Author Information

Author Tips & Guidelines

We have a lot of Information for Authors. Our hope is that this welcome message will help you get started. And please note that submitting a paper (to us anyway!) is not like submitting a grant — if we find a problem we will work with you to fix it. If you decide you filled in one of the questions or options wrong, you can amend it later. We believe in teamwork — we all want the best science possible.

If you have questions not easily answered by the website, contact information is at the bottom of this page. Note that the editorial office is who to contact for help with submission system, to understand options such as “page charges” or “open access” (not the same thing), even questions of style, can we waive the request to have figures at the end of the paper instead of interspersed — those sorts of questions. If you have a question about science — is my topic desired in this journal, can my paper be waived the requirement for an Implication — those science questions should be asked to the editor (if you cannot find that information in the Scope and Mission). The scope of the journal can also be determined by looking at the variety of associate editors on the masthead.

Overview of everything: Author Infographic

New Easy-to-Use Author Submission: Submission Infographic

Do we have regular papers, Reviews, special collections, Letters for fast-track publication? Yes we do! More information at this link: Scope and Mission

Are you wondering about Open Access? Wondering about page charges, color charges, author benefits for MSA members? Find that here: Financial Info and Open Access

Preparing Your Paper: Every journal has a particular style for nomenclature, units, page size, fonts, affiliations, abstracts, captions, and everything you can think of. Do your best, but please know that we want you to concentrate on the Science — the logic, flow, and meaning of your paper — more than the details. Detailed info can be found on this page.

Note that Regular and Letter papers must have an Implications section per the Editor’s request.

Note that CIFs have special requirements (if you don’t know what a crystallographic information file is — then likely this doesn’t apply to you). CIF info

Note that it truly helps the reviewers and editors to have each figure labeled somewhere below or above, for example here, Figures

Note that using consistent abbreviations, nomenclature, mineral names and so on is important to convey sense easily to all readers. Whitney and Evans is a good key to mineral names. Reference Examples

Submit your paper to our online submission site. Instructions and FAQs will be the first thing you see after you create an account and log in. There are 4 main Tabs, and a “next” button takes you step-by-step through the screens.

  • Once you create an account, you will always have it and can submit more papers, and your name appears in the database of potential reviewers as well.
  • Know your co-authors! Have everyone’s email and contact info ready to go — but also note — there’s a find-a-person search option, if they are already in the system, you can find them and ask the fields to auto-fill. Just be sure the email address is still correct because they change frequently.
  • Top Ten Tips for Submission: Top Eleven Tips

New Submission Checklist (PDF)

Revised Paper Checklist (PDF) for revisions only

If you need a human, email us at peer_review@minsocam.org and masthead info is here: List of Editors and AE’s. Noted Papers and all other interesting info is here: AmMineral

Authorship Statement: Authorship is first a responsibility. Not all workers in a lab or office will want this responsibility although they may be delighted to help you, brainstorm, proofread, or other colleague aid. Authorship is defined as (1) substantial contributions to conception and design of the specific experiment, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; or (3) final approval of the version to be published. Finally, again, (4) all authors must agree to authorship. Authorship cannot be a gift or a surprise. If you are a single author, and you wrote the paper as a graduate student or post-doc, please let us know the name and contact info your then supervisor/mentor. (The place to thank people is in Acknowledgments.)


In case of any ethical or conflict of interest situations, MSA is guided by “The Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors” of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). COPE website: https://publicationethics.org/.

COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers, English version
COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers, Chinese version

AI/Chat-GPT warning. We are following the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines for authorship. COPE has been guiding ethics in scholarly publishing for over 25 years. Use this link for details and information: ​COPE position statement on authorship and AI tools.

Brief Scope: American Mineralogist is an international journal that publishes mineralogical papers of broad interest to the geoscience and materials science community. Manuscripts whose implications are of only regional interest or those that do not have a significant, broad scientific impact on the readership will not be accepted for publication by American Mineralogist. In your cover letter, authors must explain the importance of their research, and why their results would be of interest to an international audience. For more information on Am Min’s Scope & Mission, click here.

American Mineralogist expects authors performing research involving sample collection to acquire the samples responsibly and abide by all rules and regulations of sample collection and export for those localities in which they work. This is particularly true for samples that may have cultural or historical significance. Furthermore, we expect that local people will be involved in the research and hope that local scientists’ contributions to the research are sufficient for co-authorship on papers emerging from the research. If the contributions do not rise to the level of co-authorship American Mineralogist expects those contributions to be explicitly stated in the “Acknowledgments” section of the manuscript.

