S. Blessing P. Grannis A. Heinson D. Stoker October 4, 2000 January 3, 2002 Modified by J. Qian September 16, 2004 Modified by S. Blessing November 3, 2004 February 22, 2005 Modified by J. Hobbs April 6, 2006 (add lumi to figures) Modified by S. Blessing June 27, 2006 (PLB refs and misc.) April 4, 2007 (b hadrons, D\O on plots) S. Blessing November 9, 2007 (plural data) S. Blessing October 22, 2008 (dielectron, dimuon) S. Blessing D0 Conventions for Writing Papers, Version 4.3 ---------------------------------------------- 1. Particle names a. Intermediate vector bosons should be called "$W$ boson(s)" and "$Z$ boson(s)." Never use $W$'s or $W$s. i. Occasionally, this rule can be relaxed, especially for a PRL at the length limit. And sometimes it gets tedious to include all the "bosons." If you leave them out of a PRD, the PRD editor will almost certainly put them in, so better to put them in to start with. b. The $Z$ in "$Z$ boson" or in a reaction should not have a superscript of 0. c. Other particle names should be spelled out: "muon(s)," "electron(s)," "tau lepton(s)," etc. when used in a sentence. d. $W$ without the word boson attached may be used as "$W$ pair production" and in similar phrases. e. "Top quark" should be used instead of "top" in most places (i.e. "top quark mass" instead of "top mass"). f. Top quark and bottom quark may be shortened to "$t$ quark" and "$b$ quark." g. The neutrino symbol, $\nu$, should not have any subscripts unless necessary for understanding. h. J/psi should use a lower case psi: $J/\psi$. i. Use "$b$ hadron," "$B$ meson," and "$b$ baryon" when writing about particles containing b quarks. j. For other particles, use the conventions of the Particle Data Group. 2. Symbols a. All symbols should be slanted (i.e. in math mode). b. Momentum is a lower case $p$. Transverse momentum is a lower case $p$ with an upper case $T$ subscript: $p_T$. c. Energy is an upper case $E$. Transverse energy is an upper case $E$ followed by an upper case $T$ subscript: $E_T$. d. When a subscript is more than two related letters, use roman type. If i,j,k are separate subscripts, $A_{ijk}$ with i,j,k all slanted is correct. If the subscript is an abbreviation using two or more letters, they should be roman: $A_{\rm EM}$. (If you are using REVTeX, use \text rather than \rm when in math mode - the results are a little better.) e. The number of expected events should be written as "$N_{\text pred}$" and not as "$N_{\text exp}$" (since "exp" could mean experimental or expected). f. Use \cal in math mode for symbols like L (luminosity), I (isolation), A (aplanarity), R (distance in eta-phi space). g. Use $\cal{R}$ with subscripts for the position difference in eta-phi for two final state particles. Use $\Delta\cal{R}$ with a subscript for the position of a final state particle relative to a jet cone axis. h. Trigonometric functions should be in roman type. Natural logarithm should be "ln" and log base 10 is "log"; both are in roman script. When in math mode, use \ln, \sin, \log_{10} (the base should be specified), etc. i. Use an upper case "M" for the mass of the W boson, Z boson, and Higgs boson. Use a lower case "m" for other particle masses. 3. Units a. All units should be written in roman script. b. We recommend that masses be given in "GeV/$c^2$." If you choose to leave the c's out, be completely consistent. c. We recommend that momentum be given in "GeV/$c$." If you choose to leave the c's out, be completely consistent. d. Add the word "events" as the unit when quoting the number of events (i.e. "the resulting background is 4.0 +/- 1.3 events"). 4. Word combinations a. "Monte Carlo" is two words, both capitalized. b. "Pseudorapidity" is one word, no hypen, capitalized only at the beginning of a sentence. c. "Cross section" is two words, capitalized only at the beginning of a sentence. d. "Dimuon" and "dielectron" are each one word. e. "Standard model" is capitalized only at the beginning of a sentence. f. "Minimal supersymmetric standard model" is capitalized only at the beginning of a sentence. g. Compound adjectives should contain a hyphen if the sentence is clearer with the hyphen than without it. Do not use a hyphen if one of the modifiers is an adverb ending in -ly. e.g. "We measure the top quark mass to be 175 GeV/$c^2$." No one will be confused if the hyphen between top and quark is left out. "The background includes