GSA Today

Science Article Content and Submission Guidelines

GSA Today science articles are timely, high-quality, focused articles on current topics and discoveries in the earth sciences that appeal to a broad geoscience audience.

Science articles are now submitted via the GSA Today online manuscript tracking system, similar to that used by Geology, GSA Bulletin, and Geosphere.

General guidelines: Keep the title short; give complete addresses for all authors, start your paper with an abstract; use headings in the body of the paper, make sure each reference you cite in the text is listed in the References Cited section, and vice versa, and that spellings and dates match; do not cite unpublished data or papers that are in preparation, submitted, in review, or in revision.

Before submitting a manuscript, please gather the following information:

• All Authors
• First Names, Middle Names/Initials, Last Names
• Postal Addresses
• Work Telephone Numbers
• E-mail addresses
• Title (you can cut and paste this from your manuscript).
• Abstract (you can cut and paste this from your manuscript)
• Manuscript files in PDF, Word, WordPerfect, text, or RTF format. (Please include your abstract and figure captions in the text file.) The manuscript should be in 12-pt type, double-spaced, and include line numbers.
• If you are submitting your manuscript as a PDF, please also upload just the text from the original word processing program (Word, WordPerfect, Text, or RTF format). We will need that file to size your manuscript. To do this, upload your PDF as the article file, and your word processing file as a supplementary file. Text files over 50,000 characters in length will be rejected. Please keep in mind that articles for GSA Today must be no longer than 6 printed pages, which includes references, figures, and tables. 25,000 to 30,000 characters is a reasonable length for the article file.
• Table files in Excel, tab separated format, or comma separated format, or at end of text file.
• Figure/Image files in the format in which they were originally created are best. If file size is an issue, for this step only, please submit them as low-resolution .tif, .jpg, or PDF, files. They should be in order and clearly labeled. Figures do not need to be publication quality at this stage, but it is always a good idea to start with publication-quality figures and then save them in the formats allowed by this system. Please see the GEOLOGY guidelines for publication-quality figures or contact GSA Today managing editor, Kristen Asmus .
• Contact information (e-mail address and institution) of desired peer reviewers (if any).
• The name of the GSA Today science co-editor to whom you wish to submit your article (David Fastovsky [F on submission screen] or Stephen Johnston [J on submission screen]).

Submission Process

Submit your manuscript at http://gsa-today.allentrack.net/cgi-bin/main.plex.

The manuscript submission process is broken into a series of 4 screens that gather detailed information about your manuscript and allow you to upload the pertinent files. The sequence of screens are as follows:

• A form asking for author, title, abstract, and file quantities. (It will ask for corresponding author first, contributing authors later. The corresponding author does not need to be entered again as a contributing author.)
• A screen asking for the actual file locations (via an open file dialog). After completing this screen, your files will be uploaded to our server.
• A task screen where you will be asked to create a merged PDF for the convenience of the reviewers and editors. Please select the files that should be included and enter the order (these are text, table, and figure files; cover letters and supplemental files will be automatically excluded).
• A completion screen that will provide you with a specific manuscript number for your manuscript (please keep this for reference). This page will also allow you to review your converted manuscript. If the conversion is not correct, you can replace or delete your manuscript files as necessary. After you have reviewed the converted files, you will need to click on "Approve Converted Files" to officially submit the manuscript. This link will have a red arrow next to it. Throughout the system, red arrows reflect pending action items that you should address.

Please upload your text and figure files separately. We will need your text file (original word processing file in Word, Word Perfect, txt, or rtf) in order to size your manuscript accurately, to determine if it fits within GSA Today's size limit. Our system will automatically merge the text file that you upload with the figure and table files, to make one article file PDF. This allows editors and reviewers to view and/or download your manuscript in one easy step. If any of your figures are illegible, your manuscript is too long, the merged file size is too large, your submission will be returned to you so that you can fix these problems. Your manuscript will only be considered officially submitted after it has been approved through our initial quality control check and these problems (if any) have been fixed.

Once your paper has been through the review and revision process, you will be asked to submit the final version of the paper as an electronic file via e-mail or ftp. Papers are copy edited before going into production for GSA Today,  and page proofs are sent in PDF format to authors for checking and minor revision.

QUESTIONS?
Direct queries about sizing and format of manuscripts to:

Kristen Asmus, Managing Editor,

phone +1-303-357-1057

fax +1-303-357-1073

GSA, PO Box 9140, Boulder, CO 80301-9140, USA

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