Manuscript Preparation & Submission
In order to keep review and production times as well as service charges low, authors are kindly requested to study the chapters below with great care and to follow the instructions accordingly.
Overview
- First Steps
- Regulations for Manuscript/Article Files
- How to Prepare the Text File
- How to Prepare the Figure Files
- How to Prepare Movies
- How to Prepare the Author's Response File
- Submission
1. First Steps
Before the actual submission of a manuscript to the Editorial Support Office for peer-review and/or of an article already evaluated to the Publication Production Office, the author is kindly requested:
2. Regulations for Manuscript/Article Files
In order to enable the Editorial/Production Office to uniquely associate any electronic file with its corresponding manuscript/article at all stages throughout the evaluation/production process, authors are kindly requested to compile their publication into the following separate files and to name them accordingly with the type of document as extension:
| 2.1 |
The actual text followed by the table(s) and figure caption(s) prepared in the way as outlined in chapter 3 as one file named ms-no-tx (tx for "Text") |
| 2.2 |
The complete abstract compiled in the style and lay-out for Copernicus Publications Abstracts as one file named ms-no-ab (ab for "Abstract") |
| 2.3 |
The figures f01, f02, ..., f11, f01a, f01b, ... prepared in the way as outlined in chapter 4 in separate files named ms-no-f01a (f for "Figure") |
| 2.4 |
Movies prepared in the way as outlined in chapter 5 in separate files named ms-no-mv1 (mv for "Movie") |
| 2.5 |
Any supplement files, such as, e.g., data sets, in separate files named ms-no-sp1 (sp for "Supplement") |
| 2.6 |
The entire manuscript (text, tables and figures) when, e.g., applying the Technical Instructions for LaTeX or for Word as one file named ms-no-ms (ms for "Manuscript") |
| 2.7 |
The Author's Response in case of "minor" or "major" revisions requested by the Editor, as a separate file name ms-no-rp (rp for "Response") |
In general, authors are requested to submit their paper, zipped or not zipped, in form of the following separate files: Text (-tx) plus Abstract (-ab) plus Figures (-f01) and, if existent, Movie (-mv) and/or Supplement Files (-sp). In case of a "minor" or "major" revision which has to be reviewed again before publication, authors are also requested to submit the Author's Response file (-rp). Since for the reviewing procedure the Abstract File and the Full Manuscript File will be used in pdf format it is recommended that authors also submit the complete Abstract File (-ab) and the Full Manuscript File (-ms) as pdf files for a faster and more cost effective evaluation.
3. How to Prepare the Text File
The pages of a manuscript or article should be placed in the following order: title page, abstract, text, appendices, acknowledgements, references, tables and figure captions. The text file should carry the ms-no followed directly by -tx plus the type of document as extension. All pages should be numbered consecutively.
Title page
The first page should bear:
- The title (must be concise but informative).
- The initial(s) and name(s) of the author(s).
- The full institutional addresses of all authors.
- The address and e-mail to which the proofs should be sent.
Abstract
The abstract should be complete in itself and be 3-4% of the length of the paper. It should be suitable for separate publication in an abstract journal and state the main results clearly; a mere table of contents should be avoided.
Sections
The headings of all sections, including introduction, results, discussions or summary must be numbered. Three levels of sectioning are allowed, e.g. 3, 3.1 and 3.1.1.
Appendices
Appendices should be labelled with capital letters: Appendix A, Appendix B etc. Equations, figures and tables should be numbered as (A1), Fig B5 or Table C6, respectively.
Footnotes
Footnotes should be avoided. However, if present, they should be numbered consecutively. Footnotes to tables should be marked by lowercase letters.
Units
The metric system is mandatory and, wherever, possible, SI units should be used.
Date & Time
Keep to the style with regards to date (dd/mm/yyyy) and time (hh:mm:ss)
Times should be expressed as "12:00:02", i.e. with a colon separating hours and minutes and seconds. Often it is necessary to specify if refering to local time or Universal Time Coordinated. This can be done by adding "LT" or "UTC", respectively.
Mathematical symbols and formulae
In general, mathematical symbols are typeset in italics . The most notable exceptions are function names (e.g. sin, cos), chemical formulas and physical units, which are all typeset with the normal (upright) font. Matrices are printed in bold face, and Vectors in bold face italics.
