Style Guide

Ordering of Manuscript

The manuscript should contain, in order, the following sections. Sections may be separated by a row of hyphens:

1. Title page, containing the manuscript's title, name(s) of the author(s), their institutions (if any), and a single contact person's email address. Author names should not appear anywhere else in the manuscript
2. An abstract of no more than 150 words, briefly outlining the content and conclusions of the article. Abstracts are not necessary for Comments or Reviews.
3. The body of the manuscript, formatted as discussed below
4. Endnotes, if any
5. References, if any
6. Appendices, if any
7. Figure captions, if any

Margins and paragraphs

Manuscripts should be submitted in ASCII text format with a right margin of no more than 72 characters or in HTML. If in ASCII, paragraphs should not be indented, but should be separated by blank lines; if in HTML, paragraphs should be separated (or contained) by <P> tags.

Headings

Papers should use 3 levels of headings. The title and the word "ABSTRACT" at the beginning of the abstract should be formatted as if they were first-level headings. First and second level headings should be ALL CAPITALS; third-level headings should have Each Word Capitalized. HTML submissions should use the <H1> through <H3> tags around headings. For ASCII submissions, first-level headings should be centered, second-level and third-level headings should be flush left, and headings should be preceded and followed by a blank line.

Emphasis

HTML submissions should use the <EM> tag to emphasize. In ASCII submissions, words to be emphasized may be written between *asterisks* or /slashes/.

Tables, captions, and examples

HTML submissions may use either the HTML table tags or the <PRE> tags to format tables and examples. ASCII tables, captions, and examples of MUD output should be formatted with each line indented 5 spaces. They should generally be embedded directly into the manuscript; long logs or examples, however, may be made into an appendix instead.

Figures

Figures should be sent separately, as uuencoded GIF or JPEG files. Figures should be explained in the text of the manuscript, and readers should be able to understand the results without the figures. Figure captions should be sent as the last section of the manuscript.

Endnotes

Endnotes are used in preference to footnotes. Endnotes should be numbered from 1. Endnote markers should be written as ^1^. Endnotes are not used for references, which appear in the text itself (see below).

References

References follow the style of the AAA, APA, or ASA. References in the text are of the form (Jones & Bar, 1995). Complete references appear in a section near the end of the manuscript.