Manuscript Information & Preparation

Manuscript Types

Manuscript Formats

* Note: Although LaTex or Tex files can be uploaded to the peer review system, accepted manuscripts must be provided as doc(x) or .rtf files. Likewise, WordPerfect format files are not permitted.

# Express option: want to upload just one file? You can insert tables and figures at the end of the text in a .doc or .rtf file and thus upload just one Article File. But if accepted (or on revision), then each image must be supplied upon request as a proper high-resolution figure file. (A whole PDF could be uploaded as well, but unless you put line numbers on it, it will not have line numbers. Please do try to include line numbers.)

The parts of the manuscript should appear in this order:

1. 1. Title
   2. Word Count
   3. Authors and affiliations
   4. Abstract and keywords
   5. Body of paper with Implications section (required)
   6. Acknowledgments, if desired
   7. References cited list
   8. List of figure captions
   9. Appendix text (if any), Footnote, Deposit Items (text)
   10. Tables
   11. Figures
   12. Supplemental Files – Generally, they are not included in the paper but are in separate file(s)

Titles should be concise, but descriptive and indicate the basic importance of the paper.

Word Count: Above the title to the right or left, please put your word count, e.g. “Word Count: 7899”. If near or over 10,000 words please explain the need in the cover letter.

Author list: To facilitate web discoverability and protect authorship, it is generally recommended that authors spell out first names rather than use initials only– unless for some reason you are known and established in the literature by your initials.

Affiliations: Please give complete addresses, including postal codes. Add a footnote for authors who have moved (to give a Present address).

Abstract guidelines: Should be 250-800 words (max!); concise; capture broad interest; indicate why results are significant; indicate suitability to an international audience; include important numbers/ranges; followed by list of keywords. Cut and paste your full abstract on OSS. More information here.

You want to entice people who skim abstracts to click on your paper. These are the basic components of a good abstract (adjust these to fit your paper):

1. Motivation/problem statement: Why do we care about the problem? What practical, scientific, theoretical or other gap is your research filling?
2. Methods/procedure/approach: What did you actually do to get your results?
3. Results/findings/product: As a result of completing the above procedure, what did you learn?
4. (1) Conclusion/Implications: What are the larger implications of your findings, especially for the problem/gap identified in 1 above?

General text details:

• Use American (not British) spelling conventions.
• Be sure to use proper super- and subscripts, not raised or lowered type.
• Use boldface and italic fonts appropriately and consistently. In general, variables are italic; vectors are bold. Molar concentrations are plain M (not italic).
• Close up percent signs with terms, i.e., wt%, mol%, etc.
• Terms from “Latin” such as “et al.” and “ab initio” are kept in Roman/plain style and not italic. The exception is biological species names.
• Spell out the units in the text if not accompanied by a unit. Example: several inches vs. 23 cm.
• A zero should precede the decimal point for values less than one, e.g., 0.25 rather than “.25”. (Decimal points are periods, never commas.)
• Polytypes (letters) are italic (e.g., 2M1) but site labels are plain, e.g., M1, O(2).
• Note that “micro”, “pseudo” and “multi” are not words by themselves, combine with words or hyphenate, e.g., microanalysis, pseudo-Voigt.
• Do not use the word “micron” in text, figures, or tables. Use micrometer or μm.
• Other abbreviations (plain type); cf. = compare; e.g., = for example; et al. = and others; etc. = and other things; i.e., = that is; p./pp. = page(s); vs. = versus.

Special characters/notations:

• Use the “Symbol” font for greek letters as much as possible. Note: Greek letters are already “special” and should not be further italicized.
• Do not use handmade characters such as lowercase, superscript “o” for the degree sign.
• DO use Equation Editor for display equations that are complicated; this is not necessary for small inline expressions, such as stacked characters or overbars. If X0i is your expression, we will know to stack it. Or you can say {note to typesetting} if you are concerned about notation at any point, for example {note to typesetting, these minus signs are overbars on top of the 1}.
• Many common notations are familiar to our staff, i.e., fO2 (2 would be subscript to O) and overbars. When we aren’t sure, we leave things as they appear on the submitted manuscript. Feel free to include notes to typesetting to help us out.

