BIO 542L: Graphic Publication for Biologists

Preparing a manuscript for publication

Important References:


Information

When you look at scientific journals, it is easy to see the differences in style and presentation among them—the page size, column layout, figure layout, fonts, headers, citations, bibliographic style, and even the handling of the acknowledgments may differ. What is not as apparent is that journals expect a specific format in the manuscripts submitted for publication, and that format may or may not agree with what you see in the pages of the journal. Journal formats are ordinarily for the convenience of the readers (although historical constraints may allow the preservation of unreadable styles), but manuscript formats are for the convenience of editors, reviewers, proofreaders, and typesetters, and may look very little like the finished journal.

Because the requirements of manuscript preparation are “non-obvious” for most journals, journals ordinarily have “instructions for authors” that detail all the requirements. In the “old days” before computer word processing, it was important to obtain these instructions even before starting to prepare a manuscript, but now it is generally simple to change format from one journal to another (careful use of word processor “styles” could even automate the process). Changing from a thesis format, for example, to a journal format is often simple, and you may very well be able to use the previous assignment on thesis preparation as the raw material for this one.

In the future, the process will become even more automated. The “language” of web pages, HTML, has a “relative” called XML (eXtensible Markup Language) that specifies the basic structure of a document. It is likely that in only a few years, journals will require that manuscripts conform to a specific “Document Type Definition” that defines the major sections of the paper, bibliographic entries, scientific names, mathematical formulae, etc., and that same document will then be formatted for print, Web, and information retrieval services.


Assignment

In this assignment, you will prepare a manuscript in the format of a specific journal.

  1. Choose a journal in your discipline and obtain the “Instructions for Authors”, either from the Web, in a recent issue of the journal, or by contacting the editor.
  2. Prepare a manuscript to conform to the requirements of the journal. Its contents are unimportant, but it must include an abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, and literature cited, and the literature cited must include at least three references, all of which are cited in the text.
  3. Turn in paper copy of the manuscript and the “Instructions for Authors”.
  4. If you obtained the “Instructions for Authors” from the Web and it isn't already on this page, email me the URL.