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Phillip Helbig <[log in to unmask]>
Wed, 8 Oct 1997 18:08:37 GMT
text/plain (80 lines)
> What is the main purpose of a standard markup convention for journal
> articles?
>
> * To allow a single generic `preprint class' to be used for authors
>   for multiple journals, with the `production class' for a particular
>   journal being used just in the final stages, perhaps in house after
>   the author submission?
>
> * To allow transfer of articles from one journal class to another?
>
> * To give a more or less loose set of conventions so that authors are
>   not `surprised' by the submission requirements of any particular
>   journal, even if certain differences in markup are required for each
>   journal?

I would say all three.

> I'll give a couple off examples of the kind of issue that I have in
> mind when asking the above questions.
>
> Some journals give full postal addresses for each author.
> Some just give an `affiliation' for each author and highlight one
> `corresponding author' for whom full address is given.

> For the second type one might expect

> or some other markup scheme. The question is, does it make sense to
> try to have one preprint class that covers both schemes. If such a
> class is to guarantee that documents can be run without error on
> either production class, then it seems that authors will be asked to
> provide lots of `redundant' information such as full address and
> affiliation for each author, even though a typical class will only use
> one or the other.

> This may seem like a rather trivial distinction, but several such
> small differences soon combine to mean that either your `generic
> front matter code' becomes quite complicated, or you end up with
> several class files which are similar in construction but strictly
> incompatible.

I think that this can partially be solved by the use of OPTIONAL
arguments; if the author doesn't want to provide them when writing for a
journal which doesn't use them, he is free to do so.  Journals which
don't use them must then accept the optional arguments in their commands
but then do nothing with them.

> For production use it is essential that any preprint style that
> authors used is more or less guaranteed to produce manuscripts that
> run with the production class (that may use commercial fonts or differ
> in other ways from a public author submission class, but should take
> as far as possible exactly the same manuscript markup).

A very important goal.

> Another problem is author order. Some Journals (see for example the
> Kluwer class files) order all authors from the same institution
> together. Perhaps more common is a single list of authors with
> somekind of footnote marker system to identify the affiliation of each
> author. The AMS have a kind of hybrid system where the frontmatter
> author list is a single list, but at the end a list of full address
> is cross referenced back to the authors.  Does it make sense to try
> to capture all these systems with a standard markup scheme. Especially
> as author order in some disciplines involves political implications of
> `seniority' (In others, authors are always listed alphabetically
> irrespective of seniority).

I think that this could be done.  Fancy bibliographic styles can alter
reference alphabetically or by order of appearance in the text.
Something similar could be done here.  One could have the rank as an
optional argument.  I think there are many solutions.

--
Phillip Helbig                          Email ... [log in to unmask]
Nuffield Radio Astronomy Laboratories   Tel. ..... +44 1477 571 321 (ext. 297)
Jodrell Bank                            Fax ................. +44 1477 571 618
Macclesfield                            Telex ................. 36149 JODREL G
UK-Cheshire SK11 9DL                    Web .... http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/~pjh/

My opinions are not necessarily those of NRAL or the University of Manchester.

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