Conference Proceedings: Online Submission

• Before You Submit Your Paper
• Preparing for a Successful Submission
• Formatting Your Paper
• Style
• Submission Process

Before You Submit Your Paper

Copyright

Before ASCE publishes any materials, the copyright ownership must be clear, and except in a few special cases, transferred to ASCE. The transfer is done through a Copyright Transfer Agreement, which is part of the on-line submission process and authors must agree to before submitting a paper. More information on copyright transfer is available on the ASCE Publications Web site.  

Permissions

Authors are responsible for (1) identifying materials in their work that require permission, (2) obtaining permission from the copyright owner, and (3) verifying that the owner is properly credited for granting permission. This verification is done through a Permission Verification Form, which is part of the on-line submission process and which authors must fill out before submitting a paper. More information on permissions is available on the ASCE Publications Web site.

A note about Internet sources: Materials published on Web sites are under copyright, including such popular sources of information and images as Google, Yahoo, and Mapquest. Other sites, such as Wikipedia, contain some materials that have been copyrighted; please check the fine print. Internet sources must be credited like any other reference source, and the credit or reference must include the complete URL and the date you accessed the material. (See Credit Lines and Citing Sources elsewhere on this Web site.)

Approvals

Before submitting a paper, authors must obtain approvals from such interested parties as the authors' employers, clients, project owners, and government agencies. Once a paper has been uploaded, reviewed by the author, and officially submitted, it is not possible to edit the document.

Reprints

Reprints of your paper will be available for purchase following publication. Use the Proceedings Reprint Order Form.

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Preparing for a Successful Submission

Be prepared to provide the following information to successfully submit your paper:

File extension

Submit the paper in one of the following formats: Microsoft Word, PostScript (.eps or .ps) with all fonts embedded, or Word Perfect.  Do not submit your paper as a PDF document.

File preparation

All elements—e.g., text, graphics, fonts, photos—must be embedded in one file. Proofread your document for spelling, grammar, completeness, etc., before uploading. Your paper will not be edited or rewritten after submission.

File location

Know the location (pathname) of your paper (file) on your computer.

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Formatting Your Paper

A proceedings paper consists of a title; an author byline and affiliation; an abstract; the text with optional tables, figures, and mathematics; a conclusion; and references. Acknowledgments, appendixes, and notations are optional. Please note that ASCE does not publish abstract-only material or PowerPoint presentations as proceedings papers.

Length

Length is determined by your editor. Total paper length includes all text, graphics, and appendices. 

Point size and font

Use 12 point type for text, captions, and author contact information. For type within figures or tables, the 12 point size is preferred. We recommend selecting a serif text font such as Times Roman. Italics, bold, and bold italics may be used; we recommend sticking to one “family” of typefaces.

Abstract

Your abstract should be about 150 words long; it must never exceed one page or contain artwork. The abstract should present a concise statement of the scope, principal findings, and conclusions of the paper.

Headers and footers

Do not put any information in the header. The only acceptable content in the footer is a single page number.

Layout

• All text must be single-spaced.
• Page design should be consistent throughout the paper.
• Margin settings (see table) must contain all elements of the paper that will be reproduced (text, figures, tables, captions). Imagine a “box” whose width does not exceed 5.75 in. (14.5 cm) and depth does not exceed 9 in. (22.5 cm).
• Short pages are unsightly and waste space; try to “fill” the imaginary box on each page.
• Leave at least 1 in. (3 cm) top and bottom margins.
• The title of your paper should fall approximately 1.5 in. (3.8 cm) below the standard margin.

Margin Settings

Figures and tables

All graphics (photos, line art, and tables) must be included electronically (embedded) within the document and fit within the margin settings. If some graphics require scanning, you should have them scanned yourself and embed them in the document. Please note: for book (printed) proceedings all material must be in black and white.

