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Information for Authors - IEEE SMC Magazine


IEEE System, Man, and Cybernetics Magazine is published quarterly. Each paper submitted is
subject to a thorough review process, and the publication decision is based on the comments and
recommendations of the reviewers. Review management is generally under the direction of an
associate editor. Often, reviews take 6 weeks but can take up to three to four months,
occasionally longer. An additional several months is required for the publication process.

Process for Submission of a Technical Article

1. All articles should be submitted electronically in Portable Document Format (PDF). The
paper should print correctly on 8.5 by 11 inch paper. For UNIX and Windows systems there are
postscript to PDF converters, notably ps2pdf which is a part of Ghostscript. A text version of your
abstract is required.
2. Please utilize our manuscript submission system. The site has instructions and help
buttons on each page.
3. If the manuscript or a considerable part of it has been presented, published, or submitted
for publication elsewhere, you must inform the Editor. Failure to do so may result in the
immediate rejection of your manuscript. Our primary objective is to publish technical material not
otherwise available elsewhere.

Style for Manuscript

1. Use double-spaced, single column and 10pt or larger for initial submissions. Please have
your text fit in 8.5x11in. (21.6x27.9 cm) sheets. Manuscripts using the IEEE transaction format
(two-columns) are acceptable for final articles.
2. Regular articles are normally about 6 Magazine pages in length, or shorter. Technical
correspondences are generally no more than 4 Transactions pages in length. Please see the
discussion on excess page charges for charges that are imposed when manuscripts exceed the
maximum number of pages.
3. Since Magazine publishes only in English, contributors for whom English is not a native
language should consult a colleague who is familiar with the English language prior to submitting
the paper for editing the original manuscript.
4. Provide an informative 100 to 250 word abstract at the head of the manuscript; provide an
abstract of not more than 100 words for Correspondences.
5. Provide a separate double-spaced sheet listing all footnotes, beginning with "Manuscript
received..." (date to be filled in by Editor) and affiliation of the author(s), and continuing with
numeric citation. Acknowledgement of financial support is placed at the end of the first footnote.
6. References should appear in a separate section at the end of the paper, double-spaced
with items referred to by numerals in square brackets. References must be complete and in IEEE
style:
Style for articles: Author, first initials followed by last name, title in quotations, periodical, volume,
page numbers, month, year.
Style for books: Author, title. Location: publisher, year, chapter, and page numbers (if desired).
See any issue of the Transactions for examples.

7. Provide a separate sheet listing all figure captions.
8. Authors of accepted articles will be asked to supply a head and shoulders photograph of
themselves and a technical biography. The biography should be in the form used in IEEE
Transactions, consisting of three paragraphs of information: name, where and when born, degrees
earned, field(s) of study, school, city, state; chief employment dates, organizations, positions
held, type of work, responsibilities, present position; and professional society membership,
offices, and awards.
9. Accepted articles will rapidly appear on the Web in the IEEE Xplore system
approximately three weeks after corrected page proofs are received from an author. This will
typically be before the paper appears in the print version of the journal. Hence, articles will be
disseminated to the research community faster utilizing electronic submission.
10. Additional information for authors and other information may be obtained at IEEE.org.
11. In order for an abstract to be effective when displayed in IEEE Xplore as well as through
indexing services such as Compendex, INSPEC, Medline, ProQuest, and Web of Science, it
must be an accurate, stand-alone reflection of the contents of the article.

The abstract must be a concise yet comprehensive reflection of what is in your article. In
particular:

1. The abstract must be self-contained, without abbreviations, footnotes, or references. It
should be a microcosm of the full article.
2. The abstract must be between 150-250 words. Be sure that you adhere to these limits;
otherwise, you will need to edit your abstract accordingly.
3. The abstract must be written as one paragraph, and should not contain displayed
mathematical equations or tabular material.
4. The abstract should include three or four different keywords or phrases, as this will help
readers to find it. It is important to avoid over-repetition of such phrases as this can result in a
page being rejected by search engines.
5. Ensure that your abstract reads well and is grammatically correct.
Please note that it is the author's, not theMagazine's, responsibility to proofread articles.
Style for Illustrations
1. Originals for illustrations (including tables) should be sharp, noise-free, and of good
contrast as they will be photographed or electronically scanned. We regret that we cannot provide
drafting or art services.
2. On graphs, show only the coordinate axes, or at most the major grid lines to avoid a
dense, hard-to-read result.
3. All lettering should be large enough to permit legible reduction of the figure to column
width, sometimes as much as 4 to 1. There should only be one illustration per page and only
illustrations should be included in the set of illustrations. Please be very sure that your lettering is
sufficiently large, such that it will be readable after photo-reduction.
4. If an illustration is to be reproduced in color, the author is responsible for the incremental
cost of color printing.

Open Access

This publication is a hybrid journal, allowing either Traditional manuscript submission or Open
Access (author-pays OA) manuscript submission. Upon submission, if you choose to have your
manuscript be an Open Access article, you commit to pay the discounted $1,750 OA fee if your
manuscript is accepted for publication in order to enable unrestricted public access. Any other
application charges (such as over- length page charge and/or charge for the use of color in the
print format) will be billed separately once the manuscript formatting is complete but prior to the
publication. If you would like your manuscript to be a Traditional submission, your article will be
available to qualified subscribers and purchasers via IEEE Xplore. No OA payment is required for
Traditional submission.

Voluntary Page and Excess Page Charges

After a manuscript has been accepted for publication, the author's company or institution will be
requested to pay a voluntary charge of $110 per printed page to cover part of the cost of
publication. These page charges, like those for journals of other professional societies, are not
obligatory nor are their payment a prerequisite for publication. The author will receive 100 free
reprints without covers if this charge is honored. A mandatory overlength page charge of $175 is
required for each page in excess of 12 pages for a regular paper, or 6 pages for technical
correspondences. Authors who are concerned with these latter charges are encouraged to
estimate the length of their manuscripts prior to submission. Detailed instructions on payment of
these charges will accompany the page proof.

Electronic Publishing

IEEE is now able to set galley proofs directly from a Windows or Macintosh file. Most word
processing formats are supported to some extent, but TeX, LaTeX, or Troff are preferred. Further
details are contained within the information for authors accompanying final acceptance letters.

Copyright

It is the policy of the IEEE to own the copyright to the technical contributions it publishes on
behalf of the interests of the IEEE, its authors, and their employers, and to facilitate the
appropriate reuse of this material by others. To comply with U.S. Copyright law, authors are
required to sign an IEEE Copyright Form before publication. This form, available on IEEE.org,
returns to authors and their employers full rights to reuse their material for their own purposes.

Duplicate Submissions

It is the policy of Transactions on SMC: Systems to review articles which were originally
submitted as conference articles only if there is over 75% original material. Articles with less than
75% will be rejected. When submitting conference articles please clearly state how this paper
differs from the conference paper. You may also contact Editor in Chief to discuss your
submission
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