Guidelines for Editors of Electronic Journals

from the

Scholarly Communications Project


General Information

  1. Deliver the journal to the SCP as you wish it to appear to online readers.

  2. The files that comprise your journal should be: ASCII, HTML, or Acrobat PDF. If you submit files from a word-processor files, please save them as Microsoft Word documents.

  3. Notify indexing and abstracting services that a new journal is available for them to review. When possible send a sample issue.

  4. ISSN, International Standard Serial Number, the equivalent of a social security number for serials, is assigned by the Library of Congress.

    A serial is a publication issued in parts, usually bearing issue numbers and/or dates, and expected to continue indefinitely.

    The ISSN application form is at http://lcweb.loc.gov /issn/issnhome.html#forms


Recommendations for Preparing Files for Electronic Publication

  1. Each article and the table of contents should be a separate file. Providing access to individual articles, rather than the entire issue will improve the time it takes the reader's computer to download (i.e., display) and print.

  2. Each file should include

  3. Recommended line length: 75 characters

  4. Double space between paragraphs for easier on-screen readability.

  5. Left-justify and do not use tabs or indents. This makes the document most easily translatable by the variety of systems your readers will use.

  6. Do not include page breaks or page numbers. This information will more than likely vary for each reader's printer and cause odd looking printouts.

  7. Graphics/Illustrations

    When tables are made with the same word processor as the text, the SCP staff will do its best to make these display well. But, it takes extra time! Preferably, give these to us as camera-ready copy or as a graphics files: GIFF, JPEG, or PICT.


Submitting Files for SCP Publication

  1. Notify the SCP when a new issue of the journal is ready for publication.

  2. Send the files to the SCP--If you are on the VT campus, we can give you access to a drop box via AppleShare so that you can electronically send a new issue of the journal to us. If you are not connected to our campus Ethernet, you can FTP the files to us quite easily also. These two methods will be activated for your use each time you notify us that you are ready to send us a new issue. You may also bring us your diskette or send it to us via US mail.


New Editors

Two weeks prior to submitting the first issue of a new electronic journal, notify gailmac@vt.edu with the following information: