Contact

Reaching the editorial team behind howtoprocedures.com with a question, correction, or contribution request is straightforward — but a message with the right details gets a faster, more useful response than a vague inquiry. This page explains the geographic and topical scope of what the site covers, what to include when writing in, what kind of response timeline is realistic, and what other contact channels exist for specific needs.

Service area covered

HowtoProcedures.com is a reference site with national scope focused on the United States. The content covers procedural writing, documentation standards, and how-to methodology as practiced across K–12 education, higher education, vocational training, and professional environments throughout all 50 states.

The site draws on named public standards — including guidelines published by the Plain Language Action and Information Network (PLAIN), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and frameworks documented by the U.S. Department of Education — making it most directly relevant to educators, instructional designers, technical writers, and curriculum developers operating within the US educational and regulatory environment.

Topics outside that scope — international procedural standards, jurisdiction-specific legal filings, or industry-specific compliance documentation for sectors like aviation or pharmaceuticals — fall outside the editorial lane. A message asking about FAA maintenance procedure formatting, for instance, would be better directed to the FAA's official technical publication resources.

What to include in your message

The difference between a message that gets a substantive reply in 2 business days and one that sits unanswered for a week is almost always specificity. Here is what makes a message actionable:

1. The specific page URL — If reporting an error or requesting a clarification, name the exact page. "The article on numbered steps vs. bulleted lists" is far more useful than "something I read on the site."
2. The nature of the inquiry — Distinguish between: factual correction, broken link, content gap suggestion, licensing or republication request, educational partnership inquiry, or general feedback.
3. Source or evidence — For factual corrections, include the named public source that contradicts what is published. A correction backed by a citation from a body like the Society for Technical Communication (STC) or a specific NIST publication moves to the front of the editorial queue.
4. Institutional affiliation (if relevant) — Educators, curriculum coordinators, or researchers writing from an institutional context can say so. It helps prioritize responses appropriately and shapes the level of detail in the reply.
5. A single clear ask — Messages that bundle 4 unrelated questions across 3 topics tend to produce slower replies than messages with 1 focused question.

What does not need to be included: lengthy preamble about how useful the site is (appreciated, but unnecessary), apologies for asking a basic question (there are no basic questions here), or a full explanation of a personal project before getting to the actual request.

Response expectations

Editorial inquiries, factual corrections, and content suggestions typically receive an acknowledgment within 2 business days and a substantive reply within 5 business days. During periods of heavy production — particularly August through October, when back-to-school content cycles intensify — replies may run closer to 7 business days.

Messages that do not include a specific page reference, a clear question, or any identifying context may not receive a reply. This is not indifference — it is a function of volume and the difficulty of responding usefully to a message like "can you help me with procedures?"

A few realistic calibrations:

• Factual corrections with citations are taken seriously and reviewed against the original source before any change is made. A correction is not accepted simply because someone disagrees; it requires a named public source.
• Content gap suggestions go into an editorial backlog. Suggesting a topic does not guarantee it will be published, but genuinely underserved topics — particularly those grounded in national standards for procedural writing — do move faster.
• Republication or licensing requests are handled case by case. Include the intended use, the platform, and the audience size in the initial message.

Additional contact options

For readers who have a question that is more about understanding a concept than reaching the editorial team, the site's FAQ page covers the most common questions about how-to procedures, their structure, and their application in educational settings.

The how to get help page addresses situations where someone needs more than reference content — including when to consult a professional technical writer, an instructional designer, or a credentialed curriculum developer.

For educators specifically, the how-to procedures in K–12 education and teaching students to follow procedures pages contain content grounded in publicly available pedagogical frameworks that may answer classroom-specific questions without requiring a direct inquiry.

There is no live chat, no phone line, and no social media account to tag. The editorial team is small, the content is research-intensive, and the tradeoff — slower response, better answer — is intentional.

References

• FAA's official technical publication resources
• National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
• Plain Language Action and Information Network (PLAIN)
• U.S. Department of Education
• Society for Technical Communication (STC)