Brief Background
Soils and Rocks (ISSN 1980-9743 and ISSN-e 2675-5475) publishes papers in the field of Geotechnical Engineering. The journal was originally published by the Graduate School of Engineering of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. The first issue of the journal was released in 1978, under the title Solos e Rochas. In 1980, the Brazilian Association for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ABMS) took over the editorial and publishing responsibilities of Solos e Rochas. Since 2007, the journal became an international journal, adopting the title Soils and Rocks, only accepting submissions written in English, and being jointly published by the Brazilian Association for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering and by the Portuguese Geotechnical Society (SPG). In 2021 the journal was admitted to the SciELO library. |
Focus and Scope
The aim of Soils and Rocks is to publish and disseminate basic and applied research in Geoengineering. Soils and Rocks publishes original and innovative peer reviewed articles, technical notes, case studies, reviews and discussions in the fields of Soil and Rock Mechanics, Geotechnical Engineering, Engineering Geology and Environmental Engineering. |
Open Science Compliance
Soils and Rocks embraces Open Science practices. Publication model: Soils and Rocks follows the Gold Open Access model. Submissions to the journal are completely free and there are no article processing charges for accepted manuscripts. The journal is financially maintained by the Brazilian Association for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ABMS). The scientific editorial work is done on a volunteer basis. Licensing: the journal is published under CC-BY licenses, with authors retaining copyright. Articles do not require transfer of copyright as the copyright remains with the author. The journal maintains the rights for first publication. Preprints: the journal accepts submissions that have been deposited as preprints. The journal also publishes accepted manuscripts ahead-of-print at the request of the corresponding author. Continuous publication: currently, volumes are divided into four issues per year, but papers are published as soon as they are approved and edited. Papers may be published up to eight months in advance of the beginning of a publication interstice of the assigned issue. Data availability: authors are encouraged to make available all content underlying their manuscript prior to or at the time of publication in open and reputable online repositories. Informed peer review: the journal offers authors the options of single-blind or double-blind review processes. Starting in 2025, all published papers include the name of the associate editor responsible for the evaluation process. |
Ethics in Publication
Authors are solely responsible for adequate research ethics practices. Authors must declare in the manuscript cover letter that ethical guidelines have been followed and disclose funding sources. If applicable, they must state in the cover letter that the research project was approved by their institution's ethics committee. Authors are also required to explicitly declared in a section entitled “Declaration of use of generative artificial intelligence” the use of generative artificial intelligence to enhance text, images, graphic elements, treatment, and compilation of data and results. Such tools should only be used as aid and should always be supervised by humans. Soils and Rocks adheres to COPE guidelines to ensure integrity in the editorial process. The journal's responsibilities and actions to promote publication integrity and handle misconduct involve all parties managing submissions. The Editors implement publication policies and oversee the journal’s relationships with all involved organizations and individuals (e.g., ABMS, SPG, indexers, authors, reviewers, members of the editorial board). The Editor-in-Chief appoints Associate Editors based on their expertise and ensures transparency and quality in the publishing process. Associate Editors verify if submissions adhere to the Guidelines for Authors, prevent plagiarism, ensure that the peer review process follows academic neutrality, uphold reviewer confidentiality, investigate misconduct and potential financial conflicts. Reviewers must respect confidentiality during and after the review process and follow Soils and Rocks guidelines. Reviewers must decline evaluations with conflicts of interest, accept invitations only if they can meet deadlines, verify data in open access repositories, and not use manuscript information until publication. |
Digital Preservation
Soils and Rocks follows the standards defined in the Digital Preservation Policy Program of the SciELO Program. The journal is preserved by Rede Cariniana, utilizes the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. |
Indexing Sources
Soils and Rocks is indexed in: |
