INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS

• Introduction |
• Submission of manuscripts |
• Criteria for acceptance |
• Preparation of manuscripts |
• Supplementary material |
• Submissions |
• Copyright |
• Permissions |
• Proofs |
• Offprints |
• Page charges |
• Business matters |

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Introduction

Information Visualization is published quarterly. It publishes original articles and editorials, book reviews and letters for publication. These instructions can also be seen in the printed journal.

It provides the most competitive rates for colour figures and page charges when publishing in information visualization and its applications.

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Submission of manuscripts

Manuscripts for consideration should be submitted electronically as email-attachment to the following email address:

E-mail: IVS_submissions@palgrave.com

Manuscripts must be in Word for Windows, Adobe Acrobat PDF or LaTeX format. LaTeX files must be accompanied by a PDF file.

The submission email should include the following information about the paper: Authors, Title, Abstract and the corresponding author's contact details. The receipt of a submission will be acknowledged within a few days.

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Criteria for acceptance

Acceptance of material is based on broad interest and significance. In our continuing efforts to publish only the most high-quality materials, and with a mind to maximizing the speed and efficiency of our review process, it is the editorial policy of Information Visualization to require that submitted manuscripts meet certain guidelines before they can proceed to peer review. Among the criteria used to judge a submission are the following:

1. Does the manuscript adhere to the journal's editorial guidelines (Instructions for Authors)?
2. Does the manuscript clearly demonstrate its relevance to the journal's scope and readership?
3. Does the manuscript or its attending documentation explicitly state its significance and explain how it is relevant to the interests of our readers?
4. Does the manuscript appear to provide a high quality and reasoned argument?
5. Does the manuscript appear to provide an accurate and adequate list of references to the literature in its domain?
6. Are the manuscript's focus, content, and style consistent with similar articles published in recent issues of the journal?
7. Is the manuscript written in reasonably good English so that the content is readily accessible to reviewers?
8. Have the authors failed to declare to the editors that the manuscript has previously been published elsewhere?

Manuscripts that satisfy the above criteria will be reviewed by a panel of international reviewers in a double-blind review process. The Editor-in-Chief's decision is final.

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Preparation of manuscripts

Papers should be in English, double spaced and single sided on 8.5" x 11" or A4 paper with generous margins (at least 1"/2.5cm). Emphasize any special points in a covering letter from the submitting author (see also Copyright).

Before submitting any manuscript, please ensure that:

• you have checked the size of your figures
• you have checked that more colour figures cannot be fitted onto one page
• you have made sure that you have calculated the colour charges for any figures beyond the five figures for free (see 5. figures) and that you are prepared to pay them
• you have calculated the page charges for any pages £10 (US$20) per printed page for pages from page 9 onwards (see Page charges) and that you are prepared to pay them.
• you have checked the referencing within the paper

Structure papers as follows.

1. Title page

On a separate title page list:

• type of submission (i.e., every manuscript submitted should be clearly labelled as being either a paper, an editorial, a commentary, a book review or category "other")
• the total number of pages
• title and full names of all authors
• Full contact details should be provided for the corresponding author; telephone and fax numbers are needed, along with the correct email address (this last is vital).
• suggestion for a short running title of no more than 40 characters (including spaces)
• acknowledgements of research support along with grant numbers (if applicable)
• Statement of exclusive submission: The first page should include the following statement: "This paper (or a similar version) is not currently under review by a journal or conference, nor will it be submitted to such within the next three months."

2. Article text

(a) Title

(b)Abstract

Include, on a separate page, in no more than 250 words an abstract that adequately describes the work and highlights its significance. The abstract should include only text. Avoid the use of abbreviations and references.

(c)Keywords

Include up to six keywords that describe your paper for indexing and for web searches. Since the abstract and the key words will be used to guide selection of appropriate referees, it is essential to make them as informative as possible.

(d) Text

Where appropriate, use the standard format (Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion and Conclusion). Results and discussion may be combined. Abbreviations and contractions should be defined in the text when first used.

Do not use footnotes.

Equations should be typewritten and with the number placed in parentheses at the right margin. Reference to the equation should use the form 'Eq. (3)' or '(3)'.

Supply program material as originals on separate pages. It will, wherever possible, be reproduced photographically to avoid errors. Palgrave Macmillan house style is to set programs and program words in running text, 10 pt Courier New.

3. References

Avoid exhaustive lists of references. Indicate references in the text by numbers in square brackets and list them at the end of the paper in numerical order. Double space references on a separate page. Cite all authors and write journal titles out in full. Online citations must include date of access. If absolutely necessary unpublished or personal work may be cited in the text but not listed in the references. Style and punctuation must be in accordance with the following examples:

Example of a journal article

1. Keim D, Hao M, Dayal U, Hsu M. Pixel bar charts: a visualization technique for very large multi-attribute data sets. Information Visualization 2002; 1: 20-34.

