Submissions

Author Guidelines

Language

The manuscript should be written in English (American or British English accepted, but consistency required) or German in a clear and concise manner.

Templates

All the required formatting, layout and policies for submissions are provided in our „MS Word Submission Templates“:

MS Word (docx) Submission Template (English)
MS Word (docx) Submission Template (German)

Please adhere to the submission specifications and formatting in the templates in conjunction with the following guidelines and refrain from using own formatting. Compliance with these requirements will significantly speed up the publication process.

Manuscript structure

The manuscript should be structured as follows:

Title
The title should be concise, informative and representative of the contents of the manuscript.

Name of the author(s)
Names, affiliations, current e-mail and postal addresses must be given for all authors.

Keywords Include at least 5 keywords or phrases in alphabetical order, separated by commas to distinguish them. Listing specific keywords will help researchers find your work in databases.

Abstract
An abstract of maximum 200 words should comprise a brief review of the contents and the conclusions of the paper. The heading of the section should not be numbered.

Main Text
For the main text, a numbered subdivision into introduction, materials and methods section, results, discussion and conclusion is recommended.

Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements (including fund and fund number) may be gathered together in a separate section at the end of the text. The heading of the section should not be numbered.

References
The heading of the references should not be numbered. See the specific section below for formatting references.

Formatting your contribution

Page Layout
The article is to be written in one column with 2.5 cm margins around. Omit page numbers, headers and footers, because they will be inserted during the publication process. Accordingly, refer only to sections, not to specific pages.

Titles
The numbered chapters and sub-chapters should always start with one and end without a concluding dot. Please do not use more than three levels of headlines. The following font sizes and formatting specified in the templates are to be used:

The numbering of the chapters is aligned left, the subsequent chapter names should be indented with a tab of 8.5 mm

Body text
The body text is justified, font size Arial 10 pt normal. The line spacing for the body text is single spaced, spacing after 6 pt. An emphasis within the text is to be marked in italics.

Do not use field functions in MS Word. Turn off the automatic hyphenation and do not manually insert hyphens to divide syllables at the end of the line.
Use the en-dash (–) with the key combination Ctrl + Minus (on the num block) to indicate spans or differentiation. They are closed up to the joined words without spaces before or after, e.g. 300–400 °C, [1–4], S. 45–51).

The International System of Units (SI) should be used for all data. In the expression for the value of a quantity, the unit symbol, with only a few exceptions, is placed after the numerical value and a space is left between the numerical value and the unit symbol, e.g. 0,5 µm, 4 m/s, 56 %, 100 °C, but: 90°. To avoid a line break between the value and the unit symbol, insert nonbreaking spaces with the key combination Ctrl + Shift + Spacebar. Operators (+, –, ∙, =, >, < etc.) are also separated from values with spaces, e.g. 3 + 4 = 7 or 5 ∙ 10-6 K-1.

Use tab stops or other commands for indents, not the space bar.

Tables
Tables must be embedded into the text at the appropriate points and not supplied separately. Please submit tables as editable text and not as images.

All tables should should be provided with a numbered table heading. The following formats are to be respected for the heading: Arial 10 pt (table and current number), spacing before: 6 pt, spacing after: 2 pt, line spacing: 8 pt, left justification, Tabs: 9, 11, 13.5 and 16 mm from the left.

Special rules also apply for the table text. The first row of the table should have a top and bottom border, the last row is marked with a bottom border. All other rows remain borderless. The table text can be aligned left or centered. The line spacing is 8.5 pt, spacing before 6 and spacing after 2 pt.

Illustrations
Images and diagrams should be used in moderation. Please make sure that the data presented in them do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article. They are to be numbered separately and continuously. They should be placed within the text at the appropriate points.

Illustrations should be provided with captions describing accurately what the image depicts. No punctuation is to be included after the number, nor is any punctuation to be placed at the end of the caption. Format the captions in Arial 9 pt with line spacing of 8 pt aligned left and tabs at 9, 11, 13.5 and 16 mm. The spacing to the image is 6 pt, to the following text 2 pt.

Captions and illustrations are to be separated from the main body text by a blank line.