Brief Open Access Info: Submissions that are accepted must not be already published online on any preprint archive, unless the authors are willing and intend for the paper to be Open Access. See below if open access/open archive is desired or needed. All Open Access/Archive fees must be paid before publication, at the proof stage. MSA is the publisher; we do not belong to De Gruyter’s Rightslink although we are pleased they are a distributor of the journal. We are not at this time a transformative journal.

Open Access & Open Archive Info

 

For Open Access and Lithosphere click here – hint: this is Plan S compliant.

There are many forms of Open Access and Open Archives in the science publishing community. Open access, free supplementary data repository, preprints, reprints, and e-links are all available — we have the full array of the latest publishing options to help you comply with your funding agency’s requirements. Authors are responsible for knowing and fulfilling their funding requirements.

Open Access. At MSA, open access (often called Gold Open Access) means the full text of an article in the journal posted on the MSA website or on GeoScienceWorld/DeGruyter is made freely available to read to anyone from the moment it is published by the authors paying the article processing fee. Our open access fees are priced at the per page creation cost to us. (For full financial details, click here.) The author(s) may also link to the article from any other site (or download the file). For now, the article processing fee is on the same online form as the page charges and other ordering info, which is sent with the proof to the corresponding author (although authors may split the costs up if necessary). Note: all fees must be paid in full before your article can be guaranteed a spot in any particular issue, even if you have already been given an issue date and change your mind and decide to choose open access fees.

We are able offer two “Creative Commons” licenses if Open Access authors need or desire those; following acceptance a letter is sent with a link that allows authors to choose and complete our MSA licensure form or instead choose and complete one of two CC options.

Public Access: If you are required to make the peer-reviewed accepted manuscript version of your paper freely available 12 months post-publication, often called Green Open Access, you retain the right to do so in the License to Publish agreement with MSA. In fact, starting in January 2014, we contact all the corresponding authors 12 months –post-publication (i.e., starting with the January 2013 authors) and aid them in this task.

Note that this is not the edited, proofread, and typeset version available on GSW/DeGru and MSA websites and in print. It is actually the preprint version. To make the final typeset version freely available, choose open access or open archive. Also note that any particular funder may have other requirements (from filing or posting in a specific repository to metadata); authors are responsible for any and all of these.

Open Archives: Self-archiving and institutional repositories means the accepted article in any version is posted and made available on another institution’s website, presumably for free to anyone. MSA will permit and, if needed, provide a pdf file for self-archiving of any article for which an author pays full article processing fee (details here), which is the per page creation cost. The organization is encouraged to link to the article on the MSA site via an e-link, rather than hosting the file themselves. At this time, authors will find complete information about open access, open archive, e-links and other options on the form sent with the proof of their paper.

Another option that may be useful to authors as well as fulfill funding requirements is an “e-link.” The e-link– whether sent in an email to an inquirer or colleague or posted on a c.v. website or other internet or intranet site– takes the user to the version of the paper on GeoScienceWorld (GSW). The user can see the full article in html and PDF as well as use other GSW features. This is a free member benefit for authors who are MSA members or available for a small fee otherwise.

Open Access Chart for American Mineralogist

Publishing TypePage Charges?Color Print Charges?Online Color for Non-MSA Members Charges?Accepted Version Ms Available 12 months Post-Publication?Article Processing Fee (APF) Payment Required Prior to Publication?APF Allows Immediate Access to Mina Version of Paper Upon Publication Date?CC-BY and CC-BY-NC-ND Options?E-link: Provides Behind the Paywall Access to the Article?
Normal/TraditionalWaived Will NeedYesYesYesNoNoNoFree to MSA Members/ Small Fee
Gold Open AccessNoIncludedIncludedNot NecessaryYesYesYesNot Necessary
Green (Public Access)Yes - If PossibleYesYesYesNoNoNoFree to MSA Members/ Small Fee

Chart Usage Examples:

  • If Author Smith has a requirement to use a CC-BY license, then she must choose OA and pay the APF.
  • If Author Zhang has a requirement to be free to all readers after 12 months post-publication and the accepted manuscript is satisfactory for this, they need not pay the APC, but just wait. However they have full responsibility for delivering it to their funder as necessary, including providing metadata or other needs.
  • If Author Mendoza needs to be open to all readers sooner than 12 months, she must opt for Open Access and pay the APF (choose which ever license she wants).
  • If Author Gunter has extra grant money and wants everyone to read his paper, he can opt for OA, pay the APF, but retain his copyright by using the MSA license.
  • If Author Webster has a requirement publish in a non-hybrid journal, they should plan to submit directly to our publishing partner, Lithosphere.

