INSTRUCTIONS FOR FINAL PREPARATION: AUTHOR’S GUIDE This file is available via the following URL: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/jair/pub/information/format/authors-guide ----------------------------------------------------------------- Checklist (see detailed instructions below) 1. [ ] Format article using JAIR style 2. [ ] Have your article proofread. 3. [ ] Create HTML version (strongly recommended, but not required) 4. [ ] Contact editor, obtain final approval 5. [ ] Contact Steven Minton, Managing Editor, (minton@isi.edu) for formatting check 6. [ ] Final changes on HTML, online appendices, etc. 7. [ ] Fill out copyright transfer, and send it. 8. [ ] Fill out source code release, and sent it (only necessary if you are releasing source code in an online appendix). 9. [ ] Contact Managing Editor (minton@fetch.com) for page numbers, then transfer all the required files. 10. [ ] After your paper is released, check www.jair.org to make sure everything was done correctly during the publication process ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Once a paper has been accepted for publication in JAIR, you should follow the procedure outlined below. The final version of your manuscript is due to us *within three months* of the acceptance date. If you require more than three months, please request an extension from the editor. Format your article according the JAIR style, which is described in format.ps and the other files in directory available at: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/jair/pub/information/format/ There are subdirectories for LaTex, FrameMaker and Gnu's GROFF. (We request that you use LaTex if possible.) Authors are responsible for correctly formatting their article. If you wish we can recommend professionals who will do this for you for a fee. Here are things to check, *before* you send us your article: - Capitalize section and subsection titles. - Make sure your abstract reads well. It will be used to advertise your paper. - We recommend you use small caps for system names. (In LaTex that's \sc) - Capitalize references to figures and tables, e.g. "In Figure 7..." - It's preferable to cite published papers, rather than tech reports. - Carefully read the section on citations in format.ps. Here are examples of BAD citations: "See (Ginsberg, 1994) for an analysis..." [Uses citation as a noun] "Drummond (Drummond, 1994) showed that..." [Should use citeyear i.e., Drummond (1994)] "...the best method (see the ERT test (Davis, 1995))..." [double parens, should be "...best method (see the ERT test, Davis, 1995)..."] - In the authors' addresses, don't use commas at the end of the lines. - Do not start a section with a subsection. (E.g., Each section should start with some text, rather than immediately starting with a subsection.) Similarly, don't start a subsection with a sub-subsection. - Your paper should be formatted for 8.5 x 11 letter size paper, not A4 (common in Europe). If you are in Europe and use Latex, use "dvips -t" when you create your PostScript file to get the right size. 2. Make any final changes and have your article proofread. For better or worse, we do not have a copyediting staff. (Note: Authors are notoriously bad proofreaders. Have the paper proofread by a skilled proofreader -- NOT one of the authors.) 3. JAIR offers authors the option of publishing a version of the paper in HTML in addition to the PostScript version. Check out the Latex2HTML translator at the following URL: http://www.latex2html.org/ (If you use Latex2HTML, don't bother using the JAIR style file, as it will only cause problems.) We also encourage you to make use of "online appendices" where appropriate. Online appendices can contain source code, data, even quicktime demonstrations -- anything that will make life easier (or more interesting) for your readers and researchers who follow in your footsteps. 4. Send the paper to the editor in charge of your article. Also send a copy to jair-ed@isi.edu. 5. Once the editor approves the paper, he or she will tell you to send a copy of the PostScript file to the managing editor, Steven Minton, minton@fetch.com. He will check it over, and if the formatting is acceptable, we will let you know the publication date and the page numbers for your article. 6. Once you have the final approval on the paper and the formatting you should put the final touches on any additional versions of the paper that you want us to publish alongside the PostScript version. 7. Please print out, fill in, and sign the Postscript Transfer of Copyright form available at http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/jair/pub/information/format/copyright.ps (If you have trouble printing the PostScript, we can send you an ascii version.) Send the form to: Steven Minton Fetch Technologies 2041 Rosecrans Avenue, Suite 245 El Segundo, CA 90245-4789 The copyright transfer is necessary because it's part of our agreement with AAAI Press . Once you transfer the copyright, AI Access Foundation grants the rights to publish the hardcopy version to AAAI Press. But because AI Access Foundation wants to promote the widest possible distribution of your article, we are happy to grant you back any other rights you want to the article or the contents. In particular, the electronic version is freely available for distribution -- that's part of our mission. 8. If there are online appendices containing source code, please sign the release form found in this directory and send it along with the Transfer of Copyright. The release form is intended to reduce the liability of AI Access Foundation and JAIR's distributors. 9. Once the managing editor (minton@isi.edu) approves the formatting and sends you the publication date and page numbers, please visit http://jair.fetch.com/submit.php?mode=publish and fill out the information required for publication. Also use the form to transmit your final files. (If you have any problems, e-mail them to minton@isi.edu). We would appreciate it if you use the following naming scheme for your files. Assuming the first author's last name is "Jones" and the current year is 1999, you should send us: - jones99a.ps, the final PostScript file (Note: a PostScript version is not optional. Postscript remains the official” publication medium, even though PDF is now more popular on the web.) - jones99a.pdf, a PDF version of your paper. No - jones99a.tex (or jones99a.txt), a single LaTex source file (or, if you didn't use LaTex, some sort of ascii version of the paper if possible) which we can use for our search engine - jones99a.tar, a tar file containing all the source files (latex files, figures, word file, whatever) which we will archive. - [optional] jones99a-html.tar, a tar file of a directory called jones99a-html containing the HTML version of your paper. Please make sure all icons are included, rather than pointing to a remote site. - [optional] jones99a-appendix1.txt (or .ps, .lisp, or .whatever), an online appendix. If there are two or more, name them jones99a-appendix2.txt and so on. Note: in the unlikely case that the first author has a previously published a JAIR article earlier in the year called jones99a, use jones99b this time. 10. After we receive the final version and release the article, we will send you and email. Please take a look your paper at www.jair.org to check that we haven’t inadvertently made any errors duiring the release process. We will also post an announcement on the JAIR newgroup comp.ai.jair.announcments. We send out regular announcements to our mailing list as well If you know of any other mailing lists where it would be appropriate to post an announcement for your paper (e.g. ML-LIST for machine learning papers), we encourage you to forward our announcement. Congratulations!