Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
methods, results, and conclusion), and not a pasting of text from the introduction. Many
people will read the abstract to determine what your study is about and therefore decide
whether or not they need to read the article for more information.
Once you have decided to which journal you are going to submit, you need to download
the Guidelines for Authors from that journal's website if you have not already done so. These
directions are typically extensive and you must follow them to the letter. They will usually
include rules for font type and size, margin size, how to cite references, how to use common
abbreviations, which sections the manuscript should contain, and how to format the bibliog-
raphy. See
Tables 17.3 and 17.8
. As with abstract guidelines for conferences, the author guide-
lines for manuscript preparation are
not
suggestions. They are requirements. Not following
the requirements will result in your manuscript being sent back to you by the editor possibly
even before being sent to reviewers. When in doubt about any of the requirements, use
a recent article from that journal as a formatting example.
Pay close attention to the rules for which file formats are acceptable (e.g., which version(s)
of Microsoft Word are supported) and the requirements for illustrations. Most journals will
not want the tables and figures to be embedded within the document. All will require that the
figures be a certain digital resolution and will have a rule about which digital file format
photographs should be (i.e., TIFF, JPEG, etc.). It is important to know this early on so you
avoid having to retake or reformat photographs later for example. They will also have rules
about color illustrations. Printing in color is very expensive, so the editor will want to know if
color is absolutely necessary for your article. If so, then the cost of the color printing may have
to be assumed by the authors. A reasonable compromise is to ask that the print edition have
grayscale illustrations and that the online version have the illustrations in color. Most jour-
nals today have online submission and the systemwill not allow you to finalize your submis-
sion if, for example, your photos are too small or large or if you have used an unsupported
document creator.
You may be tempted to include a multitude of figures and tables in your manuscript.
Unless absolutely necessary, do not give into this temptation. While figures and tables
TABLE 17.8 Typical Formatting/Inclusion Considerations for Manuscript Preparation
Cover letter to editor
Cover page with title, author names, contact information, keywords
Type of manuscript (original research, case study, technical report, etc.)
Sections of manuscript (abstract, introduction, methods, etc.)
Type of document creator and file extension (Microsoft Word, etc.)
Font size and type
Margin size
Requirements for figure size and file format
Requirements for table formatting
Color illustrations or grayscale?
Use of special characters (e.g., in formulae or non-English words)
Type of spelling (American or British)
Formatting of headings for each section
Formatting of bibliography
Formatting of references (endnotes or parenthetical)
