GSA Today Guidelines
1.	Content and Submission
2.	Sizing
3.	Figures
4.	Ethical Guidelines for Publication

GSA Today

Science Article Content and Submission Guidelines

GSA Today science articles are timely, high-quality, focused articles on current topics and discoveries in the earth sciences that appeal to a broad geoscience audience.

We're interested in your science! Submit GSA Today science, Comment and Reply, and "Groundwork" articles via our online manuscript tracking system.

General guidelines for the science article: Keep the title short; give complete addresses for all authors (including zip codes); start your paper with an abstract; use headings in the body of the paper; make sure each reference you cite in the text is listed in the References Cited section, and vice versa; and do not cite unpublished data or papers that are in preparation, submitted, in review, or in revision.

General guidelines for "Groundwork": Keep these short (no more than ~1400 words with two small figures or ~1600 words with one figure) and focus on hot topics or issues that further the influence of earth science on education, policy, planning, and funding or related areas.

Before submitting any manuscript to GSA Today, please gather the following information:

Complete names of all authors.
Addresses and affiliations for all authors.
Work phone numbers.
Current e-mail addresses.
Title (you can cut and paste this from your manuscript).
Abstract (you can cut and paste this from your manuscript)
Manuscript files in PDF, Word, WordPerfect, text, or RTF format. Note: Please include your abstract and figure captions in the text file.
Table files (in Word, Excel, tab-separated format, or comma-separated format, or at the end of your text file).
Contact information (e-mail address and institution) for desired peer reviewers (if any).
Determinte the GSA Today science co-editor to whom you wish to submit your article (David Fastovsky [F on submission screen] or Stephen Johnston [J on submission screen]).

SUBMISSION PROCESS

Submit your manuscript at http://gsa-today.allentrack.net/cgi-bin/main.plex.

Please note that articles over 50,000 characters in length will be rejected. Science articles in GSA Today must be no longer than 6 printed pages, which includes references, figures, and tables. 25,000 to 30,000 characters is a reasonable length for the article file.
Submit table files in Excel, tab-separated format, or comma-separated format, or at end of text file.
Submit figure/Image files in the format in which they were originally created. If file size is an issue, for this step only, please submit them as low-resolution .tif, .jpg, or PDF files. Figures should be in order and clearly labeled. Please see the GEOLOGY guidelines for publication-quality figures or contact GSA Today managing editor, Kristen Asmus .

The manuscript submission process is broken into a series of four screens::

A form asking for author, title, abstract, and file quantities. (It will ask for contributing authors later. The corresponding author does not need to be entered again as a contributing author.)
A screen asking for the your file locations (via an open file dialog box/browse). Your files will be uploaded to our server. Please upload your text and figure files separately. We will need your text file (original word processing file in Word, Word Perfect, txt, or rtf) in order to size your manuscript to determine if it fits within GSA Today's size limit (6 printed pages). Note: Depending on your connection speed, it will take some time for the system to upload your files, even after you receive a dialogue box stating the files have been uploaded. Please watch your browser's status bar; you should not need to click on "submit manuscript files" again.
A task screen for creating a merged PDF of your article. Please select the order in which your files should appear in the merged PDF (text, table, and figure files; cover letters and supplemental files will be automatically excluded).
The fourth screen will show your manuscript number (please keep this for reference) as well as your manuscript items and PDF conversion status. Again depending on connection speed and file size, you may need to wait up to ten minutes for merging to complete. Once all manuscripts have been converted to the merged PDF, please review that PDF. If the conversion is not correct, replace or delete your manuscript files as necessary. Once everything looks good, please click on "Approve Converted Files," and then click "Confirm" to officially submit the manuscript. These links will have red arrows next to them; red arrows here and elsewhere reflect pending action items for you to address.

If any of your figures are illegible or your manuscript is too long, your submission will be returned to you so that you can fix these problems. Your manuscript will only be considered officially submitted after it has been approved through our initial quality control check and these problems (if any) have been addressed.

Once your paper has been through the review and revision process and is accepted, you will be asked to submit the final versions of text and figure files via e-mail or ftp, as well as a cover image and caption. Papers are copyedited before going into production for GSA Today, and the first author will receive page proofs to check before final publication.

QUESTIONS?
Contact:: Kristen Asmus, Managing Editor; phone +1-303-357-1057; fax +1-303-357-1073; GSA, P.O. Box 9140, Boulder, CO 80301-9140, USA