National Ground Water Association

Guidelines

• Manuscripts and all figures must be in an electronic format in order to utilize our online review system. Manuscripts should be prepared in a word processing program, such as Microsoft Word, double spaced in size 12-point font, with line numbering.
• Manuscripts must be in English.
• Title should be fewer than 80 characters (including punctuation and spaces).
• Abstract should contain fewer than 250 words.
• Number pages consecutively starting with the title page.
• Use the "line numbering" feature in your word processor.
• Include the lead author's last name as a footer on all pages.

Units of measurements 

• Abbreviations, symbols, units, and Greek letters should be identified the first time they are used.
• Isotopic data should be expressed following the guidelines set forth in Ground Water 34, no. 3, page 388 (1996).
• See the guidelines (PDF).
• Either metric, SI, or U.S. customary (English) units may be used. If U.S. customary units are used, the author is asked to provide the conversion to metric/SI units in parenthesis when units are given in the text of the paper. It is not necessary to give the conversions in tables and figures.

 Acknowledgments 

• Acknowledgments should be made only for significant contributions by professional associates, permission to publish by employer, access to land or equipment, financial support, and reviews. A brief closing statement will usually suffice.

 References

• Indicate in text by author(s) name and year (e.g., Jones 1999). For multiple references by the same author in the same year, the letters a, b, and c after the year can be used (e.g., Jones 1999a and 1999b). Papers with multiple authors should be cited in the text using "et al." (e.g., Jones et al. 1999).
• At the end of the paper, list alphabetically by author(s) name in chronological order.
• Write in the style of the Chicago Manual of Style. View the reference samples.
• Do not reference limited access, administrative, or confidential reports or commercial products for which a charge will be made for access.
• Include personal communication references (written or oral) in the reference list.
• Do not abbreviate publication titles.
• Do not use footnotes. (This is acceptable in tables only).

• Should be numbered and titled. Tables should be embedded "inline" in the manuscript.

 Figures

• Figures should be prepared at the final publication size (3.25 inches or 8.3 cm wide for one column and 7 inches or 17.75 cm wide for two columns). It is a good idea to prepare your figures with final publication requirements in mind, and then convert them into formats appropriate for online review. Get detailed instructions for preparing final figures for publication.
• Color figures are published free of charge to the author. However, as there are additional costs to print color, it is asked that the author use color figures only when necessary to improve the clarity of the figure.

 Before you submit your paper, please gather the following information...

• To use the online review system, you must have installed Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is available free for download at the Adobe Web site.
• Author information. The first and last name and affiliation of all authors, and the postal address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address of the corresponding author. The person who uploads the manuscript must be the corresponding author.
• Title and abstract of the paper. You can cut and paste this from your manuscript.
• Paper type (e.g., research paper, forum article).
• Keywords. Choose one or two from the available keyword list.
• Manuscript files in Microsoft Word or PDF. (Do not use the "text" option if your manuscript contains Greek letters, special characters, superscripts, or subscripts).
• It is recommended that the manuscript contains the tables and figures embedded "inline." This way, the author has to upload only one document. Figures can be uploaded separately, if desired, in JPG or GIF formats only. If the figures are embedded inline, they do not have to be in JPG or GIF formats.
• Figures at this stage do not have to be publication quality, but it is a good idea to start with publication-quality figures and then save them in the formats allowed by the system. View guidelines for publication-quality figures.