Before submitting your manuscript/thesis/report/proposal to others for editing, please carefully read it and make sure that you have addressed the following issues:

Compiled by Steve Gao

1. The sentences should be your own and are consistent with the "7-word rule" and other rules of avoiding plagiarism. Click here for more information about anti-plagiarism.

2. Check the spelling. Use the "ispell filename" command if your file is in LaTeX on Linux.

3. Check the grammar. For example, singular versus plural, punctuation, capitalization, etc. Click here for AGU's grammar guide.

4. All the figures are cited, and all the figure captions start with a title of the figure (for which a verb is normally not necessary).

5. All the figures and tables are cited sequentially (i.e., Figure 1 must be cited before Figure 2 etc.). This rule applies to figures and tables in the Supplementary Information Section as well)

6. The references in both the main text and the References Section are consistent with the required format for the intended journal.

7. All the references cited in the main text are in the References Section.

8. All entries in the References Section are cited in the text. Also make sure to check the correctness of all the information such as author names, journal name, volume and page numbers, and the title. For AGU journals (JGR, GRL, G-cubed, Tectonics etc.), click here for the latest style. For other journals, find a recent published paper and find the citation style.

9. Add a "temporary subtitle" for each of the paragraphs to indicate the main contribution/idea of the paragraph. This will greatly help you logically organize the paper.

10. Make sure that all the mean values have a standard deviation (e.g., 5.0 +-2.3).

11. The number of decimal points is reasonable and consistent in the entire manuscript (e.g., for crustal/MTZ thickness and fast orientation, one decimal point is enough; and for Vp/Vs and splitting time, two decimal points are fine).

12. Try to divide very long paragraphs into shorter ones. Long (e.g., longer than 15 lines) paragraphs make the paper hard to read.

13. Avoid very short (1-2 sentences) paragraphs.

14. Use scientific terms and expressions, and avoid using everyday words and expressions.

15. Avoid using the same "big words" in the same or nearby sentences.

16. All the abbreviations should be defined (and defined only once) when the terms appear for the first time, and a defined abbreviation should be used consistently after it is defined. Most journals require defining abbreviations independently in the abstract and the main text. Do not define too many abbreviations because they reduce the readability of the paper. In general, if a term is used 4 or less times, an abbreviation is not needed for this term.

17. If a place/region/geological term etc. has more than one way to express, choose the most favorable one and use it throughout the paper (e.g., Tianshan, Tienshan, Tian Shan).

18. Check the word limit for the Abstract section and make sure that your abstract does not exceed the limit. For journals requiring Highlights, check the number of allowed entries and the character limit for each entry.

19. About using present or past tense when describing previous studies: the present tense is more commonly used. No matter which tense you decided to use, be consistent throughout the entire manuscript (that is, you should not use a mixture of past and present tenses).

20. About using present or past tense when describing what you did: the past tense is more commonly used. No matter which tense you decided to use, be consistent throughout the entire manuscript (that is, you should not use a mixture of past and present tenses).

21. After you received the annotated docx file from your advisor, please perform the following tasks:

a). Save the file using the name of the file that was sent by your advisor (e.g., NE_China_MTZ_v06_SG.docx).

b). Save another copy of the file using the original file name but increase the version number by one and remove the "SG" or "KL" part (e.g., NE_China_MTZ_v07.docx).

c). Open the newer version, turn on "All Markup" under Review, study the changes, and accept them (using the "Accept All Changes" function under Review/Accept) if you think they are acceptable (If not, talk to your advisor before rejecting the changes).

d). Turn on "Track Changes" before you make changes to the newer version, so that your advisor can easily figure out what has been changed by you, so that he/she will pay particular attention to the changed texts in the next round of editing.

e). Add a response/reply beneath each of the comments to address the issues mentioned in the comment.