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Dates, URLs, and contact information in these guidelines apply specifically to the fifth ViS conference in Phoenix, AZ, Oct 20-21, 2023.  However, the specifications for preparing papers and supplemental materials apply to VSA events in general.

Veterans in Society Conferences:

Guidelines


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Contribute to the ViS conference proceedings

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Please contribute your presentation materials to the VIS 2022 conference proceedings

 

We hope you will contribute your presentation to the open-access conference proceedings, where they will join the permanent records of previous VIS conferences maintained by the University Libraries at Virginia Tech.  

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Placing your conference paper/poster and supplemental materials (e.g., slide decks, handouts, datasets) in the VTechWorks institutional repository means they will be professionally curated, with unique, permanent online addresses, exposure to major search engines, and date stamps to document when you shared your research with other scholars and the public.

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If you wish, you may revise your presentation and supplements.  Contributions will be lightly edited for consistency.

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When you deposit your materials in VTechWorks, you retain your copyright.  Your deposit agreement simply gives Virginia Tech a non-exclusive right to preserve and provide access to the work that you present at this conference.  You are, of course, responsible for how you use the likenesses and copyrighted work of others.

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The full statement of VTechWorks policies is online.

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In our experience, providing open access to veterans studies scholarship has helped persuade funders like the National Endowment for the Humanities that members of the VIS and JVS community are worth investing in.

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Formatting instructions

Please follow these instructions when preparing your paper to the proceedings.  (You do not need to adjust formatting in any supplementary files, such as slide decks, handouts, and so on.)  Although readers don’t approach online proceedings in the same ways they would print volumes, consistency is a service to our readers.  If you have questions, contact Mariana Grohowski at vets.in.society@gmail.com.

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File format. Submit your paper and appendices in MS Office or a compatible format.  Submissions will be reformatted to a uniform appearance in the proceedings.  Do not send PDFs of your work. We will convert files to PDF for display in the VTechWorks repository.

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File names.  Standard naming conventions are especially important to keep related materials together .  Please use this model:

  • LeadAuthorLastName2022_Abbreviated paper title.docx ;

  • LeadAuthorLastName2022_Abbreviated title_slides.pptx ; 

  • LeadAuthorLastName2022_ Abbreviated title _sample syllabus.docx . 

Thus: Jones2022, Innovations in Veterans Studies.docx .

 

Word processor styles.  Whenever possible, please use the styles built into your word processor for normal text, headings, paragraph spacing, long quotations, numbers, bullets, foot-/endnotes, and so on, making the changes we specify below.  Stylesheets greatly ease faithful conversion among formats and viewing devices.

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Page layout, margins.  Portrait orientation, with one-inch top, bottom, left, and right margins throughout the entire paper.  Landscape orientation is appropriate for those pages containing wide tables and figures in.  Your appendices can be oriented as you think appropriate.  Do not use a separate cover sheet nor insert blank pages.

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Spacing, paragraph format. Use one-column, left-justification, no indents, single spacing, with paragraph spacing above/before set to zero and spacing below/after set to 6. This setting also applies to bulleted and numbered paragraphs.

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Fonts. Use 11-point Calibri or equivalent for body (“normal”) text.  Set the color of all fonts to black.

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Title.  Use your word processor’s  default Heading 1 style. If the length of the title extends beyond one line of text, break the line at a logical place and set the space below the top line to zero. Titles should not exceed three lines of text. Capitalize each word (except articles and propositions); do not use all-caps except in acronyms and initialisms.

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Author affiliation. Center the author name(s) below the title and include the author’s email address and affiliation on the line immediately below. Do not include any of your titles, degrees, or ranks. Use 11-point Calibri bold for name(s) but italicize affiliation(s). If there are multiple authors from one institution, divide the names by commas and list the affiliation on the line below. If there are multiple authors from multiple institutions, use the same format for single authors but leave one blank line after the first author’s affiliation before the second author’s name. Continue this same format for subsequent authors.

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Abstract. An abstract not exceeding 150 is required.  Insert it after the author/ affiliation information and before the first line of the body of the manuscript. Leave two blank lines before/after the abstract. Use the title “Abstract” in default Heading 2 style. Abstracts will appear in the proceedings table of contents as well as in each article.

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Keywords.  Please provide 3-5 distinctive keywords (sometimes called descriptors) in a separate line after the abstract.  These serve as subject headings or tags to help search engines as well as humans to associate the essence of your paper with thematically related works.

 

Page headers/numbering. Please number the pages beginning with page 2 and use running headers, right-justified in 10-point Calibri italic (Author last name, 2022, Brief Title, page number.  Thus: Jones et al, 2022, Innovations in Veterans Studies, 3). 

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Headings. Headings and subheads are not required, but you may use default Heading 2 and Heading 3 if appropriate.  Capitalize only first words and proper nouns.

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Length. Maximum for a paper is 4,000 words.

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Graphics. All tables and figures must be embedded in the Word file.  Please number and label them according to a style manual you choose for your citations: APA, Chicago, or MLA.

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References. Use in-text citations and references. APA, Chicago author-date, and MLA are all acceptable. Above all, be consistent within your files.  Use default Heading 2 style for the heading of your references/sources/bibliography (as your style manual prescribes) section, matching the abstract. 

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Biographical and contact information. Provide a brief, relevant biosketch for each author (up to 100 words and no more than four lines of text).  Author names should be in ALL-CAPS, bold, followed by relevant biographical information and, if you wish, a postal contact address.  Enter this paragraph four blank lines below the last reference entry.  Use a separate paragraph for each author with a blank line separating each author’s biography.

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Submission requirements.
  1. Complete your VTechWorks deposit agreement online. Alternatively, include a PDF or scan of a signed and dated copy it with your submission.

  2. Email your files and deposit agreement, using subject line ViS 2022 Conference Proceedings (author name), to vets.in.society@gmail.com by Jan. 15, 2023.

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