Ice Dragon Pentathlon Research Papers 08

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For MS Word format, click here to download

Submitting your electronic Literary Submission by email to the Pent Coordinator

All contestants are asked to use digital submissions where feasible. There are some papers that simply have too many images for this to work well, but for the most part, scanned images are a doable thing.

If you are unsure that your submission can be submitted electronically, contact the Pent Coordinator about options. Hardcopy is doable, as well as submitting on CDROM.

GUIDELINES

CHECKLIST for submitting your paper by email to the Pent Coordinator:

Once you have your files assembled (see below) and ready to send to me as your submission, email me with the following information:

1. Your SCAdian name fully spelled out.
2. Your SCA group
3. Your mundane name and mundane mailing address.
4. Whether you are submitting a novice, singles or group entry.

The Pent Coordinator’s email is: Orianna at Thescorre dot org. You will receive a confirming email.

I must receive your paper by midnight (postmarked or emailed) by February 9^th, 2007.

Research Paper Text and File format:

The main part of your paper will be text. While most SCAdians may have access to MS Word, not all do. In past years we have encountered issues with older versions of various word processing software. Most software programs can save to “rich text format” with an extension of .rtf. This is usually found under the ‘save as’ choices as you go to save your file. I advise saving twice-once in the default for your word processor (your usual format) and once to send to me in rtf.

NOTE 1. Paginate your paper. In other words, make sure each page is numbered.

NOTE 2. On embedding images in MS Word: while MS Word has an ‘insert a picture’ feature, the wise author selects ‘text box’ first and THEN inserts a picture into that text box. It may look a bit funny (pull the corners of the text box out until the image fits), but that text box will navigate thru your text far more easily that a ‘naked’ inserted image, saving a lot of frustration. Embedded images of this sort are acceptable and should make it thru the rtf ‘save as’ process. You won’t have to include the images as separate jpgs, unless they are very large.

NOTE 3. Do not embed images in other word processing programs. They give us trouble in conversions.

NOTE 4. If you are on a PC, and don’t have MS Office, you might want to consider using OpenOffice freeware found at http://www.openoffice.org. Very similar and compatible to MS Office.

Images of Photos, Painting, Objects, Processes, Etc.

Images work best NOT imbedded in the text. (However, please see note above about putting them in MS Word.) Be sure to follow “Ordering your Image” directions (next page).

Ordering your Images and Tables:

If you don’t imbed images in the text, then the following system of ordering them and referring to them in the text is highly recommended:

Label each image in the order it appears in the text. Figure 1 for your first pix; Figure 2 for your second pix, etc. If you have tables, follow the same procedure, but label them, in order of appearance as Table 1, Table 2 etc.

The Figure Legend Page:

At the end of your paper text and after your Bibliography, have a separate page titled ‘Figure Legends’. This will contain the information that you would like to have with each of your images, including a title, source of image, and anything else you’d like to note about it. Provide these in order.

Example: Figure 1. Painting of the Virgin, accession no. xxxxx, Metropolitan Museum, NYC. Note the pillow the Child is sitting on and its tassels. Figure 2. Photo of a tasseled pillow held in the Gardner Museum, Boston MA, accession no. xxxxx. Blah blah blah.

Scanning and saving your images as jpg files:

You will have to turn your images into jpg files. These are best sized to be LESS than 1000 kb or 1 megabyte in size each (contact me for exceptions). Name them Fig1. Fig2. Table1 etc. Images that you have that are ‘hard copy’ will have to be scanned or photographed to digitize them. If you have more than 20 images to attach, you might have to send them to me as hard copies. Please email me in that case. I prefer no other formats.

WHY:

In past years, Research Paper submitters and the judges were asked to submit and to accept electronic versions of papers. It went well for both contestants, judges and the Pent coordinator. The judges will be able to comment on the actual document you submit (they will use RED or BOLD in parentheses). After the judging we will be able to send your document back to you with comments included. This is much easier for contestants and seems to result in more feedback. Also, it saves the contestants, judges and the Pent coordinator time and money. Some of the larger notebook-like entries were quite expensive to say nothing of the time-in-the-mail factor.