Bibliographic Journal Information
|
Websites and Social Media
Preprints
A preprint is a manuscript ready for journal submission, posted on preprint servers before or during journal submission. This practice accelerates research communication but inhibits double-blind reviews. Soils and Rocks encourages preprint deposits on platforms like SciELO Preprints, Preprints and EmeRI. |
Peer Review Process
All manuscripts are evaluated following a single-blind or a double-blind peer-review process. In a single-blind evaluation the reviewers are kept anonymous. In a double-blind evaluation, both the reviewers and authors are not identified to each other. Authors must opt for either a single or double-blind evaluation process during the submission of their manuscripts. Authors are also given an opportunity to suggest reviewers. The Associated Editor appointed to your manuscript chooses appropriate reviewers based on the manuscript’s subject and may or may not appoint reviewers suggested by the authors. Reviewers and authors opting for the double-blind process should ensure that their personal data has been completely removed from the submission MS Word files. Please refer to the guide on the link available at the top of this page. Manuscripts submitted to the Journal enters a pre-review assessment by a Co-Editor who decides whether it can be sent for further review. Three criteria are considered in this first evaluation:
Typically, two to three evaluations are required before the Associated Editor makes a decision recommendation to the Editor-in-Chief, which may be:
a) accept for publication; Currently, invited reviewers are given a deadline of 40 days to provide their assessments. The deadline for authors to submit revised manuscripts is 20 days for minor changes, whereas for major changes it is 30 days. |
Open Data
Articles reporting research must indicate and reference the availability of the content underlying its development and the results obtained in the “data availability” section of the manuscript. Exceptions are allowed in cases of legal and ethical issues and this information must be indicated in the manuscript. Soils and Rocks encourages the sharing of data, methods, program codes, images, videos, or other materials supporting the article in online repositories. Open and reputable online repositories are recommended, such as SciELO Data, Zenodo, Figshare and OSF. Repositories aligned with the FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) principles are preferred. |
Fees
Submissions and publications are entirely free of charge. All published papers are openly accessible for use without any cost. |
Ethics and Misconduct, Correction and Retraction Policy
Soils and Rocks follows the ethics of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), of the Code of Ethics American Educational Research Association, the Code of Good Scientific Practice - FAPESP and the Council of Science Editors (CSE) concerning publication. Any material published in is in agreement with the SciELO Guidelines on Best Practices for Strengthening Ethics in Scientific Publication.
Soils and Rocks is committed to upholding the integrity of the literature and publishes Errata, Expressions of Concern or Retraction Notices dependent on the situation and in accordance with the COPE Retraction Guidelines. |
Policy on Conflict of Interest
The authors must disclose any financial, commercial, political, academic, and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. These should be declared in the cover letter of the submission. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include relationships with editors and reviewers, employment, consultancies, stock ownership, payment fees, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. |
Adoption of Similarity Software
Submitted papers are expected to contain at least 50% new content and the remaining 50% should not be verbatim to previously published work.
|
Gender and Sex Issues
The Soils and Rocks editorial team, as well as the authors who publish in the journal, must always observe the Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER) guidelines (http://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/sager-guidelines/). The SAGER guidelines provide standards for reporting sex and gender information in research design, data analysis, and interpretation of findings. In addition, Soils and Rocks strives to observe gender equity policy in the composition of its editorial board. |
Ethics Committee
Authors are solely responsible for adequate research ethics practices. Authors must declare in the manuscript cover letter that ethical guidelines have been followed and disclose funding sources. If applicable, they must state in the cover letter that the research project was approved by their institution's ethics committee. |
Copyright
