Guide for Authors

Submission of Papers
For information regarding current submissions please contact topology@elsevier.com.

Manuscripts must be written in English, French or German and should include a short but informative abstract in English. Authors in Japan: Upon request, Elsevier Japan, will provide authors with a list of people who can check and improve the English of their paper (before submission). Please contact our Tokyo office: Elsevier Japan, 9-15 Higashi Azabu 1-chome, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106, Japan; Tel: +81 3-5561-5033; Fax: +81 3-5561-5047.

Submission of a paper implies that it has not been published previously, that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, and that if accepted it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the publisher.

Manuscript Preparation
General: Manuscripts must be typewritten, double-spaced with wide margins on one side of white paper. Good quality printouts with a font size of 12 or 10 pt are required. The corresponding author should be identified (include a Fax number and E-mail address). Full postal addresses must be given for all co-authors. Authors should consult a recent issue of the journal for style if possible. An electronic copy of the paper should accompany the final version. The Editors reserve the right to adjust style to certain standards of uniformity. Authors should retain a copy of their manuscript since we cannot accept responsibility for damage or loss of papers. Original manuscripts are discarded one month after publication unless the Publisher is asked to return original material after use.

Text: Follow this order when typing manuscripts: Title, Authors, Affiliations, Abstract, Keywords, Main text, Acknowledgements, Appendix, References, Vitae, Figure Captions and then Tables. Do not import the Figures or Tables into your text. The corresponding author should be identified with an asterisk and footnote. All other footnotes (except for table footnotes) should be identified with superscript Arabic numbers, and separated from the text by horizontal lines above and below.

Typeface: should be very carefully distinguished on the manuscript, using the following standard methods of marking:
Small capitals should be indicated by double underlining.
Capital letters where is it necessary to mark them distinctively, should be indicated by triple underlining. This marking may be added to that for other typefaces such as italic, bold, etc.
Italic capitals and lowercase letters should be indicated by a single underline.
Boldface capitals and lowercase letters should be indicated by a curly underline.
Script letters should be indicated by a small cross underneath each character.
Fraktur ('German') characters should be carefully drawn and encircled in GREEN.
Greek characters should NOT be underlined or encircled; they should be carefully drawn so as to avoid confusion with similar Roman characters and identified when first used by a marginal note of the form 'β - lowercase Greek beta'. In order to avoid difficulties in printing, special symbols and accented letters should wherever possible be restricted to those commonly found in the literature, and should be very clearly drawn and identified.
Please differentiate carefully between the letter l and the numeral 1, between O, o and the zero 0, between the 'prime' (as in x ) and the superior figure 1 (x¹).

Superiors and inferiors should be clearly distinguished where necessary and special attention paid to second-order terms.

References: All publications cited in the text should be presented in a list of references following the text of the manuscript. In the text refer to references by a number in square brackets on the line (e.g. Since Farrell[1]), and the full reference should be given in a numerical list at the end of the paper.
References should be given in the following form:

1. F.T. Farrell, The obstruction to fibering a manifold over a circle, Indiana University Journal 10 (1971) 315-346.

2. S. Mac Lane, Categories for the Working Mathematician, Graduate Texts in Mathematics, vol. 5, Springer, Berlin, 1971.

3. A.V. Phillips, D.A. Stone, The Chern-Simons character of a lattice gauge field, in: L. Kauffman, R.A. Baadhio (Eds.), Quantum Topology, World Scientific, Singapore, 1993, pp. 244-291.

Illustrations: All illustrations should be provided in camera-ready form, suitable for reproduction (which may include reduction) without retouching. Photographs, charts and diagrams are all to be referred to as "Figure(s)" and should be numbered consecutively in the order to which they are referred. They should accompany the manuscript, but should not be included within the text. All illustrations should be clearly marked on the back with the figure number and the author's name. All figures are to have a caption. Captions should be supplied on a separate sheet.
Line drawings: Good quality printouts on white paper produced in black ink are required. All lettering, graph lines and points on graphs should be sufficiently large and bold to permit reproduction when the diagram has been reduced to a size suitable for inclusion in the journal. Dye-line prints or photocopies are not suitable for reproduction. Do not use any type of shading on computer-generated illustrations.
Photographs: Original photographs must be supplied as they are to be reproduced (e.g. black and white or colour). If necessary, a scale should be marked on the photograph. Please note that photocopies of photographs are not acceptable.
Colour: Authors will be charged for colour at current printing costs.

Tables: Tables should be numbered consecutively and given a suitable caption and each table typed on a separate sheet. Footnotes to tables should be typed below the table and should be referred to by superscript lowercase letters. No vertical rules should be used. Tables should not duplicate results presented elsewhere in the manuscript (e.g. in graphs).

Electronic submission
Authors should submit an electronic copy of their paper with the final version of the manuscript. The electronic copy should match the hardcopy exactly. Always keep a backup copy of the electronic file for reference and safety. For authors wanting to use LaTex, the document style files, as well as the instructions "Preparing articles with LaTex" in the form of a dvi file, can be obtained free of charge from any host on the Comprehensive Tex Archive Network (CTAN) using anonymous ftp. The primary CTAN hosts are ftp.dante.de and ftp.tex.ac.uk. The Elsevier macros are in /pub/tex/macros/latex/contrib/supported/elsevier. These can also be downloaded from the Internet site: http://www.tex.ac.uk. Full details of electronic submission and other formats can be obtained from http://www.elsevier.com/locate/disksub or from Author Services at Elsevier.

Proofs
Proofs will be sent to the author (first named author if no corresponding author is identified of multi-authored papers) and should be returned within 48 hours of receipt. Corrections should be restricted to typesetting errors; any others may be charged to the author. Any queries should be answered in full. Please note that authors are urged to check their proofs carefully before return, since the inclusion of late corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofs are to be returned to the Log-in Department, Elsevier, Stover Court, Bampfylde Street, Exeter, Devon EX1 2AH, UK.

Offprints
Fifty offprints will be supplied free of charge. Additional offprints and copies of the issue can be ordered at a specially reduced rate using the order form sent to the corresponding author after the manuscript has been accepted. Orders for reprints (produced after publication of an article) will incur a 50% surcharge.

Copyright
All authors must sign the "Transfer of Copyright" agreement before the article can be published. This transfer agreement enables Elsevier Ltd to protect the copyrighted material for the authors, without the author relinquishing his/her proprietary rights. The copyright transfer covers the exclusive rights to reproduce and distribute the article, including reprints, photographic reproductions, microfilm or any other reproductions of a similar nature, and translations. It also includes the right to adapt the article for use in conjunction with computer systems and programs, including reproduction or publication in machine-readable form and incorporation in retrieval systems. Authors are responsible for obtaining from the copyright holder permission to reproduce any material for which copyright already exists.

Author Enquiries
For enquiries relating to the submission of articles (including electronic submission where available) please visit this journal?s homepage at http://www.elsevier.com/locate/top. You can track accepted articles at http://www.elsevier.com/trackarticle and set up e-mail alerts to inform you of when an article?s status has changed, as well as copyright information, frequently asked questions and more.

Contact details for questions arising after acceptance of an article, especially those relating to proofs, are provided after registration of an article for publication.