Equations:

• Use Word Equation Editor or MathType to create display equations.
• If you refer to an equation in the text, use display equations (set off from the text) and number them sequentially, like this “(1)”. Simple equations can be typed by hand rather than using a special tool.
• Also use display equations when labels (such as mineral names) have to be lined up beneath formulas, with a note to typesetting if necessary.
• For equations that are not referred to by number, keep them in line with the text as much as possible.

Acknowledgments: The acknowledgments section should be brief but inclusive. Please double check grant numbers and spelling of personal and company names. Do not use titles, such as Dr.

Only three orders of headings may be used. Note if subheadings are used, there must be at least two (e.g., two or more 2nd/3rd-order headings under a superior-order heading; a single 2nd/3rd-order heading by itself is not allowed). Descriptions follow and are also examples:

Guide to Tables

Tables to be typeset with the paper need to be a way to convey information efficiently and the information must be integral to immediately understanding the paper. Tables that may deepen understanding and help reproduce your paper should be Online Materials. These materials are just as important as the paper. Preserving them in the original format and making them downloadable will aid other researchers in their work and expand your work. For papers whose funders would like all data to be available to researchers, we recommend a service such as FigShare — we can embed an URL but a DOI would be safer and longer-lasting.

Format: Ideally the format is Microsoft Word or Excel, but we’ll use txt files as well if need be.

CIF (Crystallographic Information Files): Please click here.

• Table titles should be brief.
• The column headings have any appropriate units (in parentheses).
• Any headings within the table that apply to a block of data should be bold and centered.
• Footnotes end with periods.
• No vertical or diagonal rules/lines may be used. No shading.
• Column headings must be upright, not turned sideways.
• Brackets to delineate groups of data may be used only if necessary; the groups should be clearly marked on the submitted document!
• Use white space in the body of the table to separate sections.

Guide to Figures

Figure preparation can be viewed as having two stages: (1) Peer Review and (2) Production (after acceptance).

(1) Figure guidelines for Peer Review: In the web-based submission system, figures are uploaded for reviewers and editors. Most of the time they will be viewed solely on screen. Of course, be prepared to supply high-quality figures if accepted.

* Note, when uploading very large files, conversion to PDF might take a while. There is no need to contact our office unless conversion has not completed after 12 hours.

# Word (doc) accepted for peer review; figures only or at end of manuscript.

(2) Figure guidelines for Production: When your paper is accepted and goes to Production, then we evaluate the artwork submitted to the online system. High-quality figures are needed for production. If problems arise, we will work with authors to get press-quality images. **New requirement: Each figure should have the appropriate numerical label, e.g., Figure 1, Fig. 2, Figure 3a… somewhere on it (such as above, below, lower corner, etc.)**

* Fonts MUST be embedded.

Copyright Permissions:

All figures (tables, video, anything) requiring permission ought to have its copyright information acknowledged in the caption of that figure/table (even if the permission granted is pending this step). Use the following format: “Used by permission of Publishing Company, from Rambo and Pinko (20XX), Journal, vol. x, Fig. Y, p. z.”

A copy of the copyright permission letter is due to the Editorial office as soon as your paper is accepted (or as soon the letter is obtained). Failure to send us this letter will delay publication of your article. You will receive an email after acceptance with instructions on how to fill out the required paperwork; but do not delay in obtaining your copyright permissions once your paper is accepted.

Note: You need a letter of permission even if it is a photograph taken by a friend (unless s/he is a coauthor). Also, images from the Web, including Google and Wikipedia, cannot be used.

Resolution 101

General size guidelines: Assume most art will be 1 column in layout, which is approx. 3 inches (19 picas)– 2 column art can go up to 6.5 inches (39 picas). Do not use hairlines (make lines >0.5 pt thick). The smallest character or symbol on a figure should be 8 pt high to ensure readability. Use a sans serif font (like Helvetica) and be consistent. Remember to “embed” all fonts!