events containing light-quark jets." Here the hyphen makes the sentence clearer. A light quark jet could be misinterpreted as a quark jet with a small mass. "There are additional contributions from single top quark production." Putting a hyphen between single and top is incorrect - there is no "single-top" quark. (You could use single-top-quark here, but I don't think it makes the sentence clearer. "Single top-quark production" is also possible, but sounds to me as if it is top-quark production that happened once.) "We use fully reconstructed events to study the background." Do not use a hyphen between fully and reconstructed. (Fully has to modify reconstructed, "fully events" makes no sense.) Note that some publishers put in all the hyphens - Annual Reviews of Nuclear and Particle Science is one of them. 5. D\O a. Our experiment's name should be written as D0 (the "0" is the number zero) in publications. Note that this is a change from writing D\O which has been made to facilite electronic searching of/for our papers. 6. Figures a. At the beginning of a sentence, use the word "Figure." Within a sentence use "Fig.\ " and not "fig.," "Fig," etc. (The slash after the period tells tex that it isn't the end of a sentence and so it leaves less space.) b. When there are an "a" and a "b" figure, they should be referred to as "Fig. 9(a)," and "(a)" and "(b)" should be used in the caption and in the figure. c. When printed at publication size, all capital letters in figures must be at least 2 mm high. Use no more than two differently-sized fonts in a figure. d. All of the figures in a paper should "match" --- i.e. use the same font (and size of font for figures that are the same size), consistent line weights, etc. e. "DO, pb^-1" (O with a slash through it) should be placed in an upper corner of each figure. To get this in ROOT, use D\351. is the integrated luminosity of the data sample. f. Figures may be in color, but must be understandable when printed in black and white. g. The backgrounds of all figures must be transparent, not gray. h. Prepare your figures at publication size. This is much better than making them oversized to start with and then reducing them, especially if you use any shading. One-column width for AIP publications is 8.5 cm (1.5 or 2 column figures may be used if necessary). i. Unapproved figures, such as those shown at an APS meeting, must carry the label "Work in Progress." Recall that such figures must be approved by the appropriate physics, algorithm or hardware leader. 7. Tables a. Tables containing columns of numbers with errors should be aligned on the \pm. This can be accomplished in (at least) two ways: 1. By the use of "r@{$\,\pm \,$}l" in the \begin{tabular} command. Then the number and the uncertainty go in two separate columns. Use \multicolumn{2} in the heading for any entries that do not use the \pm. 2. By including the dcolumn package in the .tex file. Add \usepackage{dcolumn} after the \documentclass line. Then use "D{,}{\,\pm\,}{-1}" in the \begin{tabular} command and write "number , uncertainty" in the body of the table (number and error separated by a comma). Use \multicolumn{1} in the heading for entries that do not use the \pm. 8. Punctuation a. Dates should be given as "April 1961" rather than "April, 1961." b. The dash, when used as an article of punctuation (e.g. "the measurement sucks --- we messed it up"), should use the triple hyphen in ordinary (not math) mode. Dashes are fairly casual and should not be used very often. c. Use a double hyphen to indicate a range: "5--10." d. Plurals of acronyms should not have an apostrophe (e.g. "PDTs"). e. Quotation marks are placed after commas and periods, before colons and semi-colons. f. New or special usage calls for quotation marks around the word or phrase (e.g. ``non-standard'' model, ``anomalous'' couplings). Do not use quotation marks around standard nomenclature. g. Always use the left quote characters `` to open quotes and right quote characters '' (not the double quote ") to close quotes. Use double quotes, ``droopy drawers,'' in preference to single quotes. h. The possesive of something belonging to two people should have "'s" after the last person's name (e.g. "Grannis and Blessing's style guide") i. Be consistent in the use of a comma before "and" or "or" in a series of three or more. You must use a comma before "and" and "or" if the item before the "and" or "or" is more than one word. APS prefers the comma to be present. 