Parts of a Journal Article

Technical papers and technical notes published in ASCE journals contain certain required elements, as well as several optional ones. Guidelines for preparing these elements are described in this section. See Types of Journal Content for the required elements of other types of journal submissions. Also see Final Submission of Accepted Papers for information on formatting your manuscript and including all required supporting materials.

Article title

• Devise an article title that is concise yet descriptive of the content of the paper.
• Ensure that the title contains no more than 100 characters, including spaces between words.
• Avoid titles beginning with such phrases as: Analysis of ..., A note on …, Theory of …, On the …,  Some …, and Toward a….

Author byline and affiliations

• The author byline should contain the full name of each author and his or her ASCE Society membership grade, if applicable. The correct abbreviations for each grade are as follows: Hon.M.ASCE, F.ASCE, M.ASCE, A.M.ASCE, S.M.ASCE, Aff.M.ASCE.
• Professional engineers registered in the United States are encouraged to use the P.E. designations after their names.
• Affiliation information should appear as a footnote at the bottom of the first page of the manuscript. The affiliation footnote(s) should contain each author’s present title, current affiliation, email address (optional), and complete mailing address.

Abstract 

• Abstracts are required only for technical papers and technical notes.
• The abstract length should be 150 to 175 words.
• The abstract should contain the purpose of the work, the scope of the effort, the procedures used to execute the work (if of special interest), major findings, and key conclusions.
• Write your abstract in plain language for a general engineering audience (for example, recent graduates/beginning graduate students).
• Do not include jargon, equations, figure callouts, tablecallouts, or reference citations in the abstract.

Subject headings 

• On the first page of the manuscript, below the abstract, provide a list of 4–8 subject headings from the subject heading list located in ASCE's Civil Engineering Database. Your suggested subject headings will be reviewed and approved by the manager of the database. If you think new subject headings are warranted, you can send your suggestions to CE Database

Text

• Length of Journal Submissions provides the length limits for various types of submissions, as well as guidance on estimating the length of your article. 
• Writing Style contains guidelines for good writing and ASCE house style in such matters as inclusive language, abbreviations, mandatory use of SI units, and referring to figures and tables within text.
• Use U.S. terminology, standard definitions, and symbols.
• Avoid text footnotes or endnotes: incorporate them into the text or eliminate them completely. 
• Include a practical applications section, if appropriate.