Note that there are 3 types of figures: plain line art, photographs, and combination art (a mixture of photographic and line art elements). Tip: Here is an easy way to test your resolution: view your artwork on a computer screen at 400% enlargement, are lines jagged? fuzzy? acceptable?
Ideal resolutions for Raster art (.tif): 1200 ppi/dpi for line art; 300 to 600 ppi/dpi for grayscale (shaded) art; 300 ppi/dpi for grayscale-photographic or color artwork. While PDFs and .eps artwork are vector (meaning they expand/contract and keep their set resolution), they will still have too low a resolution if low-resolution raster images are embedded inside.

• Color artwork: Should be CMYK (not RGB); if it is not color, make sure it is grayscale, not RGB or CMYK. Color fees are discussed here.
• TEM artwork needs special care because of the fine detail and repeating patterns that are difficult to capture on paper with ink in printing. Please use high-resolution images. If accepted, the proofs should be a guideline as to what authors will see and you can re-supply at that point if need be.
• Disclaimer. Neither the printer nor the American Mineralogist is responsible for the quality of the artwork you supply; a poor file is exactly the same as sending us a blurry photograph. The image in the journal will likewise be blurry. The quality of the final outcome is determined by your equipment, image resolution, and your ability to produce a quality file. We try to help authors as much as possible.

Figure captions

Figure captions should be brief and explanatory; they should not duplicate information in the figure. Place extensive descriptive text in the caption, not in the figure. Follow this format:

• Figure 1. Description text here.

Multiple parts of figures should be indicated by lowercase letters “a” and “b”. In the caption, make (a), (b), etc. in bold, or use (left/right) or (upper/lower). If letter designations are used for the parts, please label the figures with those letters.

Labels and text in the figures must be consistent with the manuscript and follow Am Min style. Please note our abbreviation style; especially wt% for weight percent, T for temperature, and P for pressure.

Fees for Color artwork

Authors are responsible for the cost to print color in the journal. We strive to keep our fees low (see details here). A very limited color fund is available for financial assistance. But first consider other options outlined on our web site. Alternately prepare your figures to run in grayscale. We make no profit on color and charge the author only the average cost to us.

Interactive Figures

Am Min is happy to support those papers with interactive features such as Quicktime movies (.mov) or PDFs with buttons that change an image to a different view or rollover features. Upload the files to our online submission site. Upload a .mov using the “video” file type; upload an interactive PDF as a “figure” file type just as any other PDF. If accepted, we will work carefully and closely together to ensure success online.

Using GIMP to modify or clean up your figures

Gimp is a free, open-source program comparable to Photoshop. You can download the free software from http://www.gimp.org/downloads/

This software will allow you to modify your figures to correct spelling, adjust symbols, or anything you might need to change your figures, scale them to a different size, and save them in one of our acceptable format: tif, eps, jpg, pdf, doc.

Here is a video that gives you a quick tutorial on how it works.

Quick Guide to Units and Symbols

Length (l)

m = meter(s)

cm = centimeter(s) (1 cm = 10^-2 m)

mm = millmeter(s) (1 mm = 10^-3 m)

μm = micrometer(s) (1 μm =10^-6 m) NOT micron or μ

nm = nanometer(s) (1 nm = 10^-9 m)

Å = angstrom(s) (1 Å = 10^-10 m)

pm = picometer(s) (1 pm = 10^-12 m)

Volume (V)

L = liter(s); mL = milliliter(s)

cm³ = cubic centimeter(s)

ų = cubic angstrom(s)

Density (D or ρ)

g/cm³ = gram(s) per cubic centimeter (please do not use Mg/m³)

Concentration (indicate with square brackets [ ] around chemical symbol, e.g., [Cl^1-])

