Epidemiologic Methods

Instructions for Authors

Final Manuscript Preparation Guidelines

Please find here details on copyediting, typesetting, and layout requirements pertaining to final manuscript submission to this journal. All manuscripts must have correct formatting to be considered ready for publication.

COPYEDITING

FORMATTING REQUIREMENTS

BOOK REVIEWS

• Book reviews must start with the citation of the book at the top of the first page.

PAGE LAYOUT and SPACING

• Page size must be 8.5 x 11-inches ("letter" size). Do not use A4.

• All margins (left, right, top and bottom) must be 1.5 inches (3.8 cm), including your tables and figures.

• Single space your text.

• Use a single column layout with both left and right margins justified. (Footnotes and references must be both left- and right- justified as well.)

• Indent all paragraphs except those following a section heading.

• An indent should be at least 10 em-spaces.

• Equations, long quotations, theorems, propositions, special remarks, tables, figures, etc. should be set off from the surrounding text by additional space above and below. Otherwise, do not insert an extra space between paragraphs of text.

• Do not "widow" or "orphan" text; make sure that headings are on the same page as the text that follows them, and do not begin a page with the last line of a paragraph. This also applies to titles or notes attached to tables.

• There should be no pages where more than a quarter of the page is empty space, unless it is absolutely impossible to do so.

• All text should be fully justified, left and right (i.e., flush with the left and right margins).

FONTS
TYPE and SIZE

We cannot accept Type3 fonts. The following is a brief guide to fonts with respect to layout.

• Font:

  • Main Body—12 pt. Times or the closest comparable font available

  • Equations—12 pt. Times or the closest comparable font available

  • Footnotes—10 pt. Times or the closest comparable font available

  • Tables, graphs & figures—Text accompanying graphs, figures and tables should be no smaller than 8 pt.

FONT FACES
Use Times or the closest comparable font available, except, possibly, where special symbols are needed. If you desire a second font, for instance for headings, use a sans serif font (e.g., Arial or Computer Modern Sans Serif).

COLORED TEXT

• Set the font color to black for the majority of the text. De Gruyter encourages authors to take advantage of the ability to use color in the production of figures, maps, images, and graphs. However, you need to appreciate that this will cause some of your readers problems when they print the document on a black and white printer. For this reason, you are advised to avoid the use of colors in situations where their translation to black and white would render the material illegible or incomprehensible.

• Please ensure that there are no colored mark-ups or comments in the final version, unless they are meant to be part of the final text. (You may need to "accept all changes" in track changes or set your document to "normal" in final markup.)

EMPHASIZED TEXT, TITLES, and FOREIGN TERMS

• To indicate text you wish to emphasize, use italics rather than underlining. The use of color to emphasize text is discouraged.

• Foreign terms should be set in italics rather than underlined.

• Titles of books, movies, etc., should be set in italics rather than underlined.

HEADINGS
Headings (e.g., title of sections) should be distinguished from the main body text by their fonts or by using small caps.

• Use the same font face for all headings and indicate the hierarchy by reducing the font size.

• Put space above and below headings. Spacing must be consistent around all headings.

• Be consistent in whether or not you use headline case, or you capitalize the first word and leave the rest in lower-case.

FOOTNOTES

• Footnotes must appear at the bottom of the page on which they are referenced rather than at the end of the paper.

• Footnotes must be in 10 pt. Times or closest comparable font available.

• They must be single spaced, and there must be a footnote separator rule (line).

• Please make sure there is no excess blank space above or below the footnote line divider.

• Footnote numbers or symbols in the text must follow, rather than precede, punctuation.

• Excessively long footnotes are better handled in an appendix.

• All footnotes should be fully justified, left and right (i.e., flush with the left and right margins).

TABLES, FIGURES & GRAPHS

• If figures are included, use high-resolution figures, preferably encoded as encapsulated * PostScript (eps).

• To the extent possible, tables and figures should appear in the document near where they are referenced in the text.

• Large tables or figures should be put on pages by themselves.

• Make sure to use at least 8 pt. font size in tables, figures and graphs.

• Everything must be easily readable when viewed on a computer screen at 100% and when physically printed.

