Publications produced by authors

Conceptual okay

Sometimes authors want a manuscript peer reviewed through ANR but wish to produce the finished publications themselves, rather than by Communication Services. Associate Editors will be informed of this scenario when authors submitting a new manuscript for peer review check "No" on this question on the MF-21 submittal form:

Is Communication Services producing this publication? ___ yes   ___ no (check one)
(If “no,” author is producing this publication, and CS will complete a Conceptual Okay only.)

The Conceptual Okay is a post peer-review event; it does not change the peer review process or even involve Associate Editors per se. Instead, once a manuscript has successfully passed peer review and is readied for printing by its authors, its author sends Communication Services a hard copy of what's about to go to press and (typically) requests an ANR number. A CS editor does a quick (2–3 working days) look of the final publication and assigns it an ANR number.

This look by professional editors—the Conceptual Okay—ensures that important and/or legal elements appear correctly on all ANR publications. In addition, editors may also make grammatical corrections and aesthetic suggestions to improve the quality of ANR publications. Editors look for

• Division and University identification and ANR numbering
• inappropriate use of UC seal
• author identification
• nondiscrimination statement
• chemical warning, trade disclaimer, and donor identification, if appropriate
• obvious typographical errors
• design or layout problems

Lastly, the CS editor emails the author identifying the changes that must be made, those that should be made (design or layout concerns), and the ANR number assigned. The Associate Editor on the project is copied on this email.

Design standards

Sometimes authors have funds to get their peer-reviewed publication designed and laid out by a freelance graphic artist or grad student before submitting it to Communications Services ready for printing. This can be a great help for CS production, but it can also be a problem—often these publications are not ready for printing after all. It can take a CS designer nearly as much time to clean up one of these author-designed publications as it takes to produce it from scratch. It also can cost more money; many design elements chosen by authors incur additional printing costs.

Due to these issues, Communication Services stipulates that authors—or their designers—follow general designer standards that have been established by CS designers.

Associate Editors should encourage authors to download these Design Standards, which are also available on the Communications Services web site, before they begin their design and layout.

If authors choose not to follow these CS Design Standards:

a) Authors will be recharged the hours that the CS graphic designer spends correcting the layout so it can be printed

OR

b) Authors strip out all formatting and submit the manuscript to CS in Word for CS design and layout.

If authors choose to do neither a) or b), CS will return the publication to the author and not be involved in its further production.