Summary Information of Author Charges

Note: American Mineralogist is published by Mineralogical Society of America.

American Mineralogist depends on the revenue from author charges to supplement subscription income to keep institutional subscription costs low. The cost of producing and delivering a single typeset page of content is over 60% higher than the page charge fee, and substantially higher than the cost of reprints. For this reason, MSA asks its authors to make every effort to purchase reprints or to obtain page charge support from their grants and institutions. However, publication is not contingent on payment of author charges.

Fees/Options for Articles

*Page charges: $100 per (typeset) page.

If you wish to estimate your page charge cost before receiving typeset proofs, we suggest a very rough guideline of 3 submitted pages (double-spaced text, 1 page per firgure/table) = 1 typeset page. Full payment is not required for publication, but even partial payments are appreciated. This can be indicated when you receive your invoice link.

*Gold Open Access Article Processing Fees

Am Min now offers a two Tier fee structure, which we hope will greatly streamline the process for authors to anticipate the amount due and begin arranging the payment as soon as the invoice is received.

Tier 1: $1,000 (Letter papers)
Tier 2: $2,500 (Regular papers, 3-12 pages); $4,500 (Articles exceeding 12 pages)

Note that until the article processing fee (APF) is paid in full, the article cannot be assigned an issue and finished. The APF includes color figures in print and online and waives the page charges. (If your funding agency requires it, CC-BY and CC-BY-NC-ND are alternative licensure options with Gold Open Access. If your funding requirement is to be Open Access prior to 12 months post-publication, this is the option you need to use. Authors are responsible for understanding their funders’ requirements.) Disclaimer: If you choose to revert to a regular article after the proof return deadline for your paper, because the APF cannot be paid, there may be a $325 administrative fee depending on the timeframe. Also converting to an Open Access paper past the proof return deadline for your paper, may also incur a $325 administrative fee.

*Green Open Access: Twelve (12) months post-publication authors may use the accepted version of their manuscript, not the final typeset (published) version. This is the same as your early publication document (or paper in press, also known as the Author Accepted Manuscript, AAM). If you cannot abide by the 12 month embargo, for example, by needing to post the AAM version in a repository upon publication of the final version, then you should use the Gold Open Access option above. UKRI authors should contact email editorial@minsocam.org for a discussion of options.

Fees/Options for Figures

*Color figures in print and online: $600 (per article, not per figure, up to 16 pages typeset); for articles over 16 pages, the fee is $900. Carefully consider the cost when drafting your paper, tables, and figures. Any figure or table material may be uploaded as an online deposit for no charge, and it would be available as a link on the Am Min table of contents, at no cost to readers.

*Online-only color figures: $100 (per article, not per figure)

*There is no charge to publish figures in grayscale/black and white.

Did you know MSA Members receive free online-only color as a benefit? (Join here)

Miscellaneous Options

*Various quantities of reprints are available for purchase, but must be ordered before publication of the print volume. Further information is sent during production.

*E-link (electronic reprint): free with no expiration to MSA members (as of March 2022).

*Limited E-link (electronic reprint): As of April 2022, the corresponding author receives an e-mail with the article’s unique URL that can be shared with readers via e-mail or on a website(s). The link expires at 12 months. The link takes the reader to the GSW version of the article, behind the subscriber paywall. Persistent access (>12mo) is available to MSA members; join if you haven’t already and send us your member number to receive the upgraded link.

*Official MSA presentations, such as a memorial, award papers, or book reviews are not expected to pay page charges, although it is greatly appreciated.

Payment Options

*Using our web-based system, you will click the Invoice link in your email to verify the billing and shipping info and enter your payment method. Invoices and receipts (for credit cards) will be sent automatically. There are three ways you can pay: credit card, check, and wire transfer (fee included). Receipts for checks and wire transfer payments take longer due to processing time.

* For most authors, the invoice is sent as soon as the number of pages is determined. If you need to pay sooner due to expiring funds or other unique circumstances, email editorial@minsocam.org.

*Payment can be made online via a credit card or an invoice can be printed out and turned in to your funding office. It greatly helps if your funding office can use the web-based system. Bank transfer and other information appears directly on the invoice itself as well, if necessary. Most importantly, corresponding author name and manuscript number must appear on any check or wire transfer payment. Failure to do so can result in significant delays in processing and may affect publication of your article.