• Numbering. Illustrations should be numbered consecutively as they are presented (Figure 1, Figure 2, etc., and Table 1, Table 2, etc.). Each figure should be mentioned or “called out” before it appears. More than one figure may appear on a page.
• Captions and legends. A descriptive caption, including figure number, should be placed directly below the illustration (see Figure 1). A descriptive legend, including table number, should be placed immediately above the table.
• Placement. Figures may be placed in the text or in a “gallery” at the end of the paper. More than one figure may appear on a page. If figures are placed in the text, we recommend placement at the top or bottom of a page. Do not wrap text around the figure, even to save space. Landscape orientation is acceptable.
• Shading.  Do not use shading, grayscale, or screens in your illustrations, especially as a background to type.

Style

The paper must be written in best possible technical and grammatical English. Titles should be concise and should describe the content of the paper. If you have a long title, please consider a Title: Subtitle format. More information on writing style is available on the ASCE Publications Web site.

Mathematics

All mathematics must be embedded in the text. Equations need to be numbered only if they are referred to more than once. Stack numerators over denominators and leave one blank line between equations and text, and between two equations. For example:

Refer to equations in the text by (3) or Eq. 3. For equations in the text, use single-level expressions, e.g., mv = Δe / ΔsΔv, where Δe = Δe / (1 + e₀).

System of units

ASCE encourages the use of SI units for conference proceedings papers. For more information about SI units, visit the Web sites of the U.S. Metric Association (USMA), Inc. or the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) or consult the book, Metric Units in Engineering: Going SI.

Author contact information

A sample of author contact information is in the box below. The following information may be provided for all authors of the paper: author’s full name; Society membership grade; academic degrees or honorifics; current employment affiliation; postal and electronic mailing addresses; telephone and fax numbers.

References

All factual material that is not original with the author must be accompanied by a reference to its source. ASCE prefers the author–date system of referencing. We strongly discourage the use of superscripts to refer to references, because the numbers often become unreadable when the pages are reproduced.

The author–date system has two parts, the text citation and the reference list.

• The text citation appears where the material to be cited is presented and it refers readers to a source in the reference list by the author's last name and the year of publication. Often, the author and date appear in parentheses; a comma is not placed between them.
• The reference list appears at the end of each chapter or gathered in a separate section at the end of a book. The reference list should be single-spaced and list each reference alphabetically by the last name of the first author.When two or more references by the same author are listed, year of publication is taken into account, and the earliest work is listed first.

All sources in the reference list must be cited in text, and all text citations must refer to a source in the reference list. Additional material that is not cited in the text may be presented in a section or appendix called "Additional Information" or "Related Material."

Additional information about the author-date reference system is available elsewhere on the ASCE Publications Web site. Some sample references appear in the box below.

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Submission Process

The Internet and related system hardware may be subject to slowdowns or other problems during periods of high use; therefore, please upload early to be sure you have a successful submission.

The submission process consists of a series of screens. You will be asked to enter a username and password and agree to ASCE’s Copyright Transfer Agreement terms and complete a Permissions Verification screen. Then you may submit your paper to the system. Do not submit your own PDF. Your paper must be converted to a PDF document by our on-line system and you must review the PDF for formatting changes, which occasionally occur when a document is converted from one program to another. 

The conversion will take approximately 15 minutes, depending on the size of the document, the speed of your Internet connection, and how fast the site is running.

If the conversion is successful, your screen will show two different hyperlinks for the original and converted files. You will be prompted to confirm that the paper meets with your approval. Before you agree, please review the paper to ensure that no conversion problems occurred. Print the paper to make sure that the conversion did not cause any format changes. Remember your paper will not be edited or reformatted in any way following submission. Once you have agreed, your paper will be formally submitted to ASCE. If you have changes to the paper later, you may re-supply it. Remember to check the format for every submission. 

In order to convert your paper, you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer. If you do not have Adobe Acrobat Reader, you can download it for free. In addition, the Adobe Acrobate Reader link will be available on the site’s opening screen. 

On any screen, red asterisks (*) indicate required information; you will not be allowed to continue the submission process without providing this information.

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