• In no case should tables or figures be in a separate document or file. All tables and figures must fit within 1.5" margins on all sides (top, bottom, left and right) in both portrait and landscape view.

MATHEMATICS and EQUATIONS

• Roman letters used in mathematical expressions as variables must be italicized. Roman letters used as part of multi-letter function names should not be italicized. Subscripts and superscripts must be a smaller font size than the main text.

• Use 12 pt. Times or the closest comparable font available

• Type short mathematical expressions inline.

• Longer expressions must appear as display math, as must expressions using many different levels (e.g., such as fractions).

• Important definitions or concepts can also be set off as display math.

• Number your equations sequentially.

• Insert a blank line before and after each equation.

• Whether equation numbers are on the right or left is the choice of the author(s). However, make sure to be consistent in this.

• Avoid symbols and notation in unusual fonts. This will not only enhance the clarity of the manuscript, but it will also help ensure that it displays correctly on the reader's screen and prints correctly.

• When proofing your document, pay particular attention to the rendering of the mathematics, especially symbols and notation drawn from other-than-standard fonts.

REFERENCES
REFERENCES WITHIN TEXT

• Within the text of your manuscript, use the author-date method of citation. For instance, "As noted by Smith (1776)."

• When there are two authors, use both last names. For instance, "Edlin and Reichelstein (1996) claim … "

• If there are three or more authors give the last name of the first author and append et al. For instance, a 1987 work by Abel, Baker, and Charley, would be cited as "Abel et al. (1987)."

• If two or more cited works share the same authors and dates, use "a," "b," and so on to distinguish among them. For instance, "Jones (1994b) provides a more general analysis of the model introduced in Example 3 of Jones (1994a)."

• After the first cite in the text using the author-date method, subsequent cites can use just the last names if that would be unambiguous. For example, Edlin and Reichelstein (1996) can be followed by just Edlin and Reichelstein provided no other Edlin and Reichelstein article is referenced; if one is, then the date must always be attached.

• When citations appear within parentheses, use commas—rather than parentheses or brackets—to separate the date from the surrounding text. For instance, " … (see Smith, 1776, for an early discussion of this)."

REFERENCES WITHIN TEXT

Note: Please use in-text citations (the parenthetical/Harvard referencing system) instead of footnotes or endnotes for citations.

0. Using the author-date method, the in-text citation is placed in parentheses after the sentence or part thereof that the citation supports, and includes the author's name, year of publication, and a page number where appropriate (Smith, 2008:15). A full citation is given in the references section.

1. The page number or page range is omitted if the entire work is cited (Smith, 2008).

2. The author's surname is omitted if it appears in the text. Thus we may say: "Jones (2001) revolutionized the field of surgery."

3. Two authors are cited using "and": (Schwartz and Jones, 2011). More than two authors are cited using "et al.": (Smith et al., 1992).

4. Separate multiple citations of different authors by a semicolon (Smith et al., 1992; Jones, 2001).

5. Separate multiple citations of the same author by a comma (Jones, 2001, 2005).

6. For multiple citations of the same author and the same year append letters, "a, b, c" to the citation and the bibliographic reference following the year (Smith 2004a, 2004b).

It is the author's obligation to provide complete references with the necessary information, correctly formatted. Our editors do not check this.

0. The reference section must always be the last section in the structure of the manuscript.

1. After the last sentence of your submission (text or appendix), please insert a line break—not a page break—and begin your references on the same page.

2. Do not split an individual reference between two pages.

3. References must be in alphabetical order and have margins that are both left- and right- justified. You may choose not to right-justify the margin of individual references if the spacing looks too awkward (around URLs, for example).

4. Citations should be single-spaced with no extra space between citations.

5. Use hanging indents for citations (i.e., the first line of the citation should be flush with the left margin and all other lines should be indented from the left margin by a set amount). Citations should be single-spaced with extra space between citations.

Within the references section, the citations must be formatted as below:

Miettinen, O. S. and Cook, E. F. (1981). Confounding: essence and detection. American Journal of Epidemiology, 114:593-603.
Rothman, K. J., Greenland, S., and Lash, T.L. (2008). Modern Epidemiology. 3rd Edition. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.