Artwork should be of good quality and clean, with clear lettering, sharp black lines, and sides trimmed straight. Photocopies are not acceptable. The scanner faithfully reproduces all smudges, crooked or broken lines, and stray marks. Tape, creases, and other surface irregularities may produce shadows that the scanner will render as black. Artwork submitted on colored paper (not pure white) may also pose a problem when scanning.

Although we encourage authors to submit artwork electronically (see Guidelines for Submission of Digital Art), we also require, in all cases, a hard copy.

Artwork Created with Microsoft PowerPoint, MS Word, or WordPerfect

The graphics created in these programs are low-resolution images that are not suitable for professional reproduction. Graphics created using PowerPoint, Word, or WordPerfect are acceptable only if they are line images, with no gray, color, or shading, and only if they are printed from a high-quality laser printer (see Line Art). Only hard copies of line art created with these programs will be accepted; do not submit electronic PowerPoint, Word, or WordPerfect files.

Internet Graphics

Graphics downloaded from Web pages are not acceptable for print reproduction. These graphics are low-resolution images (usually 72 dpi) that are suitable for screen display but far below acceptable standards for print reproduction.

The only exception to this rule is a screen capture of a Web page that is being discussed or reviewed (see Guidelines for Submission of Digital Art).

Cropping and Sizing

Your artwork will be cropped and sized for publication. If you want to be certain that a particular area of your image is excluded or included, please indicate where the image should be cropped.

Figures will be printed either in a single column (20 picas or 85 mm) or across two columns (2541.5 picas or 106176 mm). Artwork is generally not enlarged, as the quality of the image may be compromised. If possible, figures should be submitted in the size at which they will be published.

Labeling

Please be consistent with type (both font and size) within a figure. Since most figures are reduced, figures employing more than one font size may, after reduction, contain both text that is too small to read and text that is so large as to be awkward. After reduction, all text should be readable but not excessively large. Of course, some variation in the size of letters may be necessary to emphasize elements in a figure or to fit lettering in a limited space; however, please try to use no more than a 2-point variation in your type sizes.

Please use the same font type for all figures in your article; use standard fonts such as Times, Courier, Arial, Helvetica, or Symbol. Sans serif fonts such as Arial and Helvetica are ideal and should be used whenever possible.

If the figures in your article contain units of measurement, please label these units consistently. Make sure abbreviations are consistent with those used in the text and the legend.

Avoid placing labels over shaded areas of a figure. Best results are obtained from black lettering on a white background. If the area requiring a label contains shading, it is best to create a white box and place the black label within.

Figures consisting of more than one panel should include uppercase panel designations ("A," "B," "C," etc.). Whenever possible, include all panels of a figure on the same page.

Omit any extraneous information, such as page numbers, figure numbers, author names, or manuscript number, from the figure. Such information should be marked on the back of the figurenot included as part of the actual image. Figures themselves should not contain a title or text that is duplicated in the figure legend. Figure legends should be included on a separate page, with the manuscript.

Copyright

If the artwork you are submitting has been published elsewhere or is otherwise copyrighted, we must have a letter of permission from the copyright holder in order to use the image. In addition, if the artwork is not your own, we will need information about its source.

GUIDELINES FOR SPECIFIC TYPES OF ARTWORK

Bar Graphs

Avoid the use of gray or color in bar graphs. Instead, please use solid black, solid white, and patterned (e.g., horizontally or diagonally striped) bars. If a bar graph must contain gray shading or color, please submit a high-resolution, glossy print.

Please refrain from submitting "three-dimensional" bar graphs unless there is a compelling reason for the information to be rendered in three dimensions. The information in most bar graphs can be adequately rendered in two dimensions, and making a bar graph three-dimensional only obfuscates the data.

Line Art

Always submit sharp, laser printouts for line art. Dot matrix printouts are unacceptable.

Line art is best reproduced when it is submitted as a crisp black-and-white image and contains no unnecessary gray shading. Gray areas scan unevenly, which often results in unwanted "moiré" patterns. If gray must be used in the figure, the figure must adhere to all requirements for halftone images (see Halftones).

Avoid thin lines, particularly in figures requiring considerable reduction. Do not use lines that are thinner than 2 points, and do not use the "hairline" width option that many computer programs offer.

