MANUSCRIPT CHECKLIST

In the modern era, publishers do not have ranks of typists sitting by, waiting to dot every “i” for the author. Luckily,word-processing programs have evolved to help authors meet their responsibility in turning in pristine work.
Before emailing us the final manuscript, authors are requested to go over the following checklist and make sure they are sending in a properly prepared file. This will help Algora focus on editing essentials and avoid introducing typos into the text while making last-minute corrections that should have been made at earlier stages.

• What is the word count?
• Is it in one file?
• Do you have a Table of Contents (chapter names, not page numbers)?
• Did you run Spell Check AND Grammar Check (for help, check our website)?
• Did you format the text according to “Author Guidelines” (check list below)?
• Did you INSERT footnotes using the Microsoft Footnote tool?
• Did you include a Bibliography?
• Did you include a list of terms for the Index (no pages, just the terms)?
• If you plan to dedicate the book to someone, have you included that?
• Do you have any Acknowledgments?

TEXT FORMATTING

Please DO NOT use boxes, rules, decorative characters and other fancy presentation devices. Text will be lost or garbled.
Here is a short list of “No-No’s”:

1. No double-space between sentences.
2. No double-space between paragraphs.
3. No underlines. For book titles cited, etc., use italics. (If you already have text underlined, you can use the
Microsoft Find/Replace feature to make these changes semi-automatically — use the “format” check box.)
4. No bold. (Use MS Find/Replace, if you already used Bold.)
5. No headings in all capital letters or small caps.
6. No text boxes: If you think something is better set apart as a side-bar, make a note to that effect.
“Yes-yes”:
1. Indent first line of paragraph with one tab (instead of setting a first-line indent).
2. Tables. Use the Insert/Table feature and place all your data in the correct row and column. Don’t worry about font size, margins and other formatting details of the table; we will take care of that, here.