Contact Info:

MSA Business Office Info: authorcharges_service@minsocam.org (reference manuscript no. in the subject line); 703-652-9950.

Questions on a specific paper or how to use the web form, contact: editorial@minsocam.org

Let’s Get to Peer Review Quickly

Tips for Submissions

  1. Know your co-authors! Be prepared with contact info, especially the correct emails.
  2. Have Implications” in your paper.
  3. Read the Info for Authors!
  4. Figures don’t forget to proof the text in your figures carefully!
  5. Cover letter attached.
  6. Tables at the end of your file.
  7. Have strong artwork: readable fonts (remember to embed fonts), thick lines.
  8. Got “CIFs”? Submit just one CIF file.
  9. No Conclusions, or summary, at the end of your paper—summary is for the Abstract.
  10. Use MathType/Equation Editor for display equations only.
  11. Part of a Special Collection? Remember to select the name from the pull-down list.

To clear your temporary internet files. This link shows how to clear Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Sarari, and Chrome.

Proofs

Overview: Proofs are sent to authors via e-mail. With our new web-based system, authors access their PDF file by clicking a link. Authors will use this link multiple times: to download proofs, then upload corrections. There is a comment box for very short lists of corrections or short notes to staff. The system automatically files the proof with the paper, alerts us, and keeps everything on track.

Check out this helpful “how to” Quicktime video presented by the managing editor. It shows the screens and basic process of downloading and uploading your proof files.

It is important to return proof corrections within 5 days of receipt to avoid publication delays. The new web-based proofs system will improve communication with authors and be much easier for authors. Do not hesitate to contact editorial@minsocam.org with any questions or concerns.

Software requirements: It advised to obtain the most recent version of Adobe Acrobat Reader (free to download), which is necessary for viewing page proofs and other aspects of the submission and review process. Of course Acrobat professional version will work perfectly too.

Changes in proofs: Changes made at the page-proof stage are time consuming, expensive, and are logically discouraged. An author who makes extensive changes in text (such as rewriting passages or changing data on tables) may be billed as a result of the additions or deletions. Re-doing of figures because of an author’s changes can also be charged to the author. However, there is no charge for answering Editor queries or correcting scientific mistakes.

Returning page proofs: Authors will be advised of the timeframe in which page proofs are due to arrive when their manuscript is accepted. If they expect to be away during that time, it is their responsibility to provide the Editorial Office with an alternative e-mail address, if necessary, to which the page proofs may be sent or to make other arrangements for the proofs to be checked and returned. Authors have 5 business days from the date the proofs arrive to return them to the Editorial Office. All proof procedures are explained with the proof.

Page charges: It is humbly requested that all authors who are able pay their page charges. Details will be included in your proofs e-mail. There are a variety of ways to contribute financially to the production of your paper and support the Society.

Page Charges and Offprints
 

Background: MSA is a nonprofit society funding the journal primarily with a subscriber-based economic model. Subscriptions to online versions or the traditional print version are kept as low in cost as possible by offsets from author page charges and other revenue. To keep Am Min viable, if the paper is to be freely available to all readers concurrently or previously to publication, then the author must pay the open access/archive charges (and the paper will also be open to all readers on our websites). For institutional/funding requirements it is possible that an inexpensive post-publication “e-link” may suffice. Any details can be discussed with the managing editor before submission.

Page charges: Authors are requested to pay a set rate per page for page charges, although current publication costs are considerably higher than the requested amount. Payment of page charges is not a condition of acceptance for manuscript publication; however, MSA depends largely on the revenue generated from page charges and reprint orders to keep journal subscription costs low. For this reason, authors are asked to make every effort to obtain funds for page charges or reprints from their granting agency or institution.

Authors who pay page charges may receive up to 100 offprints and an “e-link” of their paper with this option if desired. Authors can also purchase additional offprints (also called reprints). (An “e-link” is a url code you can e-mail or post on a website that allows anyone access to the full text of your paper on GeoScienceWorld with no expiration.)

Other options: Authors may also order offprints, without paying page charges, if funds do not allow. If the first author is an MSA member ((join here)), but cannot pay page charges or order offprints, they are eligible for a complementary “e-link” as a member benefit.

Orders shipped to non-U.S. addresses are by surface delivery at no extra charge; airmail first class service for faster service costs extra.

Agreed upon figure related costs (full color and online color) can also be addressed on the offprint/page charge form.

