Report or guidebook style guide

This style guide is intended to help you prepare a report or guidebook for publication by CSCCE. After submission, we will edit your submission and format it into the CSCCE template, but referring to this guide before submission will expedite the editorial process.

In general we will adhere to the Chicago Manual of Style for grammar when editing your document (available here via personal subscription or through your institution’s library).

Reports or guidebooks published by CSCCE will be deposited in our Zenodo repository, here, and issued a unique digital object identifier.

Before submission, please familiarize yourself with our publication guidelines (currently in draft form an available upon request by emailing info@CSCCE.org).

Report or guidebook format

Reports or guidebooks are large resources with multiple chapters. The format can be fluid, however there are certain elements that are always present:

Cover page

This includes a title, optional sub-head, and author information (first and last name only).

Table of contents

This is automatically generated in our template, so there is no need for you to create a table of contents before submission.

About the authors

  • Author lists should include first names, last names, affiliations, and short bios (optional).
  • You may specify a corresponding author if you would like but it is not necessary.

Introduction or summary

Subheadings

  • Subheadings can be used to break your one pager into sections, but are not required.
  • Subheadings are all H2.
  • You have the option of including section headers at the H3 and H4 level if you wish.

Links

  • Hyperlink words, wherever possible rather than pasting raw URLs.
  • Remove marketing tags, if applicable.

Images

  • Always check provenance of image and that we have permission to use it in the final document. This may involve reaching out to the creator for permission or linking to an open/public domain source.
  • Add credit in caption e.g. “Image credit: CSCCE.”

Tables

We will format tables, but please indicate any formatting you would like to retain (e.g., bold headings, shading).

Margins

We have two layout options, one with a wider right-hand margin for documents that are image driven. We will consult with you about layout choice upon receiving your submission.

Lists

  • Always use numbers for reference lists but bullets for resources.
  • Within the text, you can choose between numbers or bullets as appropriate.
  • Where possible, limit bullet nesting to three.

Quotes

Please credit quotes in the text. We will format pull quotes as appropriate.

References, resources, and further reading

You are welcome to include a references or resources section. For journal articles, please use the following format:

Corpas M, Gehlenborg N, Janga SC, Bourne PE (2008) Ten simple rules for organizing a scientific meeting. PLoS Comput Biol doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000080

When referencing web articles/blog posts, please use the following format: 
Woodley L (2014) All together now: Event formats for networking.Social in silico

References will be added throughout the text. Please number references in the order in which they appear and indicate the proper place in the text with the corresponding superscript number.

Acknowledgements and recommended citation

  • Mention funding source, where relevant
  • Thank community contributors e.g. for proof-reading, where relevant
  • We will add recommended citation language, which will be similar to the following:

“Slack quick start guide” by Lou Woodley and Katie Pratt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) license.

Cite as: Center for Scientific Collaboration and Community Engagement. (2020) Slack quick start guide. Woodley and Pratt doi: 10.5281/zenodo.3763730.

Contact the CSCCE for other permissions by emailing info@cscce.org. The CSCCE logo is a trademark of CSCCE. It and other images in this guide are not licensed under these terms and may only be used when you use “Slack quick start guide” in its original form. Please attribute any modified use of this material as “Adapted from an original by the Center for Scientific Collaboration and Community Engagement (­­CSCCE) under a CC BY 4.0 license: 10.5281/zenodo.3763730.”

Additional formatting information

Abbreviations and Acronyms

Only use abbreviations for terms that are used more than twice in the text. Introduce abbreviations or acronyms in parentheses after spelling out the first occurrence, for example, community manager (CM) or US National Science Foundation (NSF).

Always spell out the word “and”, except in cases where “&” is an official part of a proper name.

When referencing CSCCE, spell it out the first time and from thereon use the abbreviation. There is no need to use the parenthetical (CSCCE) in the first occasion.

Dates and Times

Dates should be written Day Month Year, without commas separating each unit, for example, 29 April 2020. When including a date, use this format: Thursday, 29 April 2020.

Please use the following format for times: 10:30am / 9:15pm

American vs. British spellings

CSCCE publications will use American spelling unless there is a compelling reason otherwise.