How to Prepare your Manuscript

English Language Editing Assistance

AIP recommends Edanz for authors who wish to have the language in their manuscripts edited by a native-English-speaking language editor who is also a scientific expert. Edanz is a global editing service with offices in Japan and China. Use of an editing service is neither a requirement nor a guarantee of acceptance for publication. Please contact Edanz directly to make arrangements for editing and to receive a quotation regarding price and time.

For general format and style, consult recent issues of the journal. Link to the journal’s General Editorial Policies here.

Acceptable manuscript file types include Word, LaTeX, and PDF. PDF is acceptable for the review process only and a source Word or LaTex file is required for production. For authors who use LaTeX, REVTeX 4.1 is now available and is recommended. REVTeX 4.1 is available here.

Note for TeX users:

Please note that JLA does not compose/typeset pages in TeX. Instead we use the generic markup language XML (Extensible Markup Language). As a result, the format and layout, especially math, may look somewhat different to what was originally created in TeX.

While we appreciate the benefits to authors of preparing manuscripts in TeX, especially for math-intensive manuscripts, it is neither a cost-effective composition tool (for the volume of pages AIP currently produces) nor is it a format that can be used effectively for online publishing.

XML is critical to ensure that online content is discoverable, searchable, and accessible well into the future. It is a W3C standard that has been adopted by many publishers as well as by many software industry market leaders. Information in XML can be processed easily by computers and is both hardware and software independent. Tagged XML data is an ideal archive format as identification and extraction of specific content for reuse is relatively easy. A single XML source file is generated from authors’ TeX or Word files and feeds our entire process. All end-products and deliverables, whether print or electronic, are derived from this single XML file, reducing the chance of errors or inconsistencies.

The Manuscript, including the abstract, references, and captions, should be set up for 21.6 x 28 cm (8-1/2 x 11 in. or A4) pages with ample margins. It should be carefully proofread by the author. The manuscript must be in good scientific American English; this is the author's responsibility. Number all pages in single sequence beginning with the title and abstract page. The title page should contain the title of the article, the names and affiliations of the authors, and a short abstract. Parts of the manuscript should be arranged in the following order: title, author, affiliation, abstract, text, acknowledgments, appendices, and references. Papers should not be lengthened by unnecessary descriptions and repetitions, but neither should authors use a telegraphic style detrimental to the clarity and understanding of the paper.

The Title should be as concise as possible but informative enough to facilitate information retrieval. Acronyms are not allowed in the title. They should be used with considerable moderation elsewhere.

The Abstract should be limited to about 100 words and should be self-contained (contain no footnotes). It should be adequate as an index (giving all subjects, major and minor, about which new information is given), and as a summary (giving the conclusions and all results of general interest in the article). The abstract should be written as one paragraph and should not contain displayed mathematical equations or tabular material.

Authors' names should preferably be written in a standard form for all publications to facilitate indexing and avoid ambiguities.

Authors with Chinese, Japanese, or Korean names may choose to have their names published in their own language alongside the English versions of their names in the author list of their publications. For Chinese, authors may use either Simplified or Traditional characters. Chinese, Japanese, or Korean characters must be included within the author list of the manuscript when submitting or resubmitting. The manuscript must be prepared using Microsoft Word or using the CJK LaTeX package. Specific guidelines for each authoring tool are given here. To ensure that we have processed the manuscript files correctly, you must proof the PDF of the manuscript as produced by the Peer X-Press system on first submission. In addition, it is essential that you check carefully any production proofs you receive prior to the publication of your paper.

Equations should be punctuated and aligned to bring out their structure and numbered on the right. Mathematical operation signs indicating continuity of the expression should be placed at the left of the second and succeeding lines. Use × rather than a centered dot, except for scalar products of vectors. The solidus (/) should be used instead of built up fractions in running text, and in display wherever clarity would not be jeopardized. Use "exp" for complicated exponents.

Notation must be legible, clear, compact, and consistent with standard usage. All unusual symbols whose identity may not be obvious must be identified the first time they appear, and at all subsequent times when confusion might arise. Superscripts are normally set directly over subscripts; authors should note where readability or the meaning requires a special order.

References and footnotes are treated alike. They must be numbered consecutively in order of first appearance in the text and should be given in a separate double-spaced list at the end of the text material. Reference should be made to the full list of authors, rather than to first author followed by an abbreviation such as et al. References within tables should be designated by lowercase Roman letter superscripts and given at the end of the table. For the proper form, see recent issues of this journal. Preprints of cited unpublished work by the authors should be sent with the manuscript.

Separate Tables (numbered with Roman numerals in the order of their appearance in the text) should be used for all but the simplest tabular material; they should have captions that make the tables intelligible without reference to the text. The structure should be clear, with simple column headings giving all units. Unaltered computer output and notation are generally unacceptable.