% = percent; ‰ = per mill

wt% = weight percent; mol% = mole percent; vol% = volume percent

M = molar concentration (1 M = 1 mol/L)

m = molal concentration (1 m = 1 mol/kg)

ppm = parts per million; ppb = parts per billion

Mass (m)

g = gram(s)

kg = kilogram(s)

mg = milligram(s)

μg = microgram(s)

Time (t)

s = second(s); min = minute(s); h = hour(s)

Note: day(s), week(s), year(s) spelled out

Ma = million years; Ga = billion years (ago or date)

m.y. = million years; b.y. = billion years (duration)

Pressure (P)

Pa = pascal(s)

kPa = kilopascal(s); MPa = megapascal(s)

GPa = gigapascal(s)

bar or bars (no abbreviation)

kbar = kilobar(s)

atm = atmosphere(s) (not recommended)

Temperature (T)

K = Kelvin(s); °C = degrees Celsius

Frequency (f or η)

Hz = hertz; kHz = kilohertz; MHz = megahertz

Energy

J = joule(s); kJ = kilojoule(s) (preferred)

cal = calorie(s); kcal = kilocalorie(s)

Miller indices– note that letter symbols are italicized but numberic values are not, e.g., [hkl] but [100]

hkl = diffraction symbol

(hkl) = face symbol

{hkl} = form symbol

[hkl] = edge or zone symbol

Unit-cell measurements

a, b, c = edge lengths; α, β, γ = angles

a, b, c = vectors– note boldface

Optical measurements:

• • • dispersion (r, v),
    • optic axial angle (2V, 2V_x, 2V_z);
    • principal vibration directions (E, O; X, Y, Z);
    • refractive indices (n; nε, nω, nα, nβ, nγ where the n’s are italic and the Greek characters are subscripts)

Standards for Mineral Names, Nomenclature, and Abbreviations

Mineral names and abbreviations: Use a consistent set of mineral abbreviations throughout text, tables, and figures. Abbreviations are recommended for subscripts, superscripts, reactions, assemblages (connected with plus signs), and normative mineral symbols with subscript weight percentages; however, abbreviations should not be used for mineral names that stand alone in the text. Whitney and Evans (2010; Am Min, v. 95 no. 1 p. 185-187) has recently suggested a set of abbreviations that may be used. For another example, see L.N. Warr’s IMA-CNMNC approved mineral symbols (Mineralogical Magazine, 2021, 85, p. 291-320, 10.1180/mgm.2021.43). However, you may choose another consistent set.

Mineral nomenclature: New mineral names and redefinitions of existing names must be approved by the Commission on New Minerals Nomenclature and Classification (CNMNC) of the International Mineralogical Association (IMA) (Fleischer 1970) before publication. For this purpose, consult the published reports of the Commission on New Minerals Nomenclature and Classification (CNMNC) of the International Mineralogical Association (IMA). The MSA website hosts many of the IMA Reports.

• A Special Note About Nomenclature: Remember it is the author’s responsibility to make sure the text, tables and other materials consistently follow the nomenclature recommended by the IMA. Reports detailing the CMNNC approved style for nomenclature for minerals and mineral groups are available.

New mineral names: Authors must provide the Editorial Office with evidence of IMA approval of any new mineral names. Whenever naming new minerals, authors must conform to the rules and principles set forth in Nickel and Mandarino (1987) (excerpt, pdf) or Nickel and Grice (1998) (pdf). The paper by the Commission on New Minerals and Mineral Names (1982) should be consulted for a suggested outline for new mineral descriptions. The abstract of a new mineral description should completely list the properties of the mineral in a manner consistent with the “New Mineral Names” section of the journal. The paper by Nickel and Grice (1998) (pdf) gives more information on procedures. Additional information is given by Dunn (1977). Naming of regular interstratifications of clay minerals is discussed by Bailey (1982). In general, manuscripts proposing new names for imperfectly or incompletely described minerals cannot be accepted.

