| Geosphere Guidelines | |
| 1. | Submission, Review, and Acceptance |
| 2. | Supplementary Material |
| 3. | Editorial Policy, copyright, and costs |
| 4. | Style |
| 5. | Figures |
| 6. | Contact Information |
| 7. | Ethical Guidelines for Publication |
Geosphere
Figures
All illustrations, whether line drawings or photographs, are considered figures. GSA prefers electronic files but sometimes may have to scan clean hard copy if the files are unusable. To ensure the best possible results, please prepare art for illustrations according to the following guidelines.
| General | Style | Electronic | Fill Patterns |
General Guidelines for All Figures
- Look at recent articles in which GSA publication you plan to publish and compare the look and style of your art with figures accompanying these articles.
- Submit figures as close to final size as possible (see sizing guidelines under "Style").
- All figures should be final, and submitted both electronically and on high-quality laser print paper. Be sure your disk file contains only final figures.
- For photographs, you may substitute photocopies for review purposes, but for final submission, electronic files should be provided in high-quality .tiff format.
- Keep at least one "original quality" copy of all figures. GSA cannot be responsible for material that is lost or damaged in the mail.
- Label all figures (both hardcopy and electronic file) with author name, figure number, and file extension, outside of the image area.
- If figure is to be printed in color, provide high-quality color printouts.
- If illustrations are reproduced without change from another publication, acknowledgments must be clearly made. The burden is on the author to obtain copyright clearance if necessary. The following conventional designations should be noted: "after"-possible redrafting but no change in information; "modified from"-some change; "adapted from"-radical changes.
| General | Style | Electronic | Fill Patterns |  |
Style Guidelines
- Lines and Labels in Graphs, Maps and Legends
- Use clean black lines, no finer than 1 point and no greater than 2 points.
- On maps, please include latitude (°N, °S) and longitude (°W, °E), a north arrow, and a scale in kilometers.
- Graphs must have all axes and lines labeled.
- General titles of illustrations should appear in the figure caption, not in the figure itself.
1 pt. Line
2 pt. Line - Lettering
- Use a clear, sans serif typeface (Helvetica or Arial).
- All lettering should be between 7 point and 12 point type size.
- Try to keep all text in a figure (including axis labels, contour labels, latitutde and longitude, scale text, inset text, etc.) around the same size to aid reducibility and/or enlargement.
- Avoid making the lettering too large for the figure. This can result in a "cartoonish" appearance.
- Avoid the use of boldface lettering because the open spaces in the letters tend to fill in when reduced.
- Place a white background behind lettering that crosses a dark or textured area in a figure.
- Sizing
- Do not size smaller or larger than these dimensions
| Inches | Picas | Centimeters | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Three-column width | 2-1/3 | 14 | 5.93 |
| Two-column width | 3-1/2 | 21 | 8.9 |
| Page width | 7-1/8 | 43 | 18.1 |
| Page depth | 9-1/2 | 56-1/2 | 22.5 |
| General | Style | Electronic | Fill Patterns | |
Electronic Figures
Online Submission and Revision
Electronic figure/photo files should be uploaded in TIFF, GIF, JPEG, EPS, Postscript, Pict, PDF, Powerpoint, or Excel format and should be clearly labeled with author name, figure number, and file extension, outside of the image area. We do NOT accept MSWord or LaTeX format for figure files.
Accepted Publication-Quality Figures
When your manuscript has been accepted, you will be asked to provide publication-quality graphics. We require two electronic files for each figure: one in the program in which it was created (native format), and one in EPS, TIF, or PDF format. We will also ask for scannable hard copies to be mailed with the electronic files. Generally, halftones should not be scanned at higher than 600 dpi (dots per inch); line art is usually good at 1200 dpi.
The following native graphics formats work best, as long as the version of the application is noted and the file is labeled with the correct extension:
- Adobe Illustrator (.ai) Files. This is the most preferable file format. However, this refers to figures actually created in Illustrator, not figures that were created in another program and then imported to Illustrator.
- Canvas (.cvs) Files. Only Canvas version 9 or newer is accepted.
- Freehand (.fh) Files. Only Freehand version 9 or newer is accepted.
- Corel Draw (.cdr) Files. Only Corel Draw version 13 or newer is accepted.
- Photoshop (.psd) Files. Most Photoshop files can be used with few problems, just make sure that the resolution is between 300 and 600 dpi for photos, or 1200 dpi for line art.
If you create either TIF or EPS files, they must be between 300 and 600 dpi resolution at the desired print size. Label figure files with author name, figure number, and extension. Make sure that the hard copy of the figure that you send matches the electronic file of the figure. Files created in any application other than those listed above should be saved as a .tif or .eps. We do NOT accept low-resolution 72 dpi images (no web images).
Best Resolution
For all figure files, line art should be saved at 1200 dpi at 100% size. Photos alone should be saved at 300 dpi (or higher). Color images should be saved at 350 dpi (or higher) at 100% size.
Placed/Imported images
All images that have been placed or imported into your figure file must accompany this file on disk (i.e., if you import/place a photograph into Illustrator, called photo.tif, you MUST supply this photo.tif electronic file along with your Illustrator file).
Digital Camera images
Files created by digital cameras are preferred as TIFF or RAW format (though .jpeg is acceptable) and must be at least 300-600 ppi when scaled to the desired print size (be sure that your camera is set for highest resolution for best results). We do not accept 72 dpi photo images.
Invisible Elements
Many graphics files contain unnecessary "invisible" elements. These are sometimes imported graphics that the creator of the file has traced over and then set not to print. To save on printer time and to cut down on file size, it is best to delete the unnecessary element rather than just set it not to print.
| General | Style | Electronic | Fill Patterns | |
Fill Patterns for scannable artwork
- If possible, use hatched patterns instead of dot fill patterns. When fine or smooth fills are scanned, mottled patterns often result.
- Dot fills must be between 20% and 70% black. The scanner "sees" <20% black as white and >70% black as black.
- Any fills that represent different values in the same illustration must differ by at least 20%. For example, fills that are 20% black and 30% must not be used on the same figure, but fills that are 30% black and 50% black are acceptable for use on the same figure.