The authors agree to publish the article under the Creative Commons Attribution License type CC-BY. Articles do not require transfer of copyright as the copyright remains with the author. The journal maintains the rights for first publication. Any material published under the CC-BY license can be shared, remixed, adapted, and built upon in any medium or format, under the conditions that attribution is given to the author(s). The license allows for commercial use. |
Intellectual Property and Terms of Use
The articles published in Soils and Rocks will be made available on the journal's website (www.soilsandrocks.com) and in the SciELO electronic library (www.scielo.br) or in other databases where the journal may be indexed in the future. The content of Soils and Rocks is licensed under the CC-BY license, which allows unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any publication medium, provided that the author and original source are credited. Soils and Rocks reserves the right to make necessary normative, orthographic, and grammatical changes to manuscripts to uphold language standards and adhere to the journal's guidelines, while respecting the authors' style. The authors maintain full rights over their works published in Soils and Rocks, which may be reprinted, deposited, or republished in whole or in part, with attribution to the journal, under the CC-BY license. The opinions expressed in the articles are the sole responsibility of the authors. |
Sponsors and Promotion Agencies
The journal is supported by: |
Editor and Co-Editor
|
Associate Editors
|
Please visit http://www.soilsandrocks.com/instructions/ for more frequent updates of this guide. Soils and Rocks provides a manuscript template available here. A template for cover letter can be found here. Authors and reviewers: find and remove hidden data and personal information here. Instructions for "Currículo Lattes" users: check the format of your name in the DOI metadata of your paper. To do so, go to https://search.crossref.org/ and enter your paper's DOI in the format 10.28927/SR.XXXX.XXXXX. Make sure you have registered, in Lattes, the exact name format used by Soils and Rocks when registering the DOI of your paper. To do so, go to Lattes >> Identificação >> Nome em citações bibliográficas |
1. Category of papers
Submissions are classified into one of the following categories:
Authors are responsible for selecting the correct category when submitting their manuscript. However, the manuscript category may be altered based on the recommendation of the Editorial Board. Authors are also requested to state the category of paper in their cover letter. When submitting a manuscript for review, the authors should indicate the category of the manuscript, and is also understood that they:
|
2. Paper length
Full-length manuscripts (Article, Case Study) should be between 4,000 and 8,000 words. Review articles should have up to 10,000 words. Technical Notes have a word count limit of 3,500 words. Discussions have a word count limit of 1,000 words. These word count limits exclude the title page, notation list (e.g., symbols, abbreviations), acknowledgments and references, but include any appendices. Each single column and double column figure or table is considered as equivalent to 150 and 300 words, respectively. |
3. Scientific style
The manuscripts should be written in UK or US English, in the third person and all spelling should be checked in accordance with a major English Dictionary. The manuscript should be able to be readily understood by a Civil Engineer and avoid colloquialisms. Unless essential to the comprehension of the manuscript, direct reference to the names of persons, organizations, products or services is not allowed. Flattery or derogatory remarks about any person or organization should not be included. The author(s) of Discussion Papers should refer to himself (herself/themselves) as the reader(s) and to the author(s) of the paper as the author(s). The International System (SI) units must be used. The symbols are recommended to be in accordance with Lexicon in 14 Languages, ISSMFE (2013) and the ISRM List of Symbols. Use italics for single letters that denote mathematical constants, variables, and unknown quantities, either in tables or in the text. |
4. Submission requirements and contents
A submission implies that the following conditions are met:
The author(s) must upload two digital files of the manuscript to the Soils and Rocks submission system. The size limit for each submission file is 20 MB. The manuscript should be submitted in docx format (Word 2007 or higher) or doc format (for older Word versions). An additional PDF format file of the manuscript is also required upon submission. Currently, the journal is not accepting manuscripts prepared using LaTeX. The following documents are required as minimum for submission:
4.1 Cover letter The cover letter should include: manuscript title, submission type, authorship information, statement of key findings and work novelty, and related previous publications if applicable. When authors opt for the double-blind peer review process, information on Acknowledgements and Authors’ Contributions also should be included. 4.2 Title page The title page is the first page of the manuscript and must include:
