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Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors and Publishers, Seventh Edition

Style Manual Committee - Council of Science Editors. The Rockefeller University Press, 2006. Approx. 650 pages. ISBN 0-87470-062-0

Canadian Journal of Anesthesia, Ottawa, Canada

Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors and Publishers is a detailed and authoritative reference text that provides recommendations for scientific publication style for scientific papers, journal articles, books and other forms of scholarly communication. The seventh edition, published by the Council of Science Editors (CSE) has been fully updated to include recommendations from international bodies, and reflects changes resulting from the interdisciplinary nature of science and from electronic publication. Compared with the first edition published in 1960, the current edition has a considerably broadened scope with emphasis on the physical and life sciences. The CSE style manual addresses how scientific communications should be formatted for publication, and reviews publishing fundamentals which should be of considerable interest to authors submitting reports of original investigations.

The manual begins with an entirely new section on publishing fundamentals (Chapters 1–3) which consolidates information from policy statements prepared by the Editorial Policy Committee of the CSE. Within this section, topics such as publication policies and practices should be of interest to all authors submitting to peer-reviewed journals. Authors’ and editors’ responsibilities on issues such as the review process, data falsification, data filtering and plagiarism, conflicts of interest, redundant publication, and responsibility to publish research results are clearly outlined. Chapter 3 outlining the basics of copyright describes copyright requirements and practices in Canada as well as the United States, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

The second section (chapters 4–14) provides details on general style conventions, with updated recommendations of general style, punctuation, standardization for abbreviations, etc. The chapter on prose style word choice is relevant and succinct, and provides numerous recommendations for improving the quality of scientific writing. The third major section (chapters 15–26) on special scientific style conventions applies to all the biological sciences; the chapter within this section on drugs and pharmacokinetics is of relevance to anesthesiologists. Finally, the fourth section (chapters 27–32) addresses the technical elements of publications with advice pertinent to both print and electronic publication. The chapters dealing with journal style and format, tables, figures and indexes, typography and manuscript preparation, and proof correction, are highly relevant to authors submitting to scientific journals.

Scientific Style and Format provides numerous examples throughout to illustrate recommended scientific styles. It is well organized and comprehensive. The manual is targeted rather broadly towards authors, editors and publishers of scientific publication. For clinical and basic science researchers in the medical sciences (including anesthesia, pain research and perioperative medicine) the manual is an important resource. It should facilitate greater adherence to recognized writing conventions and clarity of scientific writing and reporting. This may result in more favourable manuscript reviews, and through publication, advancement of scientific knowledge. The manual should serve invaluably to complement other resources for authors, including, but not limited to: Day RA. How to write and publish a scientific paper. 5^th ed. Wesport (CT): Oryx Press; 1998 (6^th ed. by Day and Gastel forthcoming 2006); International Committee of Medical Journal Editors: Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals: writing and editing for biomedical publication [Internet], available from: http//www.icnje.org/; and finally, the Journal’s Instructions for Authors.

This Article Full Text (PDF) Submit a scholarly reply Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Miller, D. Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by Miller, D.