BSSA Policies and Procedures

GENERAL INFORMATION

Papers submitted to BSSA must not have been published previously and must not presently be under consideration for publication elsewhere.  It is the responsibility of the submitter to ensure that all listed authors have approved the manuscript.  Membership in SSA is not a requirement for submission to BSSA.

Types of Papers

Papers  published in BSSA fall into four broad categories: articles, short notes, review articles, and comments and replies.

Contributed Articles make up the majority of the papers published in BSSA.  An article should contain original information that has not been published elsewhere and is not being submitted elsewhere.  BSSA enlists the help of two referees for each article.

Short Notes are limited to six or fewer printed journal pages.  A short note should contain original information and should be well focused, concise, and more limited in scope than an article.  A short note generally needs only one referee, which can shorten the time between submission and publication.

Review Articles.  BSSA publishes a small number of review articles when it is judged that such articles will be useful to guide future research.  Authors who wish to contribute a review article should contact the Editor before preparing and submitting the article.

Comments and Replies.  BSSA encourages the publication of comments on published papers and replies to those comments because the entire seismological community can benefit from an open discussion of research issues.  Comments should be brief with a goal of being no longer than than three printed pages; however, this is a guideline and not an absolute limit.  The Editor will send the comment to the authors of the original paper under discussion.  If the authors of the original paper write a reply, the authors of both the comment and the reply are given an opportunity to revise.  The authors of the original paper have the option of requesting that the comment be peer reviewed. The Editor oversees the process to ensure clear presentation of ideas and resolution of any conflict.

PREPARING AN INITIAL SUBMISSION

Manuscripts must be submitted through our online submission system at bssa.edmgr.com. For details on how to prepare your files for submission, please read the Submission page.

Order of material

  1. Title page, including authors’ names and complete address of corresponding author
  2. Abstract, 250 words or less
  3. Text of paper (Introduction, Body, Conclusions)
  4. Data and Resources*
  5. Acknowledgments
  6. References
  7. Authors’ affiliations, addresses
  8. Tables
  9. Figure Captions, presented as a double-spaced list separate from figures.
  10. Figures
  11. Appendixes

*Data and Resources is a mandatory section.  The Society requires that authors identify the sources of data used during research and give information about whether those sources are available to readers. A Data and Resources section must precede the Acknowledgements section. This section should be used to identify all data sources that are not taken from published works referenced in the References. An example of data from a published work would be an earthquake catalog listed in a table or electronic supplement of a published paper. If an online database is used then it should be included here. If there is a published work describing the database then that work can be included in the References. However, online databases should not be included in the References. This section can also be used to mention computing resources such as software packages used in the work. For details on this section please see our Data and Resources Section page.

Electronic Supplements

Authors are encouraged to devise supporting online material to supplement their articles.  Electronic components of published articles will be placed on the SSA Web site.  High-resolution graphical information, animations of time-sequenced observations or simulations, and three-dimensional data models are especially appropriate as electronic supplements.  We will also consider other forms of digital material, including documented source code used to generate results presented in an article.  The online material must be supplemental; papers published in BSSA must be complete without the electronic supplements. For more information see our Electronic Supplements page.

General Style Guidelines

Format all pages to a standard U.S. letter size (8.5 X 11 inches). All written material, including acknowledgments, references, affiliations, and figure captions, must be double spaced. We prefer that you use 12 pt Helvetica or Times New Roman type. Number the pages and the figures. Figures and tables should be presented at the end of the manuscript, clearly numbered so referees can refer to them easily. In an initial submission, figure captions may be included with the figures as well as in a separate list.

Text of paper: Use American English spelling. Define all technical terms, symbols, acronyms, and abbreviations. Consult a recent issue of BSSA for styling of heads and subheads. Cite all figures and tables in strict numerical order. Avoid the use of quotation marks and italics for emphasis. Define all abbreviations and acronyms at first mention.

