87 PRS Proofreading and Editing Service PhD Experts • All Academic Areas • Fast Turnaround • High Quality charts, and citations and reference lists. However, they need to be used with care and only if the journal guidelines you’re working with allow such automatic formatting. Some journals discourage authors from using automatic referencing of any kind, for instance, asking that citations and reference lists be compiled (typed in) manually, while others encourage the use of automatic referencing, and the same variation in requirements occurs with regard to tables, notes and even indentation. So the guidelines should always be consulted and every effort should be made to comply with them, particularly by not using any sort of formatting the guidelines bother to mention as undesirable. When in doubt, however, or when left to your own devices in the absence of specific instructions, it’s usually best to avoid automatic formatting, particularly the more complicated kinds, as much as possible. As a general rule, too much formatting can cause problems for publishers and much of the formatting that authors add to their papers is simply removed by some journals during copyediting. In the worst case scenario, a paper will be rejected or returned for revision when too much unwanted formatting (double columns, for instance, or tables formatted by the wrong programme) is present. Yet it’s also important that you lay out your article in such a way that the editor can readily see how you intend your paper to look, and making your paper look good is, of course, a large part of the reason behind all the details I’ve provided above about presentation, so the use of automatic formatting is another instance of the need to find and maintain a delicate balance. You also need to proofread with great care any part of your paper that you’ve constructed through automatic formatting. Never assume that the programme has ‘got it all right’ because this is all too rarely the case. Check every word, every number and every bit of punctuation; pay attention to font styles and sizes and patterns of capitalisation. PARt II: PRePARIng, PResentIng And PolIsHIng YoUR woRk