Instructions for authors

In the interests of producing a volume of proceedings whose quality is commnesurate with the quality of the conference, we are asking all authors to send us, together with a complete printed version of their contribution, an electronic version on a PC or MAC disquette (or by email) in the form of an ASCII file using the LATEX typesetting conventions.
We do not have the resources to retype each article in a uniform style, and we therefore request authors to respect the LATEX conventions for the "report" style, as described either in L. Lamport's standard handbook "Latex - a document preparation system - user's guide and reference manual", published by Addison-Wesley, 1985, or in his more recent version updated for the Latex 2e release (we will in fact be using LATEX2e). Please read one of these manuals (unless you are already a LATEX user), otherwise the rest of these notes will not make much sense to you.

Some general considerations

Each contribution will be typeset as a separate chapter. Consequently the title of your contribution should be included between the braces of:
\chapter{}
When we produce the entire volume, the appearance of your title will not be quite that of the standard chapter ... but that is for our LATEX guru to sort out. This is easy to do, providing everyone respects the convention.
Section, subsection or subsubsection headings should be included, respectively, between the braces of:
\section{}, \subsection{} or \subsubsection{}
 
Please do not number your headings explicitly - LATEX does this very well on its own and in a uniform manner.
Equations should be in the "equation" or "equationarray" environment. This has at least two advantages:
  • equations are automatically numbered
  • they are nicely aligned.
Tables should use the "tabular" structure, embedded in the
\begin {table} \caption{} ... \end {table}

environment. The caption is embedded in the braces following the
 \caption{} 
command. This produces neat tables, which are automatically numbered (and very easy to change if you need to do so).
Figures should be embedded in the "figure" structure, which follows the same rules as the "table" structure.
Bibliographic references should be done using the
\cite{} 
command and bibliographic labels as described in the LATEX manual. The bibliography should be embedded in the
 \begin{thebibliography}....\end{thebibliography} 
 
environment placed at the end of your contribution. When we typeset the entire volume, the references to each contribution will also be at the end of that contribution.
References to sections, equations, tables and figures should be made via the
\ref{}  
command, using labels, and NOT using your own numbers; this makes it easier for you if you change anything in your text, and much easier for us. Page references are made in the same way; if you follow these rules, LATEX will ensure that the page references refer to the real page numbering in the final volume.
It would be nice to have an index for the whole volume of proceedings - proceedings, like any other book, are much more useful with an index. To create an index entry for a particular point in your text, simply type the index word between the braces of:
\index{}
at the point to whose page number the final index should refer; LATEX will do the rest. Whether we will ultimately make an alphabetical index or not depends on how many of you use this option.
This is so far all standard LATEX convention, and in preparing your paper we would like you to adhere strictly to that convention insofar as the body of your text is concernedd.
We are however introducing three exceptions to the standard LATEX typesetting command set, in order to standardize the author and institute list:
  1. List of authors. After the
    \chapter{} 
    
    command, the list of authors should be typed inside the braces of
    \author{}
    
  2. List of addresses. After the
    \author{} 
    
    command, the authors' addresses should be typed inside the braces of
    \address{}
    
    If there are several addresses, they should all be included in the one
    \address{}
    
    directive; however, each address should be terminated either by a blank line or two backslashes i.e. \\
  3. Abstract. After the address list, the abstract should be typed within the braces of:
  \abstract{}

These commands are not standard (at least, not in the way we shall be using them), and so to enable you to typeset your text correctly on your local computer, you should place at the head of your text the following lines of LATEX commands:
\renewcommand{\abstract}[1]{{ \footnotesize \noindent {\bf Abstract} #1 \\}}
\renewcommand{\author}[1]{\subsubsection*{\it#1}}
\newcommand{\address}[1]{\subsubsection*{\it#1}}

It may look like gibberish, but it works.

Supplying figures

The preferred way to include figures is to use the "encapsulated Postscript" technique, in which you supply ASCII files with your figures encoded in Postscript form, while your LATEX file includes appropriate commands to read in this file at the places where you wish to place the figures.
If you are unable to do this for whatever reason, please send us, together with the printed version of your text, good copies of your figures reduced to the correct size; in your LATEX file you should have reserved space for the figures in the usual manner (with a
\vspace{xxcm}
command within the figure environment), and in the printed version of your text you should indicate which figure should go where (preferably by pasting in a copy of the figures).

Summary

Please:
  • Use LATEX for your contribution; this will not only produce a nice-looking volume, but it will also lead to the proceedings being produced faster.
  • Use standard LATEX commands, except for the author, address and abstract items.
  • Avoid introducing local numbering schemes for sections, equations, figures, references etc., use LATEX's scheme of symbolic labels.
  • Send us your document as an ASCII file, with no encoding of any sort (encoding only gives you more work and us much more work). Most word processors have an output option to allow you to do this: in Word, for example, this goes by the name "Text only".Send us either a PC or a MAC disquette (but preferably PC if you have the choice), or ZIP up the entire document (latex source file and figures) and send the zipped file via email to the address you already know so well (blois.confs@obspm.fr). In any case, send us a printed version, for comparison.
And, of course, if you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact L. M. Celnikier.



File translated from TEX by TTH, version 3.73.
On 17 May 2006, 15:31.