Pink incidents in healthcare facilities.
• I figured out approximately how many hours of continuing education I complete every year, to maintain my various certifications.
• I found more spiffy spoggles to add to my collection of PPE. 

To commemorate the past year and embark on a new adventure, please enjoy this view of Camelback Mountain in Phoenix with the Industrious Hygienist and her fearless Alaskan Malamute, Shadow.

Happy New Year (2016) from The Industrious Hygienist!

In 2016 I am hoping to learn more about the following things:

• I'm studying for the Certified Safety Professional (CSP) exam and hope to take the exam in the first quarter of 2016.
• I'm co-authoring a technical paper and presentation on gender equity in occupational safety and health programs, to be presented at #Safety2016 in Atlanta, GA with Dr. Ilise Feitshans.
• I'm planning to apply to a doctoral program in safety, industrial hygiene, global health, or environmental health and will chronicle the experience.
• I'm researching where safety is "housed" within healthcare facilities across the U.S., to evaluate best practices and to assess how many safety professionals are needed based on the size and complexity of the facility.
• I'm working on more Sock Puppet Safety videos about chemical hygiene plans, incidental spill response, and will bring Piper Pangolin to #Safety2016.

I hope you continue to enjoy this blog, the art, and the nerdy safety videos.