USGS Suggestions to Authors of the Reports of the United States Geological Survey

Suggestions to Authors of the Reports of the United States Geological Survey

Suggestions to Authors (STA) is used as the writing style guide for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) technical reports and maps. The STA is widely distributed in paper outside of the USGS as a basic scientific writing style guide for scientists, students, and editors. The goal of STA is to help writers present information as clearly as possible explaining punctuation rules, suggesting phrasing, and offering examples of citations styles and outlining report organization, table and graph design, and details of map design. The report is 289 pages and is presented in digital format below in sections to reduce the file size.

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Document Title	Size
Title page, foreword, and contents (Pages I-XXII)	881 KB
Publications of the USGS (Pages 1-3)	479 KB
The Survey publication process (Pages 4-11)	951 KB
Duties, ethics, and professional writing practices (Pages 12-18)	801 KB
Form and content of the report (Pages 19-26)	1,533 KB
Planning and management for Water-Resources Reports (Pages 27-35)	2,369 KB
The Survey's publication process summarized (Pages 36-41)	3,099 KB
Stratigraphic nomenclature and description (Pages 42-64)	5,691 KB
Guidelines for naming aquifers (Pages 65-82)	3,933 KB
Geographic names (Pages 83-90)	804 KB
Chemical terminology (Pages 91-92)	165 KB
Mineralogic terminology and descriptions (Pages 93-94)	225 KB
Mineral reserves, resources, resource potential, and certainty (Pages 95-97)	644 KB
Petrologic terminology (Pages 98-99)	197 KB
Paleontologic terminology (Pages 100-103)	404 KB
Abbreviations, signs, and symbols (Pages 104-116)	1651 KB
Numbers (Pages 117-118)	202 KB
Significant figures (Pages 119-121)	369 KB
The metric system (Pages 122-123)	349 KB
Suggestions as to expression (Pages 124-155)	3,549 KB
Choosing the right word (Pages 156-183)	1,670 KB
Preparing maps and other illustrations (Pages 184-213)	6,712 KB
Field records and photographs (Pages 214-215)	168 KB
Tables (Pages 216-222)	946 KB
Photogrammetry applied to earth science in the U.S. Geological Survey (Pages 223-225)	301 KB
Guidelines for reviewing technical reports (Pages 226-229)	431 KB
Reviewing maps and cross sections (Pages 230-233)	359 KB
Preparing references for survey reports (Pages 234-241)	936 KB
Posters for scientific meetings (Pages 242-245)	582 KB
News releases (Pages 246-248)	285 KB
Hazard warnings (Page 249)	112 KB
Formatting Survey manuscripts for review and editing (Pages 250-264)	1,223 KB
Proofreading (Pages 265-269)	491 KB
Exceptions to the GPO style manual (Pages 270-271)	198 KB
References (Pages 272-274)	398 KB
Index (Pages 275-289)	1,419 KB

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