Obsolete, discredited, or superfluous mineral names may not be used. A helpful guide is Glossary of Mineral Species (Fleischer and Mandarino 1995). This glossary is taken as the standard for the spelling of mineral names. However, the editors now allow use of element symbols as prefixes to the approved name of a mineral (e.g., Mg-chlorite, K-feldspar). A list of discredited mineral names and examples of acceptable and unacceptable usages of mineral names appear in Nickel and Mandarino (1987) excerpt, pdf and Nickel and Grice (1998) (pdf).

Meteorite nomenclature: New meteorite names must be approved by the Nomenclature Committee of the Meteoritical Society [British Museum (Natural History), London, U.K.]. Other meteorite names must conform to the spelling given in the Catalogue of Meteorites http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/research/projects/metcat/) or in subsequent numbers of the Meteoritical Bulletin (published in Meteoritics).

List of Necessary Items for Experimental Documentation

(Modified from Table 3.2.1 in the book Basalt Volcanism on Terrestrial Planets)

Most or all of the following can be placed into an electronic appendix, but must be made available to reviewers and the AE for review purposes.

• • 1. Goal of the experiments
    2. Documentation of starting materials—natural or synthetic—preparation procedures (oxide mix or gel, grinding methods, temperature, oxygen fugacity, etc. of preparation)—state (crystalline, glassy, gel)—mineralogy if crystalline—grain size and grain size distribution—composition after preparation and before use
    3. Experimental apparatus
    4. Thermocouple type, calibration and uncertainties
    5. Pressure measurement method, calibration and uncertainties
    6. Methods of temperature and pressure controlled
    7. Oxygen fugacity (controlled or uncontrolled, method of measurement and error)
    8. Method of addition of volatiles and uncertainty
    9. Sample container—material(s)—open or sealed capsule
    10. Pressure-temperature path during the experiments (heating and cooling rates and time at each temperature and pressure)
    11. Quenching method and rate to reach a specified temperature
    12. Special treatment, if any, during opening of the experimental capsule (e.g., freezing of a volatile phase)
    13. Evaluation of attainment of equilibrium for phase equilibrium experiments
    14. Demonstration of reproducibility and/or consistency for kinetic experiments
    15. Phase composition data in Excel or other spreadsheet format; could be made ready for incorporation into the database Library of Experimental Phase Relations (LEPR; http://lepr.ofm-research.org/; Hisrshmann et al. 2008, G3, vol. 9, DOI: 10.1029/2007GC001894).

Top Tips for Associate Editors

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

• • • Tip 1
      The number of reviewers, which is typically set to 2, means that however many invitations to review are sent, when the first two come in the rest are sent politely phrased, “thank you maybe next time” letters. If you set it to 3 then, then the system waits for three, and so on. You can invite however many reviewers you want to or you can invite two and then add as/if needed.To change the number of reviewers to secure from the default of 2 to the number you need, use the pull-down box on the grid of reviewers screen, then press the “update” button. There are actually several places this box is located, and all of them work fine. Here’s a picture:
      It is recommended to have 2 reviewers but sometimes you might need a tie-breaker or other circumstances might arise. It is personal choice whether to invite more reviewers than needed upfront — if we were going out of town we might do that and in other circumstances we might invite two and then wait and see. It may be that if person x declines, person y is a better choice; but if person b declines then person c must be asked. We absolutely respect our associate editors to make the right call in these matters, perhaps even almost paper by paper decisions. As always any question with the system, please write to the editorial office (peer_review@minsocam.org) not the editor.
    • Tip 2
      If a paper ought to have a CIF (Crystallographic information file), but it does not, email us at the Editorial Office to obtain one from the author. We’ll upload it and let you know. The paper can be in regular review in the meantime, but cannot go past AE decision. More CIF-related tips: (1) If there is a CIF, after regular review is complete, let us know and we’ll “Assign Technical Editor”. (We often just do this without a prompt but never hurts.) (2) If there were problems to solve in revision in the CIF, then let us know to “Assign Technical Editor” for the revised paper.
    • Tip 3
      AEs should ensure that every paper they recommend for acceptance is ready for public viewing: the accepted paper will be the preprint and, eventually, the post-print. It will be a public document. Thus, even a paper with glowing reviews should still be sent a revision letter because the authors deserve one final chance to amend the document and the revision letter contains valuable info for the authors.
    • Tip 4
      Never copy a link from one letter to another letter to send to someone else. Every link is specific to a person and a stage in the relational database. (You can copy and paste a nice intro paragraph from one reviewer to another reviewer — but not the links.)
    • Tip 5
      To avoid creating duplicate or wrong entries in the database for reviewers, start by searching. Here’s a picture:

