All figures submitted with the final, revised version of the manuscript should be original laser printouts or professionally prepared glossy figures or photographs. Photocopies are often distorted, speckled, faint, or fuzzy and lead to poor reproductions of the illustrations.

All JAS figures are printed at one of three final widths: 8.9 cm (3 1/2 inches, single column) , 14 cm (5 1/2 inches, centered on the page), or approximately 19 cm (7 1/2 inches, spanning two columns). Any original figures narrower than 8.9 cm are printed at the same size as the original. To preserve quality, figures are never enlarged for printing, only reduced.

Whenever possible, illustrations that are roughly square or are taller than they are wide, and consist of a single panel or multiple panels in vertical alignment, are sized to fit the 8.9-cm column. Because they take up less space than wider figures, these 1-column illustrations save the author money on page charges. A single-column format will certainly not suit all figures, but authors with simple, single-panel figures should strive to create them so that they can be printed at a width of 8.9 cm.

Many times, figures that could otherwise be printed at 8.9 cm wide cannot be reduced to this width because of problems of scale. This also applies to figures that must be printed at 19 cm wide rather than 14 cm. Make sure all symbols, lettering, tick marks, axis lines and keys are as large as they can be without distorting the data or becoming unsightly. Often, although symbols would be readable in a 1-column figure, characters along the axes or within a graph would not be legible if the figure were reduced to 8.9 cm wide.

Another deterrent to reducing simple figures to a single column is the positioning of keys to the symbols outside the graph itself. Without the key the graph would be printable at 8.9 cm, but reducing the figure to this width would render the type in the key unreadable. A simple solution is to position the key in white space within the graph, or above/below the graph.

One simple test to determine whether a figure will be clear at one of the three widths used by JAS is to reduce the figure on a photocopy machine to the appropriate width and ask someone unfamiliar with the figure to evaluate it for readability.

Choice of patterns to differentiate bars in a bar graph can also be problematic. Using patterns within bars is always preferable to using various shades of gray, because the sometimes subtle differences between gray levels can be lost in printing. Desktop publishing applications and laser printers have helped make attractive, high-quality graphics possible and have broadened the author's choices considerably, but the multiple levels of gray often found in bar graphs present a problem when those figures are scanned and transmitted electronically to the printer.

Line patterns are preferable in bar graphs, but here, too, authors should be careful to choose patterns that are very distinct from one another, with ample space between lines in the pattern. Thin black lines too close together can cause the same problem with reproduction as solid gray areas, and two patterns of such lines, even if they run diagonally in opposite directions, can both appear as gray in the final printed figure.

Words should never be printed within shaded areas in illustrations, and shading itself should be avoided unless it is necessary to illustrate a concept or add dimension to a drawing.

Even though a figure is scaled appropriately, the author should remain aware of JAS style and format guidelines regarding the notation of units of measure. In JAS figures, it is preferred that units that follow some variable be preceded by a comma. Often the units are placed within parentheses, but this is not JAS format. Also, be conscious of proper notation of units; the abbreviation for liter is L, not l, for example, and M for molar is italicized. The Journal adheres to the Système international d'unités (SI) guidelines for abbreviations of units; many of these can be found in our guide for authors, "Journal of Animal Science Style and Form", which is printed each January in JAS and is also available at this Web site.

In short, paying attention to the relative scale of elements within the figure and to JAS style conventions can improve the appearance of submitted figures and can save space within the article because properly proportioned figures are more easily reduced to the smallest possible width.

Two examples of figures with correct scaling: All type on the figures is legible, and the symbols are large enough to be distinguishable at a final width of 8.9 cm (3 1/2 inches). The key to symbols in the line graph appears within the space of the graph itself, so no unnecessary space is taken up by a key positioned at the side of the graph. In the bar chart, patterns within the bars are clearly distinguishable from one another, and no shades of gray have been used to differentiate values. Note, however, that the word "change" on the y-axis of the line graph should not be capitalized; in JAS, preferably only the first word of an axis label is capitalized, unless it requires capitalization for some other reason. In the bar graph, ml should be mL; capital L is the standard abbreviation for "liter," following SI conventions. Examples of figures that could be improved: In the line graph with two panels, the relatively small size of plus signs and asterisks within the chart, coupled with the location of the key to the side of the graphs, make it impossible to reduce the figure to the smallest possible width of 8.9 cm (3 1/2 inches), even though it is a fairly simple figure. Axis labels should be in upper and lower case letters (e.g., Serum zinc, not SERUM ZINC). In the single-panel line graph, the key to symbols would be illegible if the figure were reduced further in width, as would the symbols within the graph itself. In the line drawing, the lettering is too small to allow further reduction of the figure, even though the figure itself could easily be reduced to an 8.9-cm width.