Authors must ensure that the labelling of the figures is legible. The minimum font size for lettering appearing in a figure should be 8 pt size (equivalent to 2 mm in height for capital letters) at final width; lines should not be thinner than 0.5 point and should be of uniform density. Avoid effects such as shading, outline letters, etc.

Figures will be reproduced online exactly as supplied, with no redrawing or relabelling. Therefore, color illustrations and photographs should be submitted as RGB (8 bits per channel) with a resolution of at least 300 dpi at final size. Line drawings and graphs must have exported resolution between 600 and 1000 dpi.

Note: Technologies for Lightweight Structures reserves the right to reproduce and distribute selected online issues in print. Please take into consideration that the respective articles will be printed mainly in black and white. Graphs with coloured lines and keys, contour maps, model outputs, etc. will not reproduce adequately if converted directly to greyscale. In particular, red and blue appear to be the same shade of gray when converted. Therefore, we strongly advise you to optimize your illustrations for grayscale reproduction: Provide art that contains black and white patterns and dotted or dashed lines to depict different elements, avoid light-colored (such as yellow) text, etc.

Equations and Chemical Structures
Equations should be produced using Word Equation Editor.
Chemical structures should be produced with the use of any commercially available drawing package and inserted into the text as images (PNG-, TIF- oder JPG-format). No hand-drawn chemical structures will be accepted.

The designation of the formulas is done with consecutive numbering, starting from one, in parentheses (both in the text as well as directly in the formula). Here you should use Arial 8 pt or the symbol character sets. The formulas are to be placed in the text with an indention of 12.8 mm from the left. Please respect the line spacing of 9.5 pt. before and the spacing of 11 pt after the formula. The tab for the formula numbering is to be set at 118 mm. Numbering is right-justified.

References
Individual references are numbered consecutively in the order in which they are cited in the text, starting from one, and placed in square brackets (both in the text and in the reference list at the end). Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). When referring to a reference item in the main text, please simply use the reference number, as in [2]. Multiple references are separated by comma or en-dash, e.g. [2, 4, 5–7]. In the list of references please do not use automatic numbering.

Citations are formatted in Arial 10 pt. The line spacing is 12.75 pt, paragraph spacing 6 pt. The tab is to be set at 8 or 11 mm from the left.

Examples
Journal article (print)
Shen, T. D.; Schwarz, R. B.: Bulk ferromagnetic glasses prepared by flux melting and water quenching. Appl. Phys. Lett. 75(1) (1999), pp. 49–51.

Ideally, the names of all authors should be provided, but the usage of “et al” in long author lists will also be accepted.
Journal names should be abbreviated according to the ISSN List of Title Word Abbreviations. If you are unsure, please use the full journal title.

Journal article (online)
Chiang, W.-Y.; Hu, C.-H.: Effect of Matrix Graft Modification Using Acrylic Acid on the PP/Mg(OH)2 Composites and its Possible Mechanism. J. Polym. Res., 7(1) (2000), pp. 15-20. doi:10.1007/s10965-006-0099-7

Please insert the DOI number as noted above (if available). The DOI number is generally displayed in the referred publication or it can be found by searching at Crossref.

Book
Gibson, L.J.; Ashby, M.F.: Cellular solids: Structure & properties. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1988.

Book chapter
Berry, M.: Microcellular injection molding. In: Kutz, M. (ed.). Applied plastics engineering handbook. Burlington: Elsevier Science, 2011, pp. 215–226.

Online document
Cartwright, J.: Big stars have weather too. IOP Publishing PhysicsWeb, 2007. http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/11/6/16/1. (accessed 26 June 2007).

Proceedings
Barnett, R. L.; Glauber, J. B.: Automotive lifts - Unrestrained v. restrained swing arms. In: Proceedings of the ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition 2009, IMECE2009, 2010, pp. 373­­­-387.

Standards
IEEE Standard 308: IEEE Criteria for Class IE Electric Systems, 1969.

Patents
Smith, D., Hodges, J.: British Patent Application 98765, 1925.

If you are uncertain of the correct format, please check the reference lists of any of our published papers.