If your image requires the use of many lines (as line graphs often do), please choose patterns that are easily distinguished from each other. Patterns with similar characteristics are hard to differentiate after reduction.

Halftones

Halftones are any images that contain gray. Halftones must be submitted as high-resolution prints or slides. When using gray, make sure to use shading with at least a 25% variation in gradation or it may become difficult to distinguish between different elements in your figure.

Photomicrographs should show only the most pertinent area of the material being studied. A micron bar or appropriate scale marking must appear on the figure.

Photographs

Photographs can be submitted as high-resolution prints or slides. Color photographs will appear in color only in the online version of the journal. Black and white versions will be produced by the publisher for the print version.

Color Art

Color images must be submitted as high-resolution prints or slides. Again, color art will appear in color only in the online version of the journal. Black and white versions will be produced by the publisher for the print verison. For this reason if submitting a graph or likewise artwork in color please make sure that the colors you use will work well when converted to greyscale. Use contrasting colors with diffent tones (ie: a dark blue and a dark red will not work seeing as their tones are too similar; when converted to greyscale the resulting greys will be almost identical).

GUIDELINES FOR THE SUBMISSION OF DIGITAL ART

We use author-supplied electronic art whenever possible. However, we require authors to submit a hard copy as well, in case the electronic file is unusable. We can accept electronic graphic files only in JPEG*, PSD, PNG or bit-mapped EPS format. Files created with Adobe Photoshop produce the best results.

*A note on JPEGs: JPEG file formats use a "lossy" compression which depending on the setting will render a file unsuitable for print standards. If at all possible please avoid submitting electronic files in JPEG format. If this is unavoidable please be sure to save the JPEG at the highest quality available and at the correct resolution for what type of artwork it is.

Method of Transfer

We accept image files submitted to e-mail ijsa@syllabapress.com or using eManuscript Central System for directly Submit Articles, Reports or Reviews or standard diskettes or CDs. Disks formatted for either Windows or Macintosh platforms are acceptable. Please do not compress files.

Internet Graphics

Graphics downloaded or saved from Web pages are not acceptable for print. These graphics are low-resolution images (usually 72 dpi) and, although they may look fine on the screen, are far below an acceptable quality needed for print. The one exception applies to browser windows captured for articles that discuss or review a Web site.

Line Art

Line art must be prepared as a bit-map image and submitted as a JPEG, PSD, PNG or bit-mapped EPS format file. Optimum resolution for black and white bit-map files is 800 dpi. The file should be sized for publication, as described in Cropping and Sizing, above. Avoid using gray in line art. If the use of gray is unavoidable, the graphic must be prepared as a gray-scale image. Optimum resolution for this type of file is 600 dpi.

Halftones

Halftone figures must be prepared as a gray-scale images and submitted as JPEG, PSD, PNG or bit-mapped EPS format files. Optimum resolution for halftones is 300 dpi.

Photographs

Black and white photographs must be prepared in the same way as halftones listed above. For color photographs please submit them using the following Color Art guidelines.

Color Art

Color figures must be prepared as EPS files with binary encoding but without a JPEG, PSD, PNG or bit-mapped EPS format preview. Optimum resolution for color figure files is 300 dpi.

Screen Captures

The one exception to the rule about Internet graphics is browser windows captured for review. Such captures should be prepared as follows:

In your browser, open the Web page you want to capture.
Maximize the browser window so it fills your screen. This will make the resulting image as large as possible and will make the aspect ratio of the images for this section consistent.
Capture the image of the window: If you are running Macintosh OS, press command+shift+4+caps lock and click on the window you want to capture. A PICT file containing the image of the window will be saved to your desktop. If you are running Windows, press alt+PrintScrn. A bit-map of the current window will be copied to the Windows clipboard.
Open a graphics application such as Photoshop. If you are running Mac OS, open the PICT file and save the image as a JPEG, PSD, PNG or bit-mapped EPS format  file. If you are running Windows, open a new document, paste the contents of the clipboard into it, and save the image in JPEG, PSD, PNG or bit-mapped EPS format format. If you do not have access to a graphics application that allows you to save graphics as JPEG, PSD, PNG or bit-mapped EPS format files, we will accept PICT or BMP files for this section only.

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