The AJP Physics Education Research Section:
Information for Contributors

Submission is a representation that the manuscript has not been published previously nor is currently submitted for publication elsewhere. If the manuscript is accept for publication, a signed statement must be submitted to the editorial office, transferring copyright to the AAPT. The appropriate form will be supplied at the time of acceptance.

Manuscripts should be prepared with the following characteristics:

• Type size should be reasonable (11 or 12 point type is excellent).
• The manuscript should be double spaced and printed on one side of the page only.
• The manuscript should have reasonably large margins (1.25 - 1.5 inches) on each edge.
• All manuscript pages should be numbered, including the title or abstract page and all end pages except figures.
• The article should be preceded by an abstract.

The figures, diagrams, and tables should have the following characteristics.

• Try to avoid the use of backgrounds in figures. Maximum black-white contrast is necessary. Avoid small open symbols, which tend to fill in upon reduction, small dots and decimal points, and lines that are not thick enough to withstand reduction. A good size for drawings is two or three times that desired for the printed figure, with all lettering and line thicknesses similarly enlarged.
• Graphs should have properly labeled axes with correctly abbreviated units.
• Figures should be cited in the text in numerical order.
• Each figure should be identified on the margin or on the back with a label (which is not part of the figure to be reproduced) including the number of the figure, the name of the author, and the title of the article.
• A brief caption should be provided for every diagram and photograph, but it should not be made part of the figure. Captions should be listed together on the final page.
• Tables should be typed on separate sheets at the end of the running text. They should be numbered consecutively with roman numerals. Each table should be provided with a brief title.

Footnotes should follow the following formats.

• Footnotes should be typed double spaced and grouped together in sequence at the end of the manuscript.
• Footnotes should be numbered consecutively throughout the article, regardless of whether they are explanatory or literature references, except when they are appended to the author's name. In these exceptional cases, Latin letters are used. Explanatory footnotes may not themselves be footnoted.
• Footnote references to periodical articles should have the following form providing title and final as well as initial page numbers. Use of the issue number is encouraged but not required unless the reference would otherwise be ambiguous.

  Freeman J. Dyson, "Feynman's proof of the Maxwell equations," Am. J. Phys. 58(3), 209-211 (1990).

• A footnote reference to a book should have the form:

  David J. Griffiths, Introduction to Electrodynamics (Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1989), 2nd ed., pp. 331-334.

Upon acceptance and copy editing for publication in the Supplement, articles will be made available on the AAPT web site until publication. In order to facilitate this, please provide electronic copies of the mansucript on disk with the manuscript if possible. Electronic versions are acceptabile in Microsoft Word, Word Perfect, or in RevTeX. Electronic copies may be submitted as attachments by email.

If an doubt about a convention, refer to articles in The American Journal of Physics.