Author Checklist
University of Iowa Press
119 West Park Road
100 Kuhl House
Iowa City IA 52242-1000
Charlotte M. Wright, Managing Editor
319-335-2011, 319-335-2055 (fax)
[email protected]
uiowapress.uiowa.edu
Before you send your final manuscript to us for copyediting, please check the following list. If you have any questions about a particular requirement, first check the University of Iowa Press website. If you still have questions, please contact me or your acquiring editor. Thank you!
Formatting Text
____All the elements in your manuscript should be easy to identify and in the order in which you want them to appear in the book.
____DO NOT embed artwork into your text file.
____Avoid the use of macros of any kind in your manuscript.
____Double-space all text, including table of contents, indented extracts, poetry, bibliography, captions, tables and charts, and endnotes.
____Use 12-point type.
____Do not substitute l (the letter “el”) for 1 (the number one).
____Either italic type or underlining is fine to indicate text that should be set in italics, but do not combine the two.
____To indicate paragraphs,
use an indent rather than an additional hard return. Use the extra space only
where you wish a space break in the book to indicate a major change of
subject.
____Make your margins (top, bottom, left, and right) at least 1 inch.
____Type all titles and
subheadings in caps and lowercase (Like This One) rather than in full caps
(LIKE THIS ONE). Note that all prepositions and articles are lowercase except
at the beginning of the title or subtitle (The Fine Art of Subheadings).
____If possible, group your
notes at the back of the book, just before the bibliography. If your book is an
edited collection, in which case the notes can stay with the chapter. In
either
case, number the notes starting over from 1 in each chapter. If your word
processing program will not group the notes in the back of the book, just make
a note in your
cover letter to us and we will handle this here. USE YOUR
SOFTWARE’S BUILT-IN ENDNOTES FEATURE so that notes can be easily moved,
combined, or deleted without
having to renumber them by hand.
____Number the pages
consecutively throughout the manuscript. If your computer program automatically
renumbers with each chapter, leave off automatic page numbering and
instead
hand-number the pages (preferably in the upper-right-hand corner).
____Do not right-justify your text. (Exception: In poetry books, individual poems may be formatted in this way.)
____Do not use headers or footers (other than page numbers).
____Use the same font (both
type and size) throughout the manuscript. Do not assign “styles” to achieve
different formats for subheads, block quotes, paragraph indents, etc.
The
default or “normal” style should be the only one in your manuscript.
____Include all parts of the
manuscript that you wish to appear in the completed book: dedication, table of
contents, acknowledgments, appendixes, etc. Do not add page
numbers to the
table of contents, as this will obviously change once the book is typeset.
____If a chapter has more
than one level of subhead, differentiate them visually with centering,
underlining, etc. or, preferably, by typing (using angle brackets) <A>,
<B>, <C> at
the beginning of each subhead.
____In a list of references,
for successive works by the same author, use six hyphens (i.e., ------) in
place of the author’s name after the first appearance, and alphabetize the
entries by the title of the book or article.
____Do not include an index. This step will come later.
____Please use your computer’s spell check function. It won’t catch everything, but every little bit helps!
____Once you have correctly formatted your manuscript, save it to your hard drive and print out two copies to submit to us with your electronic files.
Electronic Files
We need only ONE copy of the disk or CD, or you can e-mail electronic copy to us as an attachment.
____Put everything in one document, from the title page to the last page of the text. Do not send us separate files for each chapter.
____Once you’ve put the book
files on a disk or CD or e-mailed them to us, do not make any changes to the
hard copy. Your final printed copy must
match the electronic
copy exactly.
____Label the disk or CD. Is
it PC or Mac? Which software program have you used? Which version of that
software? Include a printed directory of
the contents for each disk
or CD submitted.
Hard Copy
____Include TWO single-sided
copies of the entire manuscript, printed from your FINAL computer files. IT IS
EXTREMELY IMPORTANT THAT YOU DO NOT MAKE CHANGES
TO THE FILES ONCE YOU HAVE
PRINTED OUT FINAL COPY. The electronic
copy and hard copy must match exactly.
Illustrations
- ____We prefer to work with original images rather than laser prints or scans of images produced in other formats. If you must submit images originally created in other formats digitally, or if you would like to submit first-generation digital images, refer to the Association of American University Presses’ Digital Art Requirements for Submission. Please number all photos, drawings, maps, charts, tables, and other artwork. Callouts for each piece of art should be handwritten in the margin at the appropriate paragraph on the appropriate page (for example, “Figure X here”). Each piece of artwork should be numbered on the back, and that number should correspond with your list of captions included on the disk. We also need a 100% photocopy of each illustration. We must have all artwork in hand before we can begin copyediting. For information about what formats we need, please refer to our Art Guidelines. If you need more specific guidelines, please contact our design and production manager, Karen Copp, [email protected], 319-335-2014.
- ____If you submit artwork electronically, make sure you label each piece in the order in which you want it to appear in the book. (1, 2, 3, etc.; or 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, etc.)
- ____Double-space the list of captions, with numbers corresponding to those on the artwork. Credits can be placed at the end of each caption or in your acknowledgments. The captions should be separate from the text.
- ____Tables should be double-spaced and included, each on a separate page, as part of your text. Table titles should appear on the tables themselves. Before formatting tables, please refer to chapter 13 in The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition.
- ____Please complete the checklist included with the Art Guidelines.
Permissions
- ____Provide copies of any permission letters you have received for artwork or quoted material. If any permissions are still pending but you expect them soon, we need copies of your permission requests. Obtaining complete permissions for artwork and quoted material remains the responsibility of the author.
- ____We need to know the source for all your illustrations, whether or not permissions are required.
- ____If you have artwork that you would like us to consider for your book’s jacket or cover, please include at least a good photocopy of it and let us know who holds the rights to it. A final decision will ultimately be made by the Press.
- ____Please refer to the Rights & Permissions guidelines for more information.