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Discussion_Papers / Website / dpguidelines-contents.htm
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  2.  
  3. <div class="sectionTitle">Information Science Discussion Papers Series: Author Guidelines</div>
  4.  
  5. <p>These guidelines are for authors intending to submit a paper to the
  6. <EM>Information Science Discussion Papers Series</EM>. While these
  7. guidelines are not binding, it would be helpful if authors could adhere to
  8. them as much as possible.</p>
  9.  
  10. <p>The current coordinator of the series is Nigel Stanger. Please <A
  11. HREF="mailto:dps@infoscience.otago.ac.nz">contact him</A> if you have any
  12. questions about these guidelines or the series as a whole.</p>
  13.  
  14.  
  15. <h3>Purpose of the <EM>Series</EM></h3>
  16.  
  17. <p>The <em>Discussion Paper Series</em> is intended as a semi-formal
  18. vehicle for staff and/or students in the department to publish research
  19. in a timely manner. Papers typically reflect work in progress and may
  20. not include final results. Many papers that appear in the series are
  21. early versions of papers that are later published in conferences or
  22. journals. If you have recently submitted a conference or journal paper,
  23. we encourage you to forward a copy to the <A
  24. HREF="mailto:dps@infoscience.otago.ac.nz">series coordinator</A> for
  25. inclusion in the series.</p>
  26.  
  27. <p>The papers are sent to a selection of Information Systems departments at
  28. several universities in New Zealand, Australia and Asia. Copies are also
  29. archived in the Hocken Library, and where possible posted electronically on
  30. the Department&#8217;s web site. Papers published in the series reflect the
  31. research effort of the department, and due care should therefore be taken
  32. in their production.</p>
  33.  
  34.  
  35. <h3>Formatting</h3>
  36.  
  37. <p>We do not enforce a particular style on authors; many of the papers
  38. submitted to the series have also been submitted to conferences or
  39. journals, and must therefore adhere to the style requirements of the
  40. particular conference or journal. However, it would be helpful if authors
  41. could adhere to some basic formatting guidelines wherever possible.</p>
  42.  
  43. <p>Please use &#8220;standard&#8221; fonts such as <FONT
  44. FACE="Times">Times</FONT>/<FONT FACE="Times New Roman">Times New
  45. Roman</FONT>, <FONT FACE="Palatino">Palatino</FONT>, <FONT
  46. FACE="Arial">Arial</FONT>/<FONT FACE="Helvetica">Helvetica</FONT>, <FONT
  47. FACE="Symbol">Symbol</FONT> (Symbol) and
  48. L<sup>A</sup>T<sub>E</sub>X&#8217;s Computer Modern, in the size range
  49. 10&#8211;12pt. Do not use non-standard fonts unless absolutely necessary,
  50. as this may complicate the production process.</p>
  51.  
  52. <p>Leave at least a 2.54cm (1 inch) margin around the body text, and ensure
  53. that margins are suitable for double-sided printing.</p>
  54.  
  55. <p>Include page numbers if possible, centered at the bottom of the page.
  56. (It may be possible to add these later if you submit the original source
  57. file(s) of your paper&#8212;see below.)</p>
  58.  
  59. <p>Please check your paper for grammar, spelling, correct cross-references,
  60. etc. If possible, get someone else to read the paper before submitting it.
  61. Most papers are not checked before publication.</p>
  62.  
  63.  
  64. <h3>Length</h3>
  65.  
  66. <p>There are no length restrictions as such, but we would prefer papers to
  67. be less than thirty pages in length, as larger papers are unwieldy to deal
  68. with. Particularly large documents could possibly be published as a
  69. departmental technical report instead.</p>
  70.  
  71.  
  72. <h3>Submitting a paper</h3>
  73.  
  74. <p>You may submit papers in either hard copy or electronic form. We prefer
  75. electronic form so that the papers can be downloaded from our web site.
  76. Please email electronic submissions to the <A
  77. HREF="mailto:dps@infoscience.otago.ac.nz">series coordinator</A>. Hard copy
  78. papers should be given directly to the coordinator (Nigel Stanger). If you
  79. are submitting in electronic form, please use one of the following formats
  80. (in descending order of preference):</p>
  81.  
  82. <h4>PDF</h4>
  83.  
  84. <p>PDF is the most preferred format. However, there are some things you
  85. need to be aware of when generating a PDF file. First, if your paper
  86. contains bitmapped images, please <EM>disable</EM>
  87. &#8220;Downsampling&#8221; of colour and grayscale images, as this can
  88. render your images illegible. In Acrobat Distiller, these options can be
  89. disabled in the &#8220;Compression&#8221; section of &#8220;Job
  90. Options&#8221;. You do not need to disable downsampling of black and white
  91. images, as these are downsampled to a much higher resolution of 300dpi.</p>
  92.  
  93. <p>Second, if you use L<sup>A</sup>T<sub>E</sub>X to produce your paper and
  94. use the Computer Modern fonts, you must generate the PDF file using
  95. PostScript versions of these fonts, or the PDF produced will be unreadable
  96. on screen. This problem can be avoided by using one of the alternate font
  97. packages, such as <TT>times</TT> or <tt>palatino</tt>.</p>
  98.  
  99. <p>If you are unsure about any of the above, please submit your original
  100. document(s) instead.</p>
  101.  
  102.  
  103. <h4>L<sup>A</sup>T<sub>E</sub>X</h4>
  104.  
  105. <p>If you produced your paper using L<sup>A</sup>T<sub>E</sub>X, you are
  106. welcome to submit the source (preferred) or the DVI file (or both).</p>
  107.  
  108.  
  109. <h4>Other formats (word processor, HTML, etc.)</h4>
  110.  
  111. <p><em>If there is no other option</em>, submit your original
  112. document(s) in whatever format you produced them in. Currently we can
  113. handle MS Office, OpenOffice, HTML and (probably) WordPerfect documents.
  114. It may be possible to handle other formats, but nothing is
  115. guaranteed.</p>
  116.  
  117. <p>Note that original document formats can often require considerable
  118. additional work in order to render them suitable for publication, which is
  119. why this is the least preferred option. Word documents in particular seem
  120. to cause all sorts of difficulties.</p>