A range of numbers should be specified as "a to b" or "a...b". The expression "a-b" is only acceptable in cases where no confusion with "a minus b" is possible.
Equations
Equations should be numbered sequentially with arabic numerals in parentheses on the right hand side, i.e. (1), (2), etc. If too long, split them accordingly. If there are chemical formulae included, i.e. reactions, please number them (R1), (R2), etc.
When using WORD, the equation-editor and not the graphic-mode should be used under all circumstances.
Figures
All figures, whether colour illustrations, photographs, line drawings or images, should be submitted as separate files in one of the formats stated in chapter 4 and numbered in the order of occurrence in the text. The inscriptions and labelling should be clearly legible. Figures may be included in the LaTeX file at the appropriate places at the top of a column or page.
Legends or figure captions
Each illustration should be provided with a concise but descriptive legend. Phrases such as 'For explanation, see text' should be avoided.
Figure captions should be included in the text file and not in the figure files.
Tables
Each table should be numbered sequentially with Arabic numerals. The table caption, is written above the table itself. Horizontal lines should normally only appear above and below the table, and as a separator between the head and the main body of the table. Vertical lines must be avoided. The tables are to appear on separate sheets after the references.
Capitalization
The paper title, section headings, figure and table captions should only have the first word capitalized, as well as any proper nouns that are always capitalized.
Abbreviations and expressions in the text such as Chap(s)., Fig(s)., Table(s), Eq(s)., Sect(s)., Paper, Theorem, etc. should always be capitalized when used with numbers, e.g., Fig. 3, Table 1, Paper III, Theorem 2.
The words figure(s), table(s), equation(s), theorem(s) in the text should not be capitalized when used without an accompanying number.
Abbreviation of words
Equations should be referred to by the abbreviation "Eq." and the respective number in parentheses, e.g. "Eq. (14)". However, when the reference comes at the beginning of a sentence, the unabbreviated word "Equation" should be used, e.g.:
Equation (14) is very important for the results. However, Eq. (15) makes it clear that...
The abbreviations "Sect." and "Fig." should be used when they appear in running text followed by a number unless they come at the beginning of a sentence, e.g.:
The results are depicted in Fig. 5. Figure 9 reveals that...
If acronyms or abbreviations are used throughout the article, they should be defined at first occurrence, e.g.:
active galactic nuclei (AGN), magnetohydrodynamic (MHD)
If these names or concepts are also mentioned in the abstract, they should be defined there as well.
Non-English words and phrases
Foreign words that have not come into general use are italicized. If a word or phrase or its abbreviation can be found in the main body of Webster's (and this also applies to British usage), it and its abbrevation are considered to be in general use and are not italicized. For example, "et al., cf., e.g., a priori, in situ, bremsstrahlung, eigenvalues", should not be italicized.
References
Reference list:
Only works that are cited in the text and that have been accepted for publication or published already should be listed alphabetically at the end of the paper under the first author's name, while works "submitted to" or "in preparation" or "in review" or only available as preprint should not be included in the reference list. They must be listed in a footnote directly in the text. "Private communication" and private webpages are only allowed in the text. Two or more works by two authors should be listed alphabetically according to the second author's name. Works by three or more authors should be listed chronologically. If there is more than one work by the same author or team of authors in the same year, a, b, c etc. is added to the year both in the text and in the list of references. Please supply full author list with Last Name and Initial(s). If this is not possible, then at least the first 3 authors then "et al." may be used. After the list of authors the complete reference title has to be named. Journal names are abbreviated according to the ISI Journal Title Abbreviations Index, followed by the volume number, the complete page numbers (first and last page) and the publication year. Please write out titles in full, if abbreviation is not known. Please do not use bold or italic writing in the reference list or in citations in the text.
Example for reference list:
Fejer, B. C., Farley, D. T., Woodman, R. F., and Calderon, C.: Dependence of equatorial F-region vertical drift on season and solar cycle, Geophys. Res. Lett., 86, 215--218, 1981.
Helliwell, R. A.: Whistlers and related ionospheric phenomena, Stanford Univ. Press, California, 1965.
Example for citation in text:
Citations in the text should be by author(s) and year. Where there are two authors, both should be named; when a work with more than two authors is mentioned, only the first author's name plus 'et al.' need to be given, e.g., Helliwell (1965) or (Helliwell, 1965) or Fejer et al. (1981) or (Helliwell, 1965; Fejer et al., 1981).