If authors chose the double-blind peer review process, the title page cannot include any authorship detail, such as name, institution, email, and ORCID. 4.3 Permissions Figures, tables or text passages previously published elsewhere may be reproduced under permission from the copyright owner(s) for both the print and online format. The authors are required to provide evidence that such permission has been granted at the moment of paper submission. 4.4 Declaration of interest Authors are required to disclose conflicting interests that could inappropriately bias their work. For that end, a section entitled “Declaration of interest” should be included following any acknowledgments and prior to the “Authors’ contributions” section. In case of the absence of conflicting interests, the authors should still include a declaration of interest. 4.5 Authors’ contributions Authors are required to include an author statement outlining their individual contributions to the paper according to the CRediT taxonomy (as per https://credit.niso.org). The minimum requirements of contribution to the work for recognition of authorship are: a) Participate actively in the discussion of results; b) Review and approval of the final version of the manuscript. A section entitled “Authors’ contributions” should be included after the declaration of interest section, and should be formatted with author’s name and CRediT role(s), according to the example: Samuel Zheng: conceptualization, methodology, validation. Olivia Prakash: data curation, writing - original draft preparation. Fatima Wang: investigation, validation. Kwame Bankole: supervision. Sun Qi: writing - reviewing and editing. Do not include credit items that do not follow the Taxonomy established by CRediT Contributor Roles Taxonomy. The authors' contributions section should be omitted in manuscripts that have a single author. In case the authors opt for the double-blind review process, the authors’ contributions should be stated in the cover letter and omitted from the manuscript. 4.6 Data availability A data availability statement must be included in any original research article. Authors should include information on where data supporting the findings reported in the article can be found, if applicable. Persistent hyperlink to make available archived datasets evaluated or produced during the study are to be included. “Data” is the minimal dataset necessary to understand, replicate and develop based on the results presented in the article. Cases in which sharing research data is not possible, data availability is still to be stated in the manuscript including any requirements for access. 4.7 Use of generative artificial intelligence for textual, visual, and data enhancement The use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has proven to be a valuable tool for translation and for improving the quality of texts, images, graphic elements, as well as for the treatment and compilation of data and results in scientific publications. However, Soils and Rocks considers that at no time can GenAI tools be considered as the author or co-author of the work since authorship and co-authorship are exclusively attributed to human action. Such tool should be used as aid and should be always supervised by humans. The use of Generative Artificial Intelligence to enhance text, images, graphic elements, treatment, and compilation of data and results, must be explicitly declared in a section entitled "Declaration of use of generative artificial intelligence". Such a declaration should follow the template presented below and be positioned after the "Data availability" section. Declaration of use of generative artificial intelligence This is a statement example. This work was prepared with the assistance of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) [specify the name of the tool/service] with the aim of [specify how GenAI was used and for what elements of the manuscript]. The entire process of using this tool was supervised, reviewed and when necessary edited by the authors. The authors assume full responsibility for the content of the publication that involved the aid of GenAI. |
5. Plagiarism checking