Example of a chapter in an edited book

2. Kraut R, Egido C, Galegher J. Patterns of contact and communication in scientific research collaboration. In: Galegher J, Kraut R, Egido C (Eds). Intellectual Teamwork. Lawrence Erlbaum Press: Hillsdale; 1990. 149-173.

Example of a book

3. Spence R. Information Visualisation. Addison-Wesley; 2001, 206pp.

Example of conference proceedings

4. Shneiderman B. The eyes have it; A task by data type taxonomy of information visualizations, IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages 1996 (Las Alamos, USA, 1996), IEEE Computer Society Press: Chicago; 336-343.

Example of a website

5. Kruskal JB, Young FW, Seery JB. How to use KYST, A very flexible program to do multidimensional scaling and unfolding [WWW document] http://www.netlib.org/mds/kyst2a_manual.txt (accessed 13 January 2002).

EndNote

EndNote users are able to simplify the formatting of bibliographic references by using an EndNote Style file:

1. Download the file IVS.ens from http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~cc345/ivs/IVS.ens
2. Save the file IVS.ens under the EndNote style directory
3. Use EndNote as usual to insert references
4. Select the Information Visualization style to format manuscripts

The formatted examples are illustrated as follows.

Book
This is a reference to a book 1.

Conference Paper
This is a reference to a conference paper 2.

Journal Paper
This is a reference to a journal paper 3.

Book Chapter
This is a reference to a book chapter 4.

References

1. Ware C, Information Visualization: Perception for Design. Morgan Kaufmann Interactive Technologies Series. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers: San Francisco, 2000; 384pp.
2. Robertson GG, Mackinlay JD, and Card SK. Cone trees: Animated 3D visualizations of hierarchical information. CHI '91 1991 (New Orleans, LA), ACM Press; 189-194.
3. Small H. Visualizing science by citation mapping. Journal of the American Society for Information Science 1999; 50(9): 799-813.
4. Kraut R, Egido C, and Galegher J. Patterns of contact and communication in scientific research collaboration, In: Galegher J, Kraut R, and Egido C (Eds). Intellectual Teamwork. Lawrence Erlbaum Press: Hillsdale, NJ. 1990. 149-173.

4. Figure and table legends

Figure and table legends should follow on a new page, double spaced and numbered separately in order of appearance in the text. Legends and / or captions should be provided for every figure or image; these should be short, descriptive and should define any acronyms, abbreviations or symbols used. They should begin with a brief title for the whole figure and continue with a short description of each panel. The key should not be part of the legend. Each figure and table must be mentioned in the text and must be numbered consecutively in the order of appearance in the text.

5. Figures

Keep one figure per page. Number figures with Arabic numerals in order of appearance. The font used for labelling should be no smaller than 8 points after the figure has been resized to one or two column widths (3.5" and 7" respectively) during typesetting. No figures should exceed 8.5" by 11" in size.

Supply colour illustrations electronically in either TIFF or EPS format or as first generation 35mm colour transparencies.

Colour on the web

Authors who wish their articles to have colour figures on the web (only available in the HTML full text version of manuscripts and NOT on the online PDF) must supply separate files in the following format. These files should be submitted as supplementary information and authors are asked to mention they would like colour figures on the web for the HTML full text version in their submission letter.

For Single Images:

Width	500 pixels (Authors should select "constrain proportions", or equivalent instructions, to allow the application to set the correct height automatically.)
Resolution	72 dpi (dots per inch) - or "Save for Web" if using Adobe Photoshop®
Format	JPEG for photographs GIF for line drawings or charts
Filenaming	Please save image with .jpg or .gif extension to ensure it can be read by all platforms and graphics packages.

For Multi-part Images:

Width	900 pixels (Authors should select "constrain proportions", or equivalent instructions, to allow the application to set the correct height automatically.)
Resolution	72 dpi (dots per inch) - or "Save for Web" if using Adobe Photoshop®
Format	JPEG for photographs GIFfor line drawings or charts
Filenaming	Please save image with .jpg or .gif extension to ensure it can be read by all platforms and graphics packages.

Authors may be asked to pay the full colour fee for figures that are not submitted in the format described above.

6. Tables

Number each table consecutively with Arabic numerals and place them on separate pages. Avoid using vertical rules. Horizontal rules should be used only above and below column headings and at the bottom of the table.

