Paper Guidelines
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Bridges Conference Proceedings Guidelines
Reza Sarhangi
Mathematics Department
Towson University
8000 York Road
Towson, MD, 21252, USA
E-mail: rsarhangi@towson.edu
Abstract
The conference Proceedings will be printed from the copy prepared by you. You need to prepare your paper according to the guidelines described here. You can submit the paper in Word format or as a PDF, but you must adhere to the layout described here. Papers will be submitted for printing electronically. If you have problems with this, please advise us as soon as possible so that we can help you. It is imperative that the margins and style described below be adhered to carefully. This will enable us to maintain uniformity in the printed copies of the Proceedings. Neatness of copy is of paramount importance. The abstract should be in 9pt. It will be used to create the abstracts for the Bridges website.
Paper Size and Styles
If you are writing your paper using Word or a word-processor which is compatible such as Open-Office, we suggest that you use a copy of this document as a template. This will set the paper size and styles for you. Replace this text with your text.
Layout. Papers will be printed using US Letter size paper as in this document. If you are working outside the USA, please check that you have not used A4 paper if that is standard in your country. Do not insert page numbers or headings as these will be inserted later at the publishing stage. This document is formatted in the format that should be used in your paper.
The Proceedings will be created electronically from PDF files and the PDFs will also appear on the CDROM version. You may submit a correctly formatted PDF, or a Word file and we will convert it. A LaTex template is also available on the website. To ensure that all papers have uniformity of appearance for the Proceedings, your paper should conform to the following specifications:
- On the first page, the distance from the top edge of the paper to the first line of type (i.e. the title) should be 3 cm. (1 3/16 inches). For this you may simply insert one extra line at the top of the title page.
- On the second and subsequent pages, the distance from the top edge of the paper to the top of the first line of type should be 2.5 cm. (1 inch).
- The distance from the left edge and right edge of the paper to the left and right margin of the type should be 2.5 cm. (1 inch).
- The distance from the bottom of the last line of type on the page to the bottom edge of the paper should be at least 2.5 cm. (1 inch).
Point Sizes and Fonts. Your paper should be printed in eleven point "Times New Roman" or a similar font such as "Times Roman", single spaced. Some technical formatting programs print mathematical formulas in italic type, with subscripts and superscripts in a slightly smaller font size. This is acceptable. Please justify both left and right margins.
The title should be centered across the top of the first page and should be in a distinctive point size or font, preferably 16pt Times. The authors' names should be centered below the title; the authors' addresses should be centered below the title. These lines should be twelve point type. Use this document as a guide.
Format figure captions as in the example below: centered, with the word "figure" and number in bold 11pt and the text in 11pt italic.
Figure 1: A frame for people who can imagine perfectly.
Style of This Document. This document conforms to the specifications listed above. The title uses 16 point bold. The author's name and address are printed in 12 point. The abstract is in 9 point type, the text is in 11 point type, and section headings use 12 point bold. The font style "Times New Roman" is employed throughout.
Paragraph format. These should be fully justified, with the first paragraph in a section left justified and subsequent paragraphs indented (.3").
Please use two spaces between the end of the paragraph and the next major heading; please use one space between the major heading and its paragraph.
Title and Headings
Punctuation. The title and headings should use "title" case, that is as in "Title and Headings", the "and" begins with a lower case "a". There should not be a point (full stop) at the end.
Paper Title. The title should be as short and snappy as possible. It should be formatted as described above. Show the author's name and affiliation centered below the title in capital and lower case letters. The top of the first page of this document illustrates the correct format.Major Headings.
Major headings are to be centered in a bold font 12 point without underlining. They may be numbered, if so desired. Numbering suggests a more technical paper, but establishes a firm hierarchy. The last major heading, References, should not be numbered.
Subheadings. Try to keep to two levels of subheading. If you have two levels, make the second level in a bold font 11 point with initial capitals as here. They should run in at the beginning of the paragraph. If you need three levels, place the second level at the left and then use this paragraph style for the third.
Illustrations
Illustrations should ideally be positioned within the text, but they could be placed at the end of the paper. Make sure that you include a caption for each photograph or line drawing. Number them so that you can refer to them in the text.
Use of Color and line density. The Proceedings are printed in black and white, so do not use color for emphasis, use line thickness. Check that the contrast is suitable for black and white printing, by printing to a standard laser printer. In general, shades of blue, green and brown do not give good contrast in black and white.
If your illustrations are in color, this will be the way the CDROM version of the paper will be presented.
Copyright material. You need to get the copyright owner's permission for reproduction if an illustration is not your own. A book published before 1923 is OK to copy in the US. If you take a graphic from the web, get the owner's permission. (It will probably not be of high enough resolution-see below).
Getting the graphics resolution right. It is very important to get the graphics files before they are inserted, otherwise they may not be legible. If you don't understand the following, or don't know how to find out the required information, then please ask for help.
Resolution is important. You should aim for a final resolution of at least 300dpi. If possible higher. This means that you also need to take into account the actual size it will be printed. So a picture that is 300 by 300 pixels cannot be printed larger than a one inch square. So for example if you have a picture which you size to about 4 inches high in your document, it must be at least 1200 pixels high in the file.
If you need to decrease the file size or crop and resave see below. Never resave as a JPG unless you are experienced with making the correct settings. (See below)
Resizing. On the other hand, there is no point in using an overly high resolution file. This will only increase the size of the document and may make it difficult to email.
Scanned line art should be at 600 dpi and saved as GIF or TIF files.
JPGs are the usual format from a digital camera. If you have to save a picture for any reason always save as a TIF file. If you try to save as a JPG, you will almost certainly lose image quality. The compression of a JPG uses a system which degrades an image and the default settings of graphics software often do this dramatically.
TIFs are the preferred file format. If you are saving a file, always look for or choose the option to compress the file. Use the LZW compression option. This does not lose any image quality. You may be able to reduce the file size of a TIF file by doing a save as and choosing the LZW compression option. However, this may not help with the final size of the document.
Creating PDFs
If you are in doubt about creating a PDF, send the original word-processor file.
Acrobat settings. If you have many graphics in your paper, make sure the file settings are set to compress the files. Use ZIP compression rather than JPG for the reasons described above. Also, make sure that the paper size is correct. When creating PDFs, check the final file, particularly the paper size and whether headings are on the correct page.
References
List and number all references at the end of the paper. When citing references in the text, type the corresponding number in square brackets use a reference like: see Coxeter [1] or just see [1].
[1] H. S. M. Coxeter, The Non-Euclidean Symmetry of Escher's Picture Circle Limit III, Leonardo, Vol. 12, pp. 19-25. 1979.