INSTRUCTIONS FOR FINAL PREPARATION

Checklist (see detailed instructions below)

  1. [   ]   Make any final changes required by the editor and format article using JAIR style
  2. [   ]   Have your article proofread.
  3. [   ]   Create any optional online appendices
  4. [   ]   Make sure your front page includes the correct copyright footer and that you have read the JAIR Open Access Publication Agreement, which outlines your rights and responsibilities as an author.
  5. [   ]   Fill out source code release, and sent as well (but only necessary if you are releasing source code in an online appendix).
  6. [   ]   Upload your final paper for approval by the editor and a formatting check.
  7. [    ]  Make any formatting changes requested by the Production Editor.
  8. [   ]   Upload all the final files, with page numbers, as instructed by the Production Editor
  9. [   ]   After publicaiton, you can forward announcement to any special mailing lists or newsgroups.

Detailed Instructions

Once a paper has been accepted for publication in JAIR, you should follow the procedure outlined below. The final version of your manuscript is due to us *within two months* of the acceptance date. If you require more than two months, please request an extension from the editor.

  1. You should make any final changes required by the editor, and also format your article as described in the JAIR formatting instructions. We have JAIR Latex style files and sample files (including Word, LaTeX, and LaTeX2e) available. (We request that you use LaTex if possible.) If you want to format your article in Word, you can contact the managing editor for sample articles written in Word by previous authors.

    Authors are responsible for correctly formatting their article. If you wish we can recommend professionals who will do this for you for a fee.  Here are things to check, *before* you send us your article:

    • Capitalize section and subsection titles.
    • Make sure your abstract reads well. It will be used to advertise your paper.
    • We recommend you use small caps for system names. (In LaTex that's \sc)
    • Capitalize references to figures and tables, e.g. "In Figure 7..."
    • It's preferable to cite published papers, rather than tech reports.
    • Carefully read the section on citations in the JAIR formatting Instructions. Here are examples of BAD citations:
      • "See (Ginsberg, 1994) for an analysis..." 
        [Uses citation as a noun]
      • "Drummond (Drummond, 1994) showed that..." 
        [Should use citeyear i.e., Drummond (1994)]
      • "...the best method (see the ERT test (Davis, 1995))..." 
        [double parens, should be 
        "...best method (see the ERT test, Davis, 1995)..."]
    • In the authors' addresses, don't use commas at the end of the lines.
    • Do not start a section with a subsection. (E.g., Each section should start with some text, rather than immediately starting with a subsection.) Similarly, don't start a subsection with a sub-subsection.
    • Your paper should be formatted for 8.5 x 11 letter size paper, not A4 (common in Europe). If you are in Europe and use Latex, use "dvips -t" when you create your PostScript file to get the right size.
  2. Make any final changes and have your article proofread. For better or worse, we do not have a copyediting staff. (Note: Authors are notoriously bad proofreaders. Have the paper proofread by a skilled proofreader -- NOT one of the authors.)
  3. We also encourage you to make use of "online appendices" where appropriate. Online appendices can contain source code, data, even Quicktime demonstrations -- anything that will make life easier (or more interesting) for your readers and researchers who follow in your footsteps.
  4.  Make sure that the footer on your front page is correct. It should include the copyright notice and refer to the Creative Commons Attribute license, as specified in the LaTex and Word templates (see Step 1 above for the templates) .  By submitting your article with this copyright notice, we take this as assurance that you have read the JAIR Open Access Publication Agrreement and that you agree to all the terms specified in the agreement. 
  5. If there are online appendices containing source code, please sign the source code release form and send it along with the Transfer of Copyright. The release form is intended to reduce the liability of AI Access Foundation and JAIR's distributors.
  6. When you have formatted your paper and made any changes requested by the editor, upload your paper by logging in to jair.org and going to your submission, which should now (i.e., after acceptance) be in the "Copyediting" stage. You should be able to "Add a Discussion" and upload the revised paper as an attachment to the message, which will notify the editor that you have submitted the final version.
  7. Once the editor approves the content of the paper, he will assign a Production Editor who will check the formatting of the paper. If we find any formatting issues, the Production Editor will notify you and ask you to upload a new version (via the discussion mechanism). Once the formatting is acceptable, the Production Editor will let you know the publication date and the page numbers for your article, which you should add to your manuscript, along with any final formatting changes that are requested.
  8. Once the page numbers, date, etc. have been added and you have completing any last required formatting changes, upload the production galleys (the final files for publication) by adding a discussion item and attaching your files (using the same mechanism as in Step 6). When you upload these files, you should include:
    • a PDF version of your paper.
    • A zip or tar file containing all the source files (latex files, figures, word file, whatever) which we will archive.  
    • [optional] One or more online appendices with source code, experimental results, whatever.
  9. After we receive the final version and release the article, we will post an announcement on Twitter and our mailing list. If you know of any other mailing lists or venues where it would be appropriate to post an announcement for your paperd, we encourage you to forward our announcement.

Congratulations!