Notes for Authors

If you have not written a formal paper in the past, it is suggested that you consult either a book on scientific writing or a style guide. Many journals also provide good guidance to authors – we recommend CSIRO Publishing at http://www.publish.csiro.au or the Elsevier's Guide to Publication at http://www.elsevier.com/locate/guidepublication.

Please write your text in good English, and use Australian English spelling. Italicise any Latin origin words (for example, et al., per se and similar). For numbers, use decimal points, not commas, and use a space for thousands (10 000 and above).  Spell out numbers less than 10, unless stated with units (eg. six or 6 mm).

Please use a spell checker to check spelling, and proof-read the paper prior to submission.

Your paper should be presented concisely, and meet the length criteria described in the ‘Template for submission of abstracts and papers to the 2010 National EMS Conference’. Abstracts and papers presented in other formats will be returned to authors for re-formatting. In the event of excess papers, preference will be given to correctly formatted documents.

You must submit your paper through the Author Gateway on the EMSA website. E-mailed papers will not be accepted, and returned to authors for submission via the website. Papers must be provided as Word documents only. We cannot accept paper in a PDF format.

Ensure that the title is informative and reflects the content of the paper. Titles provide information for search engines, so to ensure that your paper reaches as many of your desired audience a possible, you need to make sure that the title is suitable.

The abstract should state the purpose of the paper, may indicate methods (if appropriate), give the results, and major conclusions. The abstract needs to be a ‘stand-alone’ document, as it will be presented without the full paper in the conference program. Do not include references in the abstract. Try to avoid acronyms in the abstracts, but if it is essential to use them, define the acronym in full at the first mention. You will need to re-define any acronyms in the full-text. Ensure consistency of use of acronyms throughout the text.

Provide 3-6 key words, avoiding plural terms and multiple concepts. Keywords are also used by search engines and the comments above in the title section apply here.

Suggested sections of paper are:

• Title
• Abstract
• Keywords
• Introduction
• Experimental design/materials and methods
• Theory and/or calculations (if appropriate)
• Discussion
• Conclusions
• Acknowledgements (if appropriate)
• References

Make sure that every reference referred to in the text is also provided in the reference list.  Limit the use of unpublished results and personal communications, and do not list these in the reference list.  Only use ‘in press’ for documents that have been accepted for publication in recognised journals.  If using web references, check that these are current and provide the URL and the date the site was accessed.  List references alphabetically.