Instructions to authors submitting to the LMS Journal of Computation and Mathematics

IMPORTANT NOTE:
Please do NOT use this site for the submission of papers intended for the OTHER journals of the London Mathematical Society (that is, the PROCEEDINGS, JOURNAL or BULLETIN, or the JOURNAL OF TOPOLOGY).
Material for those journals is handled separately (see http://www.lms.ac.uk/publications/submission.html).

1. The language of the journal is English; please also see the guidelines and suggestions for clear mathematical writing given below. Each paper must be submitted exclusively to the LMS JCM. No paper that has been previously published, or which is being considered for publication elsewhere, should be submitted to the London Mathematical Society. Nor may a paper that is under consideration by the London Mathematical Society be submitted elsewhere.
   
   PLEASE NOTE: Since 2010, the page format and style of the JCM is the same as that of the other LMS journals (Bulletin, Journal, Proceedings and the Journal of Topology).
   
   Although submissions in any document class or style are invited, authors are encouraged to use the LMS class file, which is available by clicking here. (The older ’JCM’ class file should no longer be used.)
   
   The LMS JCM is a free open access journal, and therefore any help authors can provide in preparing their manuscript is appreciated.
   
   
2. You may submit a paper electronically as a single PDF file. To do this, you will need to complete a web form.

   Before filling in the form, please read through this checklist of items you will need to have to hand when completing it:

   • Be sure to have a single PDF version of your paper ready to be uploaded as part of the web form submission.
     
     Please keep the .tex file that precisely corresponds to the PDF version that you are submitting. If your paper is accepted, we will require that particular version of the .tex file. Please do not send the .tex file at this time.
     
     
   • On the web form, you will be asked to choose the name of the Editorial Adviser whose mathematical interests are closest to the subject of your paper. It is advisable to study the list before filling in the form and check that you have the most appropriate Editorial Adviser.
     
     
   • Appendices/add-ons. The JCM welcomes submissions with supplementary material, such as databases, code, graphics, etc., in an appropriate format (*.txt, *.html, *.jpg, *.m, *.g etc.)., that are not part of the paper itself but you wish to have published with the paper, or which may be useful to the editors or referees. When you upload your paper (one PDF file only) via the web form , there will be a text box headed ’Cover Letter’. In that text box, optionally include a URL (web address) or an anonymous FTP host/directory address from which we can download any such additional file(s) (preferably as one zipped file).
     
     Also, in the ’Cover Letter’ textbox, please list the name and description of each file included in the submission, indicating any that are not intended for publication.
     
     

Link to the web form for submitting a new article

You will be sent an acknowledgement via email, usually within 1 hour, confirming receipt of your submission. If you do not receive such an acknowledgement, please write to jcm@lms.ac.uk.

The Editors prefer not to consider multiple versions of the same paper before a decision on the first version is sent, particularly if the changes are minor.

If you have received a letter that firmly rejects your paper and does not mention that a resubmission would be considered, you would be advised to submit any revision of your paper to another journal.

Try to ensure that editors and referees who read your work find it more a pleasure than a chore. It is your job to be understood. Responsibility for the accuracy of your results and for the quality of the exposition rests with you, not with the referee or the editor.

2. Do not use mathematical symbols and formulae in the title of your paper, and avoid the use of symbols or formulae in the abstract.

A title that includes symbols or formulae is usually incomprehensible except by a small number of specialists. Symbols in titles make for bibliographical difficulties, and the font used for titles does not usually accommodate formulae satisfactorily or easily.

3. Do not attach footnote markers to titles or authors' names. They are rarely necessary, and are an unsightly distraction. (The JCM style file puts author addresses, as well as acknowledgements, at the end of the paper.) The symbol † is unfortunately similar to the sign which, in many cultures, is used to indicate that the named person has died.

4. Ensure that formulae are not perverted or distorted by adjacent material, and that they can be parsed at first reading.

• Avoid the use of footnotes.
  
• Never allow formulae to coalesce. For example, never begin a sentence with a formula or a mathematical symbol when the preceding sentence has ended with a symbol – the eye will first read the concatenation of symbols as one formula. (In fact, it is a useful rule always to try to organise your writing so that sentences never, or rarely, begin with a technical symbol.)
  
• Ensure that reference citations do not pervert formulae. "The same theorem has been proved for M₁₂ (see [4])" is easier to read than "The same theorem has been proved for M₁₂ [4]".
  
• Avoid the use of abbreviations such as "i.e." or "e.g.". Avoid inverted commas (apostrophe, quotation marks) adjacent to formulae.
  
• Never try to make plurals from symbols using "apostrophe s". Even in printed form, a group of letters such as "g_i's" looks like one formula. Besides, it is ungrammatical, and (since "apostrophe s" usually indicates a possessive) it is misleading.
  
• Quantifiers should be properly attached to the appropriate variables. For example, the natural first reading of the assertion "every 0 ≠ x ∈ F has an inverse" is obviously not what is intended.

5. Ensure that phrases, sentences and paragraphs are formed according to standard grammatical rules. It is understood that the usual rules of language have to be modified to incorporate formulae in mathematical writing. If you modify them unreasonably, or break them too frequently, your paper will be unreadable, with the result that, even if your research is good, your paper may be rejected. Mathematics must not only be done, it must be seen to be done.

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Editorial Control: Ola Törnkvist jcm@lms.ac.uk Last changed: 7 June 2011