Azhir Mahmood  🚀 🤖 🧬 🧠 🪐

Dear everyone, Please stop submitting double-spaced manuscripts. Nobody writes comments between the lines anymore, because that would require paper and pens. People will likely read on small screens. Use large fonts, and single space. Like this tweet. Thank you Matteo

And also please stop submitting figures at the end instead of in-line. I know PLOS insist on it, but tell them to go jump, for the initially submitted version that goes out to reviewers.

Often the figure is still on the 'wrong' page for the explanatory text so I don't mind, or even prefer, if they are on separate pages at end.

At least if the figure and caption are in the same place it is a big help - and if they are placed at the end of the paragraph where it is first referred to, as they should be, it makes it fairly easy. PLOS papers are terrible bc you have to go between 3 places.

The paper I am reviewing right now - just like the last one - has the figures all at the end, dissociated completely from their captions which are about 5 pages away, and 30 odd double-spaced pages away from the relevant parts of the main text.

God, that sounds like a nightmare. Do people actually publish articles like that or is this essentially just a rough messy draft?

It is absolutely the norm. And worse, it is even enforced by some journals.