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Guidelines for JOMA Authors - Summary Information

Author(s): 
David Smith and Kyle Siegrist

Cover Page

Beginning in 2006, each article published in JOMA will have a standard cover page. The items on the cover page are as follows:

Authors
This section gives the name, affiliation, and a brief biographical sketch of each author of the article.
Abstract
An article should have brief abstract that describes the purpose and goals of the article in simple, non-technical terms.
Technologies
This section describes any special technologies used in the article, such as Java, Flash, MathML, Mathematica, or Maple. The reader can be given instructions on how to upgrade her browser or where to find required plug-ins. This section is very important. Some JOMA articles may only be accessible to readers with specific platforms or browsers, or to readers with specialized software. Such articles are fine as long as the reader is notified about the special requirements on the cover page.
Publication Data
This section gives information about the initial date of publication and the dates of any revisions that my follow. This section also gives copyright and permission information.
Navigation and Table of Contents
This section gives the table of contents of the article as well as any special navigational instructions. A JOMA article may well have a non-traditional structure with multiple threads or ancillary pages. Thus, a simple, linear table of contents of the sort found in printed documents will often not suffice.

Keywords and Subject Classifications

Keywords and subject classifications are important search features that were implemented in mid-2004, and their selection has largely been left to the editors. Authors are asked to suggest their own keywords and subjects. The list of keywords cannot exceed 255 characters. Subjects are restricted to those found in the subject search field and may be specified by number only.

For clarification of what is included in each subject, see the Subject Taxonomy. Only the top two levels of this taxonomy are represented in the subject search list. A given article, module, etc., may be listed with as many subjects as necessary.

Example 1

The article Special Relativity and Conic Sections  has the following subject classifications:

  • 3.0 Algebra and Number Theory
    • 3.2 Linear Algebra
  • 5.0 Geometry and Topology
    • 5.2 Plane Geometry
    • 5.3 Solid Geometry
    • 5.4 Analytic Geometry
  • 10.0 Applied Mathematics
    • 10.1 Mathematical Physics
  • 11.0 Mathematics History

Its keyword list is

  • ellipse
  • conic section
  • focus
  • directrix
  • locus
  • hyperbolic geometry
  • space-time
  • special relativity.

Thumbnails and Descriptions

When new items are featured in JOMA, they are presented with a short description and a thumbnail image. For the first year or so of the new site (mid-2004 to mid-2005), the thumbnails and short descriptions have mostly been created by the editors. Authors are welcome to create and submit their own. A thumbnail should be a 70x70 pixel (max) PNG, GIF or JPG image that is eye-catching and related in some way to the article, module, etc. Since line drawings do not reduce well to that size, a thumbnail may need to be created from scratch. Photographs are OK, and they scale better from larger sizes. The image might be a full-resolution segment of a figure in the work, obtained by cropping – this can be effective if the segment piques the reader’s curiosity for seeing the full image.

David Smith and Kyle Siegrist, "Guidelines for JOMA Authors - Summary Information," Convergence (May 2006)