4. How to Prepare the Figure Files
The figure files without their figure captions included should carry the ms-no followed directly by -f01, -f02 or-f03a, -f03b etc. plus the type of document as extension:
Line art
All line art (line/vector graphs) must be true vector encapsulated postscript (.eps) created from graphics-creation software (e.g. Illustrator, CorelDraw, Freehand, etc). The fonts must be embedded in the .eps file, using standard or Postscript fonts. Please avoid unconventional fonts that may not be recognized. Choose a font type and size (and thickness) that is clearly readable on the final scale, such as Arial 12 pt, remembering that the final typeset paper is in a two column format. Avoid faint lines and font colours. No lines lighter than ?point, i.e. do not use hairline rules. Thin white lines and text on a dark background are not recommended as they may not print out well because the white lines are "flooded" due to dithering. By thickening these lines and text, it will help a great deal. Avoid printing millions of dots or lines on top of each other. In vector graphics, this results in unnecessary large files.
Tip: Try to avoid saving line/vector graphs as .tif, .jpg, .gif, etc, as these will convert vector to pixels and can cause pixelation and a low quality result if the resolution is not high enough, i.e. 200 dpi. If this is unavoidable, then save as a .tif file with 300 dpi for the best quality resolution for printing.
NOTE: keep to the style with regards to date (dd/mm/yyyy) and time (hh:mm:ss), when including this in all figures.
If at all possible, avoid scanning line dominated graphics. Unless a good deal of attention is given to these files, the result is quite poor. If unavoidable, scan in line/vector mode and store in .ps, .eps or .pdf format or as a bitmap (tif) with at least 300 dpi resolution (print quality).
Photographs/Images
Photographs and images must be saved as either .jpg, .png, .gif, or .tif with a resolution of not less than 150-300 dpi. Try and avoid very large sized files. A good size would be 10 cm in width with a resolution of 200 dpi or not larger than 18 cm in width and with a resolution of at least 150 dpi per 10 cm.
In order to submit the files according to the guidelines for Category 1 and 2, please convert the photographs/images into .eps or .pdf.
All other formats (including hard copy scanning) can be handled but please be aware, that this is additional work for the Production Office and will result in a high service charge.
If the extensions f01, f02 or f03a, f03b etc do not correspond to the abbreviations of the actual Figures in the list of figure captions and thus of the Figures in the text, a table of reference has to be included in the text file. Avoid submitting Figure files with unrecognisable names, as this may cause incorrect Figure placement and numbering when typeset by the Production Office.
5. How to Prepare Movies
A special multimedia streaming server is currently under construction for the preparation of movies. In the meantime it is recommended that authors contact the Copernicus Publications Production Office directly before submitting their movies.
6. How to Prepare the Authors' Response File
In case the Editor has requested a "minor" or a "major" revision of a paper to be reviewed again before publication, the author is kindly requested to submit the revised files (text and/or figures) plus the "Author's Response":
- The latter document must include the item-by-item response to the reviewers' comments and, eventually, the editor's recommendations, indicating in which way the author has handled each one, i.e., the nature of his/her revision or a substantiation of his/her position on the matter in request.
- The file should be submitted as -rp.tex or -rp.doc file, although an -rp.pdf file would speed up the review process.
7. Submission
Manuscripts (i.e. work prior to the review process) as well as articles (i.e. work having passed the review process) must be submitted in digital format and preferably, zipped or not zipped, by file-upload, email or ftp to the Editorial Office or the Production Office; however, work submitted on diskette or CD-ROM/DVD will also be accepted. Hardcopy manuscripts have to be sent by mail and under no circumstances by fax!
Together with their manuscript registrations author in return receive the link for uploding their files.
Files submitted by email should not exceed 15 MB.
For ftp submission, please contact the Editorial Office or the Production Office to receive a password and the ftp address.
In case of "extended abstracts" or "proceedings" or "special publications" the authors have to submit their manuscripts to selected Editors (Guest-Editors). It is the responsibility of the Organizers of such publications to inform the authors about the technical details of the submission in consultation with the Editors (Guest-Editors). Only the final articles, however, must be submitted to the Publication Production Office in the way outlined above.