Manuscript Submission Checklist

Click to Download Submission Checklist

Online Manuscript Submission and Peer Review Website

Submit manuscripts to our online submission site (OSS). Note that updating your contact info on this website does not “transfer” to the MSA membership database (contact the MSA Business Office to update your info).

Submissions are uploaded via our online submission site (OSS). Here are a few things authors should know about our system. Note there is a checklist for submitting new manuscripts located on the web here.

Abstract Information (required)

Cut and paste your full abstract into the box provided (not longer than 800 words and shorter is encouraged). Abstracts are intended to be a brief synopsis of the paper.

Cover Letters/rebuttal letters (required)

As befitting a journal with international reach, submitted manuscripts should have high import as well as broad appeal. In cover letters, authors should explain the importance of their research, and why their results would be of interest to an international audience. If potential authors have questions of suitability of a manuscript, please contact one of our principal editors directly.

For a revision upload, a rebuttal letter detailing your responses or explanations to reviewers concerns is required and helpful. Use the rebuttal letter file type when you upload it to OSS.

File conversion. When uploading large files, conversion to PDF might take a while. There is no need to contact our office unless conversion has not completed after 12 hours.

Tracking. As an author, you will be able to log in and monitor the progress of your paper. However once you have approved your submission you cannot delete it or substitute a new table or something. If some rare situation like this arises, contact the Editorial office for help.

E-mails. Authors get an e-mail confirming their submission, and then an e-mail when an AE has agreed to handle the paper. If that e-mail does not have the associate editor/AE name, contact the Editorial office. It is important for authors to be able to contact their AE. Authors can also send email via the web-based system to the Editorial office and the AE.

Revisions, if and when requested, will also be uploaded via the online web-submission system by using the Replace tab and replacing old files with revised ones. Note that all revisions have the original manuscript number followed by an “R”. All the old files will be available for the editors should any reason arise. Do not keep old files on the revision page. If another revision is requested, that upload will be R1 and so on (a rare situation).
 Note there is a checklist for submitting revised manuscripts located on the web here.

Timeframes for Am Min

In general, an editor is assigned and an associate editor invited to handle the paper within a few days of submission. Within about five days, depending on the time of year, an associate editor has been found. Our goal is for associate editors to find reviewers in a couple weeks for overall review time to be about six weeks. However, as everyone knows, it can be challenging finding reviewers. Our goal is between three and four months revision info should be with authors (unless there are complex circumstances or other considerations, of course). The most important factor to having a speedy submission-to-publication experience is for the AUTHOR to handle the revision instructions very promptly. We remind the author at 60 days and again at 120 days and then, unless there are special circumstances, it is considered withdrawn. Resubmissions are encouraged when the time becomes available. In general, once the revision is in, the AE may request further review, another revision, a discussion or make a recommendation to the editor. If accepted, production of the paper tends to take about three months. Our average submission-to-publication time currently is under 10 months; many papers are faster. These timelines should guide you as to when to contact the associate editor or the editorial office for information on your paper, in a gentle fashion and understanding that all the editors are volunteers.

Please go to our online submission site and submit over the web, which has complete instructions and help files.

Contact us with your questions here.

Nonnative English speakers

Authors for whom English is not a native language must have their manuscript reviewed by a colleague who is fluent in English before submitting it to American Mineralogist. Manuscripts that require extensive editing for grammar and spelling will be summarily rejected.