Before submitting your manuscript, read it carefully to ensure that your work has been presented clearly and concisely. If your first language is not English, ask a colleague to review the paper and help with the grammar. A paper whose meaning is unclear may inadvertently be denied publication through misunderstanding.

Mathematics and symbols: Use the solidus whenever possible in preference to built-up fractions, write complicated exponentials in the form exp( ), avoid subscripts or superscripts on subscripts and superscripts, and, in general, minimize unusual or expensive typographical requirements. Make subscripts and superscripts large and clear; label Greek letters and unusual or ambiguous symbols on first occurrence (for example, spell out subscript "zero" to distinguish it from "oh"). Be sure that letters in formulas are unambiguously capital or lowercase. Place equation numbers in parentheses to the right of the equations. Use italic type for variables and bold for vectors and matrices. Equations should be punctuated as sentences.

References should be arranged alphabetically by author and should follow the style of examples below. Refer to Chemical Abstracts List of Periodicals for journal abbreviations.

Hough, S. E., and S. Martin (2002). Magnitude estimates of two large aftershocks of the 16 December 1811 New Madrid earthquake, Bull. Seism. Soc. Am. 92 3259-3268.

Gutenberg, B. (1959). Physics of the Earth's Interior, Academic Press, New York, 111-113.

Laster, S.J., M. M. Backus, and R. Schell (1967). Analog mode studies of the simple refraction problem, in Seismic Refraction Propsecting Albert W. Musgrave (Editor), Society of Exploration Geophysics, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 15-66.

Tables should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals. Each table must have a title; column heads should be brief and should contain units of measurement in parentheses. Present each table on a separate page. When preparing tables, take into account the size of the journal page. Tables can be printed broadside if need be.

Figures: Number figures sequentially and in the order of first reference in the text. Do not include within the figure a title or any text that is included in the figure caption. (Submit captions as a separate, consecutively numbered list embedded in the text of the manuscript. Do not include captions on the figures themselves.)

Keep figure parts consistent in size. Each figure part should contain a label in the upper left corner. The part labels should be of the style (a), (b), (c), (d) and should be in 12-point Helvetica lowercase type. For text within a figure, use a standard, readable typeface such as Helvetica or Times Roman. For figures created for reproduction at 100%, use a type size between 10 and 12 points. The type size after reduction of a figure must be no smaller than 6 points. Avoid inconsistencies in type font and size within a figure and from one figure to the next. Use the same size type for elements of equal importance. Some variation in size for emphasis may be necessary, but use no more than a 2-point variation.

Units of measurement and abbreviations should be consistent from one figure to the next and between figures and text. Avoid using light or white text on a dark background. Avoid small open symbols; they tend to fill in if the figure is reduced. Ensure that superscripts and subscripts are legible.

Proofread all text within a figure to ensure that it is accurate and that spellings and abbreviations are correct.

For information on the preparation of final figures for accepted manuscripts, see the art guidelines.

Page-Charge Policy and Current Rates

The Seismological Society of America requests that institutions supporting research share in the cost of publicizing the results of that research.  The Editor has the discretion of waiving page charges for authors who do not have institutional support.  The high cost of publication limits the number of waived pages that can be published each year.  SSA cannot take on the expense of publishing color figures.  If publication charges have been waived, all of the figures in the article must be without color.

Current publication charges: pages 1–7, US$90 per printed page; pages 8–14, US$160 per printed page; pages 15 and beyond, US$220 per printed page. Additional charges for  color:  Color separation: per figure, $125.  Color reproduction:  first figure, $1,050; second figure, $600; each additional figure, $90

Copyright Information

Copyright for articles published in BSSA is held by SSA. A copyright/page-charges form is sent to the corresponding author upon receipt of a submitted manuscript. Authors must return this form, via the online submission site, prior to their paper being accepted for publication.  The authors are responsible for securing permission to reproduce in BSSA any printed matter from other publications.

Questions?

Questions should be directed to Carol Mark, Managing Editor, at the Editorial Office


 

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Last Update: 28 March 2008