Author guide
Please consult this Author guide before looking at the Writing guide. Please do not confuse these two pages:
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This page, Author guide, is to indicate the steps to take in the submission and publishing process.
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The Writing guide is to provide guidance on good writing and on how to communicate your ideas clearly.
Please follow the steps below and accomplish the tasks below before you submit your ms to GC.
The abbreviation ms , for manuscript, is used throughout this guide and CfP, and in much of the correspondence.
If you come to the EGU, be sure to attend a special session for GC authors. See this page here.
The three main steps are as follows:
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🛠️ Prepare a pre-submission outline. This is about one page to provide us with an idea of the manuscript (ms) that you would like to submit. One of us, Guest Eds, will then be in touch with you. More details under N°1 below.
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✍️ Write your ms, being sure to consult the various links provided below; see N°2 below. Remember to send a word copy of your (near) final draft ms to David by wetransfer.
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🚀 Submit your ms to GC; see N°3 below. After you have been given the green light to submit (with or without minor modifications), you will then submit your ms to the journal on their website. It will then be reviewed. See the journal website to see how their open peer reviewing is done.
1. 🛠️Prepare an outline ___________________________________
Before embarking on a full ms, please send a short outline to the Guest Eds. This will allow us
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to do a quick check to see if it is within the scope and spirit of the special issue,
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to make any helpful suggestions for the ms.
We wish to avoid your putting in effort writing a long text and having it rejected, and also to avoid our spending time getting it reviewed needlessly.
Your outline (14pt, Times) should include the following sections, each starting on a new line:
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Title: Subtitle
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Author name(s) & affiliation(s)
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Email of corresponding author - please check the accuracy of the email
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A short description (preferably bulleted points) - about 1/2 page, 200 words, outlining relevant aspects, such as:
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Objective(s),
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Type(s) of approach(es),
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Target audience(s), main readership,
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Article type (see below*),
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If a research article, incl the usual sections: Hypothesis or research question, etc
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Methodology(ies) used,
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Main finding(s) or discussion / conclusion(s),
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Any other useful info.
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A short plan - about 1/2 page, 200 words - showing how your ms will be structured.
Please make an effort to stay within the word limits indicated above.
Please paste your outline into the body of an email.
Please do not attache any files to an email.
Please do not use depositories (e.g., google drive, dropbox).
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Send your email to crookall dot consulting at gmail dot com,
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with subject GC-special, outline, main-author-family-name,
e.g., GC-special, outline, Smith
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Please make sure that you include precisely that subject line, otherwise your email could go astray.
One of the Guest Eds will be in touch with you about the next step (e.g., do not submit; attend to or modify things in your ms; submit your ms with few or no changes). When you are given the go-ahead, you can then prepare your ms.
2. ✍️ Write your ms _______________________________________
If you wish to get comments on your draft ms, you may send your draft ms to David, via wetransfer. Please submit your ms to the GC platform only after you have been given the green light to submit.
Please note the following in preparing your ms.
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*GC has four main article types : research, insights, letters and reviews. More information to be found here:
https://www.geoscience-communication.net/about/manuscript_types.html.-
Be sure to consult that page.
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Submissions should be original, previously unpublished works. If your ms is derived from a conference presentation, then it should contain at least 30% new material.
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Read the notes on preparing your submission and on the submission process here https://www.geoscience-communication.net/submission.html.
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All submissions will be peer-reviewed.
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Special Issue (SI) articles under review or already published will be found here:
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Once submitted and published, your article will appear there. If any of the articles are relevant to yours, we encourage you to cite them. Please do not cite simply because we suggest that you do so here.
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Be sure to read these extremely helpful articles:
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Editorial: Geoscience Communication – Building bridges, not walls. https://gc.copernicus.org/articles/1/1/2018/.
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Editorial: Geoscience communication – Planning to make it publishable. https://gc.copernicus.org/articles/4/493/2021/.
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This terrific article is an example of the kind that you might wish to write, but it is not on the topic of climate or ocean education:
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Using paired teaching for earthquake education in schools. https://gc.copernicus.org/articles/4/281/2021/.
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We strongly recommend that you team up with colleagues to write a multi-author article. These are generally of higher quality, and you have greater chance of getting through the review process fairly unscathed 😞.
📜 Writing guide. Be sure to pay attention to these additional aspects of your writing. This guide covers a wide range of considerations, from grammar to attitude, from defining clauses to dangling modifiers, all of which are important in an article that aims to communicate clearly and convincingly, and in turn, which help your article to get cited by others.
NB. Please send your (near) final ms to David before you submit it to the GC platform, called EGUsphere. He and/or one of the other Guest Eds will look at and maybe make some suggestions for final tweaks before you upload it for review. Please note the following:
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Please send a word file (not a pdf), so that we can make comments more easily.
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Please send the file by wetransfer.com, and not as an attachment to an email. Please check with David to know if he will be able to download the file, as he sometimes travels, and cannot then download.
Please look over all these webpages and the journal editorial and guides before sending questions.
3. 🚀 Submit and revise your ms ____________________________
After you submit your ms, on EGUsphere, it will be reviewed by at least two reviewers. The review is open. This, in essence, means that anyone 'out there' will be able to read the following:
- Your submitted ms.
- Your reviewers' comments.
- Other people's comments.
- Your replies to reviewers' comments.
- Your revised ms, and any subsequent comments and replies.
You can see an example by going to one or more articles in the journal.
Please do your best to implement reviewers' suggestions; they are made for your benefit and in the interest of quality. If a reviewer asks you to do something, it is because she or he genuinely thinks that it will improve your article.
We encourage you to suggest reviewers.
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Deadlines
This special issue will remain open for the time being. A possible deadline for receipt of outlines is during the autumn of 2025.
Reviewing
When you submit your ms, you implicitly agree that we may call upon you to act as a reviewer of another ms. This is not mandatory, but it would be highly appreciated.
Emails
Make sure that the subject line of your emails starts with GC-special: followed by your specific subject.
EGU sessions
This special issue is being done in conjunction with sessions at the EGU General Assembly. See:
Geoethics and Global Anthropogenic Change: Geoscience for Policy, Action and Education in Addressing the Climate and Ecological Crises
https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU25/session/52035
Contributing to best-practice in geoscience communication by publishing – A drop-in ‘clinic’, with the Geoscience Communication editors
https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU25/session/53330
Happy writing
