CLARIFYING YOUR AUTHOR GUIDELINES ISMTE Local Meeting, RTP Chapter

December 5, 2014

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WHY DO OUR MANUSCRIPT AND FIGURE FORMATTING SERVICES EXIST? • Any impediment to publication can frustrate

everyone involved, including authors and journal editors.

• Saving time and ensuring confidence in submission: – Authors want the process to be easy so they can get

back to doing research

– For non-native English speakers, sifting through long blocks of text can also pose a challenge, and some wording poses an issue (e.g., “50 characters or fewer”)

– Journal staff’s time is valuable

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GOALS OF AUTHOR GUIDELINES

• Create standardization and predictability for everyone who will see the paper once it’s submitted

• Audience is researchers, who want the whole submission process to be as easy as possible. They see author guidelines as a reference to consult.

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WHAT MAKES GUIDELINES EASY TO FOLLOW?

• Organization of information into tables, easily identifiable sections with headings

• Checklist of required elements

• Example citations and references

• All guidelines on one page (best) or a central page with links to all guidelines pages

• Guidelines internally consistent

• Guidelines up-to-date

• Be clear about what you want and what you don’t care about (avoid vague language)

• State what you need vs. referring to style manual or publisher’s guidelines

• Archives of Disease in Childhood provides Chinese translation

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EXAMPLE – ORGANIZATION IN TABLES

*The manuscript word limit excludes the abstract, references, figure legends, tables, and supplemental data. **500 words of text may be substituted for one ¼-page figure.

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EXAMPLE – ORGANIZATION IN TABLES

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EXAMPLES – “BEFORE”

• xxJournalxx uses standard xxPublisherxx referencing style. All authors should be included in reference lists unless there are six or more, in which case only the first author should be given, followed by 'et al.'. Authors should be listed last name first, followed by a comma and initials (followed by full stops) of given names. Article titles should be in Roman text, only the first word of the title should have an initial capital and the title should be written exactly as it appears in the work cited, ending with a full stop. Book titles should be given in italics and all words in the title should have initial capitals. Journal names are italicized and abbreviated (with full stops) according to common usage. Volume numbers and the subsequent comma appear in bold. The full page range should be given, where appropriate.

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EXAMPLE – “AFTER”

Article type Example

Journal article Smith, J.A. 2001. How to write journal guidelines. Res. Sci. Commun. 34, 17-24.

Book Smith, J.A. 2001. How to Write Journal Guidelines. Springer: New York.

Chapter in a book

Smith, J.A. 2001. How to write journal guidelines. In: Brown, M.A. (Ed.) Journal Guidelines: A Manual, 2nd ed. Springer: New York, pp. 34-53.

These are the most common article types, but providing examples of conference proceedings, websites, theses, etc. (if accepted) can reduce author time in interpreting how these should look and journal staff time in ensuring they match journal preferences.

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AUTHOR GUIDELINES Tips and Best Practices for Figures

GENERAL BEST PRACTICES

• Journal specialty – Medical journals will have different emphases than

Basic science journals, etc.

• Format of instructions – Break down figure categories and use lists or tables

rather than paragraph format

– Show examples

• Color – Clear guidelines, information on charges, consider

colorblindness

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JOURNAL SPECIALTY

FOCUS OF GUIDELINES DEPENDS ON CONTENT

• Medical journals tend to focus on images

– Resolution

• Typically, 300 dpi for plain images or 600 dpi for labeled images

– Minimum width

• Typically, 3 inches – 5 inches to ensure appropriate number of pixels for clear printing/display

– File types

• Tiff is most common and best (lossless); steer clear of Jpg; MS Office can be ok in many cases

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FOCUS OF GUIDELINES DEPENDS ON CONTENT

• Basic science journals may focus on graphs or combination figures and all types of journals will likely have flowcharts and diagrams – Resolution

• Typically, 1200 dpi for line art (graphs, plots, flowcharts, diagrams) or 600 dpi for combination figures (with images)

– File types • Tiff or native (Excel, Prism, etc.)

• Consider requiring vector formats (pdf, eps) for line art – Limitless resolution, editability is preserved

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FORMAT OF INSTRUCTIONS

FORMAT OF INSTRUCTIONS

• Tables and Lists are easier to digest and keep authors focused

• If consistency is a goal, get detailed

– Font

– Line weight

– Panel labels

• Show examples1

• Be precise

1 Stereogram example from PLOS ONE guidelines

(http://www.plosone.org/static/figureSpecifications)

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COLOR

COLOR CONSIDERATIONS

• Does the journal charge for color?

• What color mode is preferred (RGB or CMYK)?

• Does the journal encourage the use of color (e.g., online-only OA)?

• Consider colorblindness1

Dichromacy Normal vision

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1 Visuals from PLOS ONE guidelines (http://www.plosone.org)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

• Kurt Spurlock, Quality Assurance Manager • Formatting team:

– Sarah Bundick – Cheryl Casterline – Lauren Ligon – Diana Zeiger – Casi Newell – Leila Strickland

• Figures team: – Michele Avissar-Whiting – Ashley Smith – Stacie Meaux

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QUESTIONS? CONTACT US AT EDUCATION@AJE.COM

For more information about AJE’s Manuscript Formatting service, please visit

https://www.aje.com/en/services/formatting

For more information about AJE’s Figure Formatting services, please visit

https://www.aje.com/en/services/figures