Soils and Rocks follows the ethics of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), of the Code of Ethics American Educational Research Association, the Code of Good Scientific Practice - FAPESP and the Council of Science Editors (CSE) concerning publication. Any material published in is in agreement with the SciELO Guidelines on Best Practices for Strengthening Ethics in Scientific Publication. Submitted papers are expected to contain at least 50 % new content and the remaining 50 % should not be verbatim to previously published work. All manuscripts are screened for similarities. Currently, the Editorial Board uses the plagiarism checker Plagius (www.plagius.com) to compare submitted papers to already published works. Manuscripts will be rejected if more than 20 % of content matches previously published work, including self-plagiarism. The decision to reject will be under the Editors’ discretion if the percentage is between 10 % and 20 %. The Editorial Board will be responsible for analyzing reports of plagiarism, duplicate or redundant publication after the articles have been published. The article will be removed immediately from the Journal if the complaint is confirmed. Authors may also be subjected to the penalties. Corrections and retractions may be corrected through an Erratum in case that errors and shortcomings do not imply in “Misconduct in publication”, which will be recognized as fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism (as per SciELO Guidelines on Best Practices for Strengthening Ethics in Scientific Publication). IMPORTANT OBSERVATION: Mendeley software plug-in (suggested in this guide) for MS-Word can be used to include the references in the manuscript. This plug-in uses a field code that sometimes includes automatically both title and abstract of the reference. Unfortunately, the similarity software adopted by the Journal (Plagius) recognizes the title and abstract as an actual written text by the field code of the reference and consequently increases considerably the percentage of similarity. Please do make sure to remove the abstract (if existing) inside Mendeley section where the adopted reference is included. This issue has mistakenly caused biased results in the past. The Editorial Board of the journal is now aware of this tendentious feature. |
6. Formatting instructions
The text must be presented in a single column, using ISO A4 page size, left, right, top, and bottom margins of 25 mm, Times New Roman 12 font, and line spacing of 1.5. All lines and pages should be numbered. The text should avoid unnecessary italic and bold words and letters, as well as too many acronyms. Authors should avoid capitalizing words and whenever possible to use tables with distinct font size and style of the regular text. Figures, tables and equations should be numbered in the sequence that they are mentioned in the text. Abstract Please provide an abstract between 150 and 250 words in length. Abbreviations or acronyms should be avoided. The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the work, the main results and major conclusions or key findings. Keywords A minimum of three and a maximum of six keywords must be included after the abstract. The keywords must represent the content of the paper. Keywords offer an opportunity to include synonyms for terms that are frequently referred to in the literature using more than one term. Adequate keywords maximize the visibility of your published paper. Examples:
Poor keywords – piles; dams; numerical modeling; laboratory testing List of symbols A list of symbols and definitions used in the text must be included before the References section. Any mathematical constant, variable or unknown quantity should appear in italics. List lower case characters first, then upper case. Latin alphabet characters must appear before Greek alphabet characters. Appendix Use the Appendix when necessary to provide supporting or supplementary information that is part of the study (e.g. tables, graphs, or datasets). The Appendix should be placed after the References. For more than one appendix, organize the titles with letters like Appendix A, Appendix B, and Appendix C. 6.1 Citations Soils and Rocks adopts APA style for citations and references. References to other published sources must be made in the text by the last name(s) of the author(s), followed by the year of publication. Examples:
In the case of three or more authors, the reduced format must be used, e.g.: Silva et al. (1982) or (Silva et al., 1982). Do not italicize “et al.” Two or more citations belonging to the same author(s) and published in the same year are to be distinguished with small letters, e.g.: (Silva, 1975a, b, c.). Standards must be cited in the text by the initials of the entity and the year of publication, e.g.: ABNT (1996), ASTM (2003). 6.2 References A customized style for the Mendeley software is available and may be downloaded from this link. Full references must be listed alphabetically at the end of the text by the first author’s last name. Several references belonging to the same author must be cited chronologically. Provide DOI (Digital Object Identifier) whenever available. Some formatting examples are presented here: Journal Article Bishop, A.W., & Blight, G.E. (1963). Some aspects of effective stress in saturated and partly saturated soils. Géotechnique, 13(2), 177-197. https://doi.org/10.1680/geot.1963.13.3.177. Castellanza, R., & Nova, R. (2004). Oedometric tests on artificially weathered carbonatic soft rocks. Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, 130(7), 728-739. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)1090-0241(2004)130:7(728). Fletcher, G. (1965). Standard penetration test: its uses and abuses. Journal of the Soil Mechanics Foundation Division, 91, 67-75. Indraratna, B., Kumara, C., Zhu S-P., Sloan, S. (2015). Mathematical modeling and experimental verification of fluid flow through deformable rough rock joints. International Journal of Geomechanics, 15(4): 04014065-1-04014065-11. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)GM.1943-5622.0000413. Garnier, J., Gaudin, C., Springman, S.M., Culligan, P.J., Goodings, D., Konig, D., ... & Thorel, L. (2007). Catalogue of scaling laws and similitude questions in geotechnical centrifuge modelling. International Journal of Physical Modelling in Geotechnics, 7(3), 01-23. https://doi.org/10.1680/ijpmg.2007.070301. Bicalho, K.V., Gramelich, J.C., & Santos, C.L.C. (2014). Comparação entre os valores de limite de liquidez obtidos pelo método de Casagrande e cone para solos argilosos brasileiros. Comunicações Geológicas, 101(3), 1097-1099 (in Portuguese). Book
Lambe, T.W., & Whitman, R.V. (1979). Soil Mechanics, SI version. John Wiley & Sons. Head, K.H. (2006). Manual of Soil Laboratory Testing - Volume 1: Soil Classification and Compaction Tests. Whittles Publishing. Bhering, S.B., Santos, H.G., Manzatto, C.V., Bognola, I., Fasolo, P.J., Carvalho, A.P., ... & Curcio, G.R. (2007). Mapa de solos do estado do Paraná. Embrapa (in Portuguese). Book Section Yerro, A., & Rohe, A. (2019). Fundamentals of the Material Point Method. In The Material Point Method for Geotechnical Engineering (pp. 23-55). CRC Press. https://doi.org/10.1201/9780429028090. Sharma, H.D., Dukes, M.T., & Olsen, D.M. (1990). Field measurements of dynamic moduli and Poisson´s ratios of refuse and underlying soils at a landfill site. In Geotechnics of Waste Fills - Theory and Practice (pp. 57-70). ASTM International. https://doi.org/10.1520/STP1070-EB. Cavalcante, A.L.B., Borges, L.P.F., & Camapum de Carvalho, J. (2015). Tomografias computadorizadas e análises numéricas aplicadas à caracterização da estrutura porosa de solos não saturados. In Solos Não Saturados no Contexto Geotécnico (pp. 531-553). ABMS (in Portuguese). Proceedings Jamiolkowski, M.; Ladd, C.C.; Germaine, J.T., & Lancellotta, R. (1985). New developments in field and laboratory testing of soils. Proc. 11th International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, San Francisco, August 1985. Vol. 1, Balkema, 57-153. Massey, J.B., Irfan, T.Y. & Cipullo, A. (1989). The characterization of granitic saprolitic soils. Proc. 12th International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, Rio de Janeiro. Vol. 6, Publications Committee of XII ICSMFE, 533-542. Indraratna, B., Oliveira D.A.F., & Jayanathan, M. (2008b). Revised shear strength model for infilled rock joints considering overconsolidation effect. Proc. 1st Southern Hemisphere International Rock Mechanics Symposium, Perth. ACG, 16-19. Barreto, T.M., Repsold, L.L., & Casagrande, M.D.T. (2018). Melhoramento de solos arenosos com polímeros. Proc. 19º Congresso Brasileiro de Mecânica dos Solos e Engenharia Geotécnica, Salvador. Vol. 2, ABMS, CBMR, ISRM & SPG, 1-11 (in Portuguese). Thesis Lee, K.L. (1965). Triaxial compressive strength of saturated sands under seismic loading conditions [Doctoral dissertation]. University of California at Berkeley. Chow, F.C. (1997). Investigations into the behaviour of displacement pile for offshore foundations [Doctoral thesis, Imperial College London]. Imperial College London's repository. https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk/handle/10044/1/7894. Araki, M.S. (1997). Aspectos relativos às propriedades dos solos porosos colapsíveis do Distrito Federal [Master’s dissertation]. University of Brasília (in Portuguese). Sotomayor, J.M.G. (2018). Evaluation of drained and non-drained mechanical behavior of iron and gold mine tailings reinforced with polypropylene fibers [Doctoral thesis, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro]. Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro’s repository (in Portuguese). https://doi.org/10.17771/PUCRio.acad.36102.* * official title in English should be used when available in the document. Report
ASTM D7928-17. (2017). Standard Test Method for Particle-Size Distribution (Gradation) of Fine-Grained Soils Using the Sedimentation (Hydrometer) Analysis. ASTM International, West Conshohocken, PA. https://doi.org/10.1520/D7928-17. DNIT. (2010). Pavimentação - Base de solo-cimento - Especificação de serviço DNIT 143. DNIT -Departamento Nacional de Infraestrutura de Transportes, Rio de Janeiro, RJ (in Portuguese). USACE. (1970). Engineering and Design: Stability of Earth and Rock-Fill Dams, Engineering Manual 1110-2-1902. Corps of Engineers, Washington, D.C. Web Page Soils and Rocks. (2020). Guide for Authors. Soils and Rocks. Retrieved in September 16, 2020, from http://www.soilsandrocks.com/. 6.3 Artworks and illustrations Each figure should be submitted as a high-resolution image, according to the following mandatory requirements:
