1. Proposing An Article
2. Writing Your Article: Authoring Resources
3. Editing Checklist for Articles (this section)
4. Ready, Aim, Publish: Naming and Sending Files
3. Editing Checklist for Articles
Before you send your article to us, use this checklist to be sure that your
article is ready. In fact, we suggest that you review the checklist before you
begin writing: an ounce of prevention is worth a ton of cure!
For a discussion of each of the guidelines, see 2b. Authoring Guidelines: The Details.
Writing Style
- Corrected misspellings and grammar and
punctuation problems.
- Used active voice.
- Used specific titles for headings.
- Used short sentences (20 or fewer words) and short paragraphs (six or fewer
lines of text).
- Used manageably-sized lists and tables (typically five to nine items in
a list or rows in a table). Exceptionally long lists or tables have been subcategorized.
- Avoided jargon and acronyms, or explained them the first time you used them.
- Structured and wrote the article so that it flows well
Tips: To catch logic and transition problems you might otherwise miss,
read (or have it read) the article out loud yourself, and/or create a storyboard
that you can walk through.
File Names and Formats
- Text and figure files are named and formatted according
to our guidelines.
- If figures are in color, they also print well in gray
scale.
File Front Matter
Beginning of Article
- Second page begins the article, with the title using style
Heading 1, and centered.
- Article includes an abstract and/or introduction if appropriate
for that type of article.
- Abstract, if any, states the major points of the article
and your summary or conclusions.
- Introduction, if any, states the intended audience, the
article’s thesis, why readers will find the article interesting. If there
are more than two Heading 1’s and the printed article will be two or more
pages, then there is also a list of Heading 1’s (and Heading 2’s if you
wish).
- The total length of an abstract and introduction is 150 words or less.
Headings and Paragraphs
- All text and all headings except Heading 1 start flush
left and have a ragged right edge.
- All headings and text were written using the text processor’s
default styles, or preferably using our templates (do not customize your
own styles).
- The Article has no more than three heading levels. If
unformatted ASCII, then headings are also numbered. Numbering for formatted
headings is optional.
- All headings and text are in a black font, and no more
than four fonts total are used.
- Heading 1 and 2 begin on a separate line from text, single-spaced.
- Heading 3 is bold-italic “normal” text and on the same
line as text, separated by a colon.
- "Hard" line breaks or returns are used only at the ends
of headings, paragraphs, and list items. Any other line breaks are "soft"
returns.
- Paragraphs are separated with double spacing (except for
the first line after a Heading 1 or 2; which is single spaced).
- Words are emphasized using one style throughout: either
bold or bold/italic, or if ASCII, then by using an asterisk before and after
the text (*like this*). Do not use underlines.
Tables and Figures
- Tables and figures are positioned adjacent (above, below,
or next) to their relevant prose.
- Each table and figure is accompanied by one more sentences
that help readers its relationship to the discussion and what to focus on
in the table or figure.
- Each table and figure has a titled and numbered caption.
Caption numbers correspond to the order that the table or figure appears
in the document.
Credits or Acknowledgements, Citations and Bibliographies
- Credits and Acknowledgements, if any, are short and specific.
- Within text, informal and formal citations are written
correctly. Footnotes are not used.
- Bibliography is titled “References” and appears at the
end of the article, after credits (if any) and before the author biography.
- Bibliography is accurate and conforms to the generally
accepted formats for the types of references it lists (books, journals,
speeches, emails, web, or other).
Author Biography(s)
- Author biography is titled “About the Author(s)” and is the final section
in the article.
- Each author biography is limited to 50 words.
- (Optional) The author biography includes contact information for readers
to send feedback.
- (Optional) Digital picture(s) have been provided.
- All ready? Then Go Publish!
|