The total number of tables mentioned in the text and the total number attached should be listed on a separate sheet.

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Supplementary material

Information Visualization encourages submission of information supplementary to articles by authors. Supplementary material may consist of data files, graphics, videos or extensive tables. Articles must be complete and self-explanatory without the supplementary material. Both paper and online versions of the article will highlight the availability of supplementary material. The material itself will be published online only.

Material must be submitted with the article for review. Videos must be in MPEG format and less than 10 Mb. Java applets can be accepted, however executable programs can not be. Authors wishing to make these available must do so on their own FTP or www sites. The journal can link through to these files from the supplementary material page. Files containing macros should be discussed with the Managing Editor prior to submission.

When submitting artwork, reduction to the scale that will be used on the page is unnecessary. However, it should be borne in mind that figures will be resized to fit one or two column-widths (3.5" and 7" respectively) of the journal page, and the figure and its labelling should be clear and legible at this size.

Rules should be no thinner than 1 point (0.36mm) after size reduction. In graphs, a coarse pattern such as hatching should be used because shading and tints are liable to break up on the printed copy. Figures divided into parts should be labelled with a lower-case, bold a, b, etc in the top left-hand corner.

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Submissions

Prepare initial submissions in accordance with the instructions above and send them as attachments to e-mail to the Managing Editor. Name the file IVS_<first author's surname>_<DDMMYY>_<submission number> (e.g., IVS_Smith_17Jan06_1).

The electronic copy of the final, accepted manuscript should be sent to the Managing Editor (IVS_submissions@palgrave.com). The electronic copy must meet the following criteria:

1. The manuscript is the final accepted version.
2. All figures and tables are saved as separate files from the text.
3. The paper is saved in its original application. The preferred formats are Microsoft Word for Windows or ASCII (plain) text. In addition, please supply RTF (rich text format) or PDF if available.
4. The submission email clearly states the journal title, authors' names, paper title, file names and the application used.
5. The files are compressed.
6. There are double-line spaces between paragraphs; first lines are not indented.
7. Double-line spaces are not used between items in lists.
8. Journal style is followed for references, capitalization etc.

Authors should also make clear in the final submission which figures, if any, that they would like to be reproduced in colour in the print version and which figures in the online version.

Minimum resolutions for scanned artwork are:

• Black and white line illustrations (e.g., graphs): 600 dpi
• Black and white half-tone illustrations (e.g., photographs): 300 pi
• Colour illustrations: 400 dpi (NB colour images should be split CMYK not RGB)

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Copyright

To enable the Publisher to protect the copyright of the journal authors must assign copyright in their manuscripts to the Publisher. All submitted manuscripts must be accompanied by a statement signed by all authors that the article is original, is not under consideration by another journal, has not previously been published elsewhere and its content has not been anticipated by any previous publication. This statement called the 'Copyright Assignment form' can be downloaded here.

Authors will be entitled to publish any part of their paper elsewhere, provided the usual acknowledgements are given.

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Permissions

Authors must obtain permission to reproduce all maps, diagrams, figures and photographs. Generally it is also necessary to obtain permission for single passages of prose exceeding 250 words, or scattered passages totalling more than 400 words from any one work. Please supply the publisher with full information for all work cited, including author, date published, publisher and page references. Copyright extends to 50 years after the death of the author or 50 years after publication of a scholarly edition, whichever is the longer.

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Proofs

The corresponding author will be invited via email with a link to access page proofs online; these must be carefully checked. Please print a copy of the PDF proof, correct within the time period indicated and return as directed. Please make no revisions to the final edited text except where the copyeditor has requested clarification. Important changes in data are allowed but authors may be charged for excessive alterations in proofs. Proofs must be returned within 48 hours of receipt. If proofs are not returned within this time period the Editor-in-Chief will have the right to publish the article without alterations or postpone its production if the required alterations are substantial.

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Offprints

An offprint order form is sent with proofs; 25 free offprints are supplied to the principal author. Additional offprints may be ordered. Charges for reprints ordered at a later date are necessarily higher.

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Page charges

Manuscripts accepted for publication in Information Visualization will incur a page charge of £10 (US$20) per printed page for pages from page 9 onwards.

As a crude estimation, three double-spaced manuscript pages correspond to one typeset journal page.*

*This calculation is roughly based on style guidelines presented in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. Therefore it is not exact when applied to Information Visualization.

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Business matters

Business correspondence and enquiries relating to advertising, subscriptions, back numbers or reprints should be addressed to the Publishers at
Palgrave Macmillan Journals,
Houndmills,
Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS, UK.
Tel: +44 (0)1256 329242
Fax: +44(0)1256 810526