Figures must be embedded in the text near the position where they are first cited. Cite figures in the manuscript in consecutive numerical order. Denote figure parts by lowercase letters (a, b, c, etc.). Please include a reference citation at the end of the figure caption for previously published material. Authorization from the copyright holder must be provided upon submission for any reproduced material. Figure captions must be placed below the figure and start with the term “Figure” followed by the figure number and a period. Example: Figure 1. Shear strength envelope. Do not abbreviate “Figure” when making cross-references to figures. All figures are published in color for the electronic version of the journal; however, the print version uses grayscale. Please format figures so that they are adequate even when printed in grayscale. Accessibility: Please make sure that all figures have descriptive captions (text-to-speech software or a text-to-Braille hardware could be used by blind users). Prefer using patterns (e.g., different symbols for dispersion plot) rather than (or in addition to) colors for conveying information (then the visual elements can be distinguished by colorblind users). Any figure lettering should have a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 Improving the color accessibility for the printed version and for colorblind readers: Authors are encouraged to use color figures because they will be published in their original form in the online version. However, authors must consider the need to make their color figures accessible for reviewers and readers that are colorblind. As a general rule of thumb, authors should avoid using red and green simultaneously. Red should be replaced by magenta, vermillion, or orange. Green should be replaced by an off-green color, such as blue-green. Authors should prioritize the use of black, gray, and varying tones of blue and yellow. These rules of thumb serve as general orientations, but authors must consider that there are multiple types of color blindness, affecting the perception of different colors. Ideally, authors should make use of the following resources: 1) for more information on how to prepare color figures, visit https://jfly.uni-koeln.de/; 2) a freeware software available at http://www.vischeck.com/ is offered by Vischeck, to show how your figures would be perceived by the colorblind. 6.4 Tables Tables should be presented as a MS Word table with data inserted consistently in separate cells. Place tables in the text near the position where they are first cited. Tables should be numbered consecutively using Arabic numerals and have a caption consisting of the table number and a brief title. Tables should always be cited in the text. Any previously published material should be identified by giving the original source as a reference at the end of the table caption. Additional comments can be placed as footnotes, indicated by superscript lower-case letters. When applicable, the units should come right below the corresponding column heading. Horizontal lines should be used at the top and bottom of the table and to separate the headings row. Vertical lines should not be used. Table captions must be placed above the table and start with the term “Table” followed by the table number and a period. Example: Table 1. Soil properties. Do not abbreviate “Table” when making cross-references to tables. Example: Table 1. Soil properties
6.5 Mathematical equations Equations must be submitted as editable text, created using MathType or the built-in equation editor in MS Word. All variables must be presented in italics. Equations must appear isolated in a single line of the text. Numbers identifying equations must be flushed with the right margin. International System (SI) units must be used. The definitions of the symbols used in the equations must appear in the List of Symbols. Do not abbreviate “Equation” when making cross-references to an equation. |
7. Instructions for authors opting for a double-blind evaluation procedure
Authors opting for a double-blind evaluation of the manuscript must: 1) Clearly indicate their option for a double-blind evaluation in the cover letter; 2) Remove from the submitted manuscript files any indication of authorship; a. First page: remove all authorship details, such as institution, email, and ORCID; b. Acknowledgements and Authors’ Contributions: please omit these sections since they often can reveal details regarding the manuscript’s authorship. The information from these sections should be included in the cover letter and, at a later stage, in the manuscript after it is accepted for publication. |
Contact
Associação Brasileira de Mecânica dos Solos |