Conventional mail submissions

Original submissions that involve paper copies of the manuscript and the postal system are conventional mail submissions.

If the author has submitted conventionally, then the author should await word from the Editorial Office before sending the compuscript file; conventional submissions require that compuscript files be forwarded only after formal acceptance of the manuscript by the APS Editorial Offices.

When received by conventional mail at the editor's office, the manuscript will begin the usual editorial processing route. The special handling needed for compuscript processing will be initiated. See Fig. 1.

As part of routine preprocessing for compuscripts, the author will be contacted to establish that the compuscript file meets the necessary requirements for inclusion in the author-prepared program. The author will be asked several questions related to the file.

It is important that the author respond promptly to these queries. This information is critical for a compuscript to be included in the author-prepared program. It is not in the spirit of the author-prepared program to delay processing of a manuscript solely for the purpose of including the manuscript in the program. Therefore, if critical information is not available at the time the manuscript is given editorial approval for publication, then the manuscript will not be included in the program.

In most cases, when/if accepted for publication by the scientific editor, the author will be asked to send the compuscript file. (The exceptional case exists when the author opts to make manuscript corrections; see Sec. .)

Frequently there are manuscript changes needed in response to referee and editor questions/suggestions. All such changes must be indicated in the correspondence that accompanies a revised manuscript. The file must be exactly represented by the latest (hard copy) manuscript that was sent to the Editorial Offices. If there are known differences, these should be itemized in communication accompanying the file. Delays will result if these instructions are not followed.