Preparing an accepted pdf version of a journal article for internet archiving
Many journal publisher copyright agreements permit the posting of accepted manuscripts to a personal website or a scholarly institutional repository, but they don't permit posting of the publisher formatted pdf. Making a copy freely available increases the impact and accessibility of the research. However, in my field, the accepted manuscript is not very reader-friendly. It's typically a word document, double-spaced, with tables and figures at the end of the document.
This post describes my process for converting an accepted manuscript in Word format into something that is a bit more reader-friendly.
Examples of posting rules
APA journal
Elsevier
Springer
Update manuscript
The first step is to convert the accepted manuscript in Microsoft Word format into one that complies with publisher requirements and is also more attractive to read.
Add citation, doi, and publisher mandated text
Add citation, doi, and any required text to the title page of the manuscript.
doi lookup can be performed using the CrossRef search box. The doi provides a link back to the copy of record.
Text required by the publisher can vary. Thus, it is worth taking note of the specific requirements.
Create a more attractive document
Create a copy of the accepted manuscript. It is also necessary to add back in various documents that may have been separate in the submission process (e.g., title page, abstract, tables, appendices, etc.)
I use styles to write my original manuscript. These styles are available here. The core styles include Heading 1, Heading 2, body text, references, table caption, and table title. These are in "apa-template.docx". These original styles are in the format required for an APA journal.
Thus, I then have a separate template called "accepted-version.dotx". This template is attached to the existing document in Word using
templates and and add-ins
click attach and select the template
automatically update styles
I also like to adjust the margins to improve readability. It's a bit of a trade-off, but I quite like 6cm left and right margins. This produces a PDF that has about 55 characters per line (assuming US Letter, 12pt font Timew New Roman). While it does result in a fair bit of white space, the resulting document is readable on smartphones. And more generally this does result in easier readability.
Finally the document is converted to PDF. I use print to PDF.
Submission to institutional repository and reporting system
Add final and accepted pdf versions to institutional repository.
FOR codes
Mostly or my own notes (and perhaps for other Australian academics in psychology), I have noted relevant FOR and SEO codes.
FOR codes: http://www.uq.edu.au/research/research-management/era-for-codes#Psychology
Common ones for me include:
170107 Industrial and Organisational Psychology
170109 Personality, Abilities and Assessment
170110 Psychological Methodology, Design and Analysis
170112 Sensory Processes, Perception and Performance
170199 Psychology not elsewhere classified
170202 Decision Making
SEO codes
SEO codes are listed here
Common codes: The main code is:
970117 Expanding Knowledge in Psychology and Cognitive Sciences
But see also:
9204 Public Health
9299 Other Health
9104 Management and Productivity
9301 Learner and Learning
9305 Education and Training Systems
Add to other archival systems if possible
It is particularly helpful for people searching for your article if full-text PDF is available through Google Scholar.
The OSF provides a set of PrePrint services that covers all disciplines. See here for details of disciplines.
In partiuclar,
OSF support PsyArXiv which is appropriate for my work in psychology. It is non-commercial, archived, and now indexed by Google Scholar.
ResearchGate also has some value. It is arguably the best of the social networks for academics. That said, it is a commercial entity.