Authors of memorials, review papers, and official MSA presentations are exempt from page charges, but may opt to receive complementary reprints and/or the “e-link” of their paper.

Details of fees can be found at https://msaweb.org/MSA/AmMin/authorinfo/#charges.

Online form: The page charge/offprint form with the page-charge order and billing instructions is now on the web; a link to the URL accompanies page proofs. A response should be returned to the MSA Business Office at the same time page proofs are returned to the Editorial Office; any purchase order forms required by the author’s institution may be sent at a later time. Please submit your form only once. If changes become necessary, contact the Editorial office directly.

Crystallographic Data (CIF) info for American Mineralogist

Introduction

The CIF (crystallographic information file) format is the de facto standard for communicating all sorts of crystallographic information. In particular it is used to archive crystal structure data, combined with experimental and refinement details.

Manuscripts reporting results of crystal structure refinements must be accompanied by a CIF providing the structural data. To ensure quality and integrity of the crystallographic data, the submitted CIF will be reviewed by the Am Min technical editing team. After publication of the manuscript, the CIFs will be made available as supplementary material on the Am Min webpages. They may also be deposited into databases, such as the AMCSD (American Mineralogist Crystal Structure Database) and the COD (Crystallography Open Database).

Since a CIF contains atomic fractional coordinates and displacement parameters as well as sample measurement conditions, separate tables listing these parameters are generally unnecessary. Exceptions include brief tables of crystallographic parameters (such as selected bond lengths or bond valence sums) that are central to the discussion in the paper, especially if the tables help the reader to understand the comparison of multiple structures.

Submission Guidelines

Only one CIF should be submitted with a manuscript. If more than one structure refinement is reported in a manuscript, each structure refinement must be a separate data block in the CIF. Do not compress or otherwise modify the CIF for submission. The filename extension must be ‘.cif’.

Detailed information about CIF requirements for manuscripts submitted to American Mineralogist, help and advice, are in the AmMinCifGuide.pdf.

Minimum CIF Requirements

The minimum requirements for a CIF submitted to American Mineralogist are, in brief:

  1. It must conform to the CIF syntax as defined by the (IUCr).
  2. It must contain appropriate information about composition, mineral name, and locality/source.
  3. It must contain the unit cell parameters, symmetry information and space group, the fractional coordinates and displacement parameters of the atoms.
  4. The experimental conditions (temperature, pressure) and basic information about the experiment (radiation, diffraction measurement type) must be reported.
  5. The reported data must be physically-reasonable and crystallographically consistent.
  6. It must contain all structures reported in the manuscript. Only one CIF is to be submitted per manuscript.

An example of a CIF meeting these minimal requirements can be downloaded from here.

Additional Information Policy

Authors often decide to include more information into the cif file than the “minimal requirements”. We strongly encourage authors to include as much information as possible; the more information that you include in the CIF, the more valuable the data is to other researchers, and the higher the likelihood that your results will be used and cited by others! Please make sure that all of the data is consistent with the manuscript (distances/angles, refinement details, etc.). If structure factors are submitted, they have to be formatted using the cif syntax and to be included in the cif file to make sure they can easily be used by other authors.

An example of a CIF that includes extended information can be found here. Further details in the AmMinCifGuide.pdf

Creating A CIF

Most modern diffractometer control software packages, data reduction software, and structure refinement programs will produce a CIF for you. They will also produce data tables from the CIF. You are strongly recommended to use these facilities to avoid any manual editing of crystallographic data, and thus avoid inevitable “cut and paste” errors. The recommended sequence of tasks for producing a CIF is:

  1. Perform data collection and reduction, and then structure refinement.
  2. Collate the CIF fragments produced in each step to one cif for one structure.
  3. Validate the CIF at the IUCr (http://journals.iucr.org/services/cif/checking/checkbasic.html)
  4. If more than one structure refinement is being reported, join the individual cifs together in to a master CIF, and lock it against any editing.
  5. Create the data tables and figures for the manuscript from the data in the master CIF.
  6. Submit the manuscript and the CIF.

Quality Checklist

  1. The cif is free of syntax errors/warnings from encifer (more info about encifer available at the link above)
  2. All the data are correct and correspond to the tables in manuscript
  3. The chemical composition is correct; the formula_sum matches the refined structure (site occupancies)
  4. There are no significant warnings given by checkcif
  5. I understand that the TETeam will laugh at me and happily reject the cif if it does not match the requirements.

