Sessions: Journal Requirements

COMMENTS FROM THE JOURNAL OF CAVE AND KARST STUDIES  EDITOR ABOUT CONVENTION ABSTRACTS

The Abstract as a Permanent Record

Each year, the Journal of Cave and Karst Studies publishes the abstracts from the annual national convention of the National Speleological Society. This collection is our official archive recording the recent activity in a variety of speleological fields ranging from archaeology to exploration to photography. Unlike the Convention Program or the NSS News, the Journal is listed in a variety of scientific bibliographies. Anyone looking for information on caves in granite can find numerous references to the Journal on Georef or in a variety of other geology reference materials. Because of this, the abstract is more than an invitation, or "teaser" to entice an audience. It is also a permanent record. A summary of all the substantial information one plans to present.

While the Journal does not wish to limit the types of presentations made at convention, we would like members to understand the requirements of our publication and the reasons we have them.

How the Journal "Selects" Abstracts

The Journal has to limit the number of pages devoted to abstracts and, hence, readers may note that the abstracts published from past conventions were "selected" and edited. Several criteria are used.

Calls for Papers for conventions require that abstracts be limited to 250 words. While this limit has been strictly enforced by recent staff, some session chairs in the past were more lenient and published lengthier abstracts in the Convention Program. While this seems generous, it causes problems when the abstract is passed along to the Journal staff. We must limit the abstract to 250 words. Thus, lengthy abstracts are eliminated.

Abstracts comprised of promises tend to make up the most commonly eliminated abstracts.. Sentences that start with "This paper describes...." or "The results will be presented...." are cut out. If an abstract is left with nothing of substance, it is eliminated. Too often an abstract will say, "Discussion will be on how to......" instead of actually summarizing the technique. A promise is nearly worthless but a summary would have value to future readers.

The paper must have been presented at the convention and the abstract needed to be submitted before the convention. Although the Journal staff has to rely on the convention committee for this information, it is inappropriate to publish abstracts of papers for promised speakers who failed to make their presentation or for abstracts that were not submitted prior to convention to the session chair.

Other Requirements of the Journal

While preparing an abstract for the convention, we ask you to consider some other requirements of the Journal. Like nearly all scholarly publications, we use metric. Please use, or at least include, metric in each abstract.

A scholarly abstract should always include a mailing address. Professional affiliation and Internet address are also commonly included.

Avoid abbreviations. While everyone in the cave rescue session may know what NCRC means, most non-cavers who might look up the abstract after finding a reference to it in a mountain rescue book probably will not. Likewise, it may be safe to assume that the geologists in the geology session know who the USGS is but a "geology-challenged" caver who reads the Journal may be clueless.

Malcolm S. Field, Editor