9. Miscellaneous a. Spell out whole numbers when the number is less than or equal to ten (i.e. "four jets" instead of "4 jets"), when the number is a short word (twenty, thirty), and when the number is at the beginning of a sentence. Exceptions are when there is a list of numbers, some larger than ten, when the number is used as a noun, and when the number is a measurement followed by a unit. b. Program names should be written in upper case letters, in smaller point size than the text: "We used {\sc pythia} to ...." Note that "pythia" is written in lower case letters! c. Use "PDF" as an abbreviation for "parton distribution functions." d. Use American spellings of words. e. Use the roman font for "e.g." and "i.e." f. It is the "Fermilab Tevatron Collider," not just the "Tevatron." g. It is the "CERN $e^+e^-$ Collider (LEP)." h. It is the "DESY $ep$ Collider (HERA)." i. It is the "CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC)." i. Confidence level is abbreviated "C.L." - it does not need to be defined. j. No hyphen in preselection, reweighting, etc. k. The first word of the paper's title should be capitalized. Following words are capitalized only if they are proper nouns (e.g. someone's name) or abbreviations requiring capitalization (e.g. TeV). l. "Data" is plural - e.g. "The data were collected...." 10. References a. D0Notes are not to be referenced in papers destined for publication. If you really need to reference a D0Note, it must be turned into a Fermilab technical note. b. We recommend the use of et al. when there are more than four authors. Physical Review journals and Physics Letters B use different formats for references. Both formats are given below. However, PLB will accept papers with the PR format and make the changes themselves. c. Physical Review Journals i. Physical Review Letters: D\O\ Collaboration, B.~Abbott {\sl et al.}, Phys.\ Rev.\ Lett. {\bf 76}, 2222 (1996). ii. Physical Review D H.~Baer, J.~Sender and X.~Tata, Phys.\ Rev.\ D {\bf 50}, 4517 (1994). iii. Physics Letters B (old - volume 170 and earlier) D.~V.~Volkov and V.~P.~Akulov, Phys.\ Lett.\ {\bf 46B}, 109 (1973). (recent - volume 171 and later) ALEPH Collaboration, D.~Decamp {\sl et al.}, Phys.\ Lett.\ B {\bf 236}, 86 (1990). iv. Nuclear Physics J.~Wess and B.~Zumino, Nucl.\ Phys.\ {\bf B70} 39 (1974). v. NIM D\O\ Collaboration, S.~Abachi {\sl et al.}, Nucl.\ Instrum.\ Methods A {\bf 338}, 185 (1994). vi. JHEP J.~Pumplin {\sl et al.}, J.\ High Energy Phys.\ {\bf 07}, 12 (2002). vii. Proceedings N.~Amos {\sl et al.}, in {\sl Proceedings of the International Conference on Computing in High Energy Physics (CHEP'95)}, edited by R.~Shellard and T.~Nguyen (World Scientific, Singapore, 1996), p.\ 215. viii. Ibid - we recommend not using ibid; let the journal put it in if it wants to. Ibid is used whenever part of a reference repeats what is in the preceeding reference, e.g. ALEPH Collaboration, D.~Buskulic {\sl et al.}, Phys.\ Lett.\ B {\bf 373}, 246 (1996); DELPHI Collaboration, P.~Abreu {\sl et al.}, {\sl ibid.} {\bf 382}, 323 (1996); L3 Collaboration, M.~Acciarri {\sl et al.}, {\sl ibid.} {\bf 377}, 289 (1996); OPAL Collaboration, G.~Alexander {\sl et al.}, {\sl ibid.} {\bf 377}, 181 (1996). d. Physics Letters B - note the non-slanted et al., the lack of any boldface font, and the lack of "and" between the names i. Physical Review Letters D\O\ Collaboration, B.~Abbott et al., Phys.\ Rev.\ Lett.\ 76 (1996) 2222. ii. Physical Review D H.~Baer, J.~Sender, X.~Tata, Phys.\ Rev.\ D 50 (1994) 4517. iii. Physics Letters B (old - volume 170 and earlier) D.~V.~Volkov, V.~P.~Akulov, Phys.\ Lett.\ 46B (1973) 109. (recent - volume 171 and later) ALEPH Collaboration, D.~Decamp et al., Phys.\ Lett.\ B 236 (1990) 86. iv. Nuclear Physics J.~Wess, B.~Zumino, Nucl.\ Phys.\ B70 (1974) 39. v. NIM D\O\ Collaboration, S.~Abachi et al., Nucl.\ Instrum.\ Methods A 338 (1994) 185. vi. JHEP J.~Pumplin et al., J.\ High Energy Phys.\ 07 (2002) 12. vii. Proceedings N.~Amos et al., in Proceedings of the International Conference on Computing in High Energy Physics (CHEP'95), edited by R.~Shellard, T.~Nguyen, World Scientific, Singapore, 1996, p.\ 215. viii. Ibid - PLB appears not to use ibid; just a semi-colon to separate the first reference and the non-repeated information in the second (etc.) reference.