CIF Resources

American Mineralogist CIF guide: AmMinCifGuide.pdf and example here:

IUCr cif resources: http://www.iucr.org/resources/cif

IUCr Cif Guide for authors: http://journals.iucr.org/b/services/cifguide.html

IUCr online cif checker: http://journals.iucr.org/services/cif/checking/checkbasic.html

Encipher program to edit cifs: http://www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/Solutions/FreeSoftware/Pages/EnCIFer.aspx

publCIF for checking CIFs and producing tables: http://journals.iucr.org/services/cif/publcif

Program to remove illegal characters from a CIF: www.rossangel.com

Program to tabulate data from multiple data blocks in one cif (for example from variable P or T studies) www.rossangel.com

You can download a Minimal CIF – here.

You can download a Maximal CIF – here.

Deposit Items & Data Sets

Supplementary material will be placed in MSA’s free to use, free to read depository, which is located online (click on any Table of Contents, look for a deposit item and click the link). Here’s an example of our data page. Starting in 2016, deposit links are located next to the issue in the TOC grid.

Almost any content, including tables, figures, and data sets may be deposited and do not have to comply with the official Am Min style guidelines. (Although CIF guidelines are strictly enforced.) In general, deposit materials will appear exactly as the author prepared them. Since deposit material is supposed to last for a long time, using plain txt, PDF, Excel, or other “universal” format is advised; but any format is accepted. It would also be beneficial to your paper, if the metadata of the item included author(s) name(s), title of the paper, and other keyword information as possible.

Submission Requirements

An electronic copy of deposit/supplementary materials, figures, tables, CIFs, additional methods information, and even movies should be uploaded to the peer review system when you submit your paper. Contact the Editorial office regarding any questions or concerns about special format files or for transmitting the files by ftp.

In most cases, the Editorial office will add the “branding” needed to identify the published version of your article. However, it is very helpful and a “best practice” for authors to put at the top of the file last name, year of publication, and American Mineralogist. Authors with many deposits will be asked to do this in the production phase if they have not.

CIFs: These data have specific requirements and are vetted in peer review. See CIF guidelines.

Supplemental Data Sets

If you deposit data related to your research in public data repositories, whether with your institution, Figshare, Dryad, or other, we will enable hyperlinks to that data if you provide an URL, especially if your funding requires that your data be deposited and linked. The format can be to simply embed this in the method’s text, but it could also be treated as a reference and cited and listed as any reference. If another person’s data is used, be sure to reference that in the References List, and call it out in the paper, basically as you would any citation (author(s), year, title, repository info/name, and the persistent link). The specific persistent link could be a DOI or any other format.

We encourage authors to do this; the community of science now and in the future may find the raw data or big data invaluable. Furthermore, think of your deposited data set, and our link to it, as a discovery tool for your paper. Finally, this should aid those of you with funding requirements that require linking of data to the published paper.

For Consideration:

Please consider making some Figures, Tables or even a portion of your paper “supplementary data”, if you have a large paper (over 50 pages raw, counting each figure as 1 page). Very approximately, every 3 pages deposited reduces the final typeset version by 1 page. Evidence-based publishing indicates that shorter articles are more often read/cited than longer articles. And if your paper is Open Access, that reduces your APF; or your reprint costs for a regular paper. Of course MSA is interested in reducing costs; however, if the science needs the space then that is important to communicate to the editor.

A common concern about deposit materials is that readers will not click the url or the url will break in future years or the paper will just be incomplete. To solve that consider depositing the material in Dryad, Figshare, etc. — options at the bottom of this page although are many such services and you can use the one you wish. They will supply you with an DOI — a digital object identifier — and you let us know what that is and we embed that into the paper. Many advantages — the DOI will always work, the material is linked to you and to the paper, the deposit material is not under embargo of any sort, it is typically free to all readers, it is another discovery tool for the paper. Let us know how this works for you so we can improve our information for authors.

Authors can supply us with DOIs for data if they wish, the data that is often requested by funders, etc. but isn’t really a part of the paper.

Resources

Not in any priority order, a list that will likely grow over time of “data resources”. Contact us with any suggestions.

MANUSCRIPT INFORMATION

Submission Site

AmMin submission process  through the acceptance of a “first” publication takes approximately three to four months. Our acceptance to “final” publication is presently an additional 13 months on average.

Manuscript Types & Preparation

The manuscript guidelines identifies the types, components and formats accepted by American Mineralogist. We have organized the information in helpful sections to make reference easier.