Before submitting an article authors must read and follow the Format for submission .
Theory and Applications of Categories (TAC) is an all-electronic journal using the TeX typesetting system to define its contents and the Internet to disseminate them. Authors are invited to submit articles to any member of the Editorial Board.
All papers are refereed and acceptance of an article by an Editor indicates that the high standards of the journal have been met. Articles may be submitted to only one member of the Board.
The final accepted version of a paper is the form that will be in the
archive; the author will not be able to make any changes, except:
- errata and additions can be attached to the end and, where appropriate,
footnote(s) may be added to the main text calling attention to these
addendums;
- references which mention pre-publication versions may be updated to final
bibliographic form.
Accepted papers will be archived electronically in .dvi and Postscript format by the journal. In addition, there are several complete mirrors of the journal's contents on the Internet. A printed paper copy of each article in the journal is archived in the Mount Allison University Library.
Authors retain ownership of copyright to their work, subject to appropriate use of the work by the journal. For details consult the Copyright Agreement, to which authors must agree before an accepted paper is published.
In principle, any standard flavour of TeX (i.e. plain, LaTeX, AMS-(La)Tex) may be submitted. However
Notes:
% LaTeX 2e document, article style, 12 pp, Xy-pic ver 3.7, emTeX version 3.1
The only exception is diagram macro packages. The currently acceptable diagram macro packages are those authored by Barr, Borceux, Rose (Xy-pic) and Taylor. The author is responsible to ensure that the current version of a macro package has been used.
Any macro that is not actually used should be deleted from the source file.
Authors should note that the base font size is 12 point. Avoid use of elements which depend on another base font size. This is another reason to avoid absolute moves such as `\vskip 10 pt'. Remember that the journal's pagination will differ from yours. As a general rule less, but more logical, formatting is better.
Authors are strongly encouraged to use only fonts from the standard TeX distribution (cmr etc.), AMS symbol fonts (msym...) or the Xy-pic fonts. They should be aware that use of non-standard fonts can interfere with successful dissemination of their work. Fonts not mentioned above must be provided by the author to the Editor concerned and to the journal.
LaTeX is the preferred format. Failure to use LaTeX will delay consideration of an article, and an article may be returned to the author for modification.
A LaTeX 2e style file is available from the journal. Using this file during preparation of articles will greatly reduce the acceptance to publication delay.
Whether or not the journal's style is used, the most important advice for an author of TAC (or any electronic journal or even any journal that accepts TeXscripts) is to use logical, rather than physical formatting. That is, instead of beginning a section by saying
\medskip
\noindent{\bf 4.3 The main theorem.}
\section{The main theorem}\label{mainth}
\smallskip
\noindent{\sc Theorem A}{\it ...}
\begin{theorem}\label{thmA} ... \end{theorem}
You should probably NEVER put explicit skips and kerns into your paper. Suppose, for example, you want to go on to a new topic and want to leave a little space. The preferable way is to say
\subsubsection*{}
The point is to use symbolic formatting and let the journals put in their own style.
All versions of LaTeX provide definitions for \section, \subsection, and \subsubsection. It even goes further, but these should be enough for nearly all papers. They do not provide definitions for \begin{theorem} and the like. But the TAC style files provide a \newtheorem macro that is used as follows. Place at the beginning of your paper, the following:
\newtheorem{theorem}{Theorem}
\newtheorem{proposition}{Proposition}
... (whatever is needed)
\newtheorem{thm}{Theorem}
...
When you want to refer to Theorem A (which will not be called that in the TAC style) of Section 4.3, refer to it as Theorem~\ref{thmA} of Section~\ref{mainth}. The labels you use are totally arbitrary, of course, so long as they are not reused in the same paper. Use of symbolic labels allows you to insert or delete material without having to renumber everything or to wind up with sections or theorems bis. The ~, by the way, is an unbreakable space so that the theorem or section number does not get separated from the word Theorem or Section. This is considered poor style, although it is not terribly important. It is also an element of good style to capitalize the words Section and Theorem when followed by an explicit reference. However, they are not capitalized in such phrases as "next section" and "the main theorem".
If BiBTeX is used with LaTeX, bibliographies must be BiBTeXed and .bbl files appended to the source file. No .bib files will be accepted.
References may use the standard BiBTeX styles or the two bibliography styles that TAC supports. We recommend the first TAC style. It is much more useful for the reader since it puts citations like [Grothendieck, 1957] in your text (you can probably already guess the reference) and the reference in the form
\item A. Grothendieck (1957), Quelques points d'algebre homologiques, T\^ohoku
Math. J. \em{3}, 120-221.
\begin{references}
\end{references}
The second style is traditional and puts [4] into your paper with the reference in the traditional form
\item A. Grothendieck, Quelques points d'algebre homologiques, T\^ohoku
Math. J. \em{3} (1957), 120-221.
\begin{references*}
\item ...
\end{references*}
There are two mistakes made by many users of TeX that appear in print over and over and are easy to avoid.
The first is to have multicharacter identifiers slanted (like math symbols), rather than in upright type. This refers to names like sin, cos,... but also Hom, Tor, Id, ker, Im, .... The TAC style files provide macros that can automate this. If you put in your file
\mathrmdef{Hom}
The second error is to use <...> for angle brackets. You have no idea how bad this will look. The < and > produce the wrong shape for angle brackets, but mainly they produce the wrong spacing and the results can be ludicrous, especially if an = follows > or precedes <. The official way to do this is to say \langle and \rangle. Many papers in TAC use these angle brackets extensively and make little or no use of the inequality signs. If this is your case, we recommend the following. At the top of your paper, put:
\mathcode`\<="4268 %left delimiter
\mathcode`\>="5269 %right delimiter
\mathchardef\gt="313E %relation
\mathchardef\lt="313C %relation
Although these instructions are specific to TAC, they should go a long way towards making your papers usable by any journal that is serious about using author-supplied TeX.
Return to Main Page.
1. The primary archive of Theory and Applications of Categories(TAC) is a set of electronic files in TeX source, dvi and pk font formats. The source files contain all articles accepted in TAC and any macro files required to typeset them. The dvi files are those produced from the articles by the TeX program (version 3.14). Font files to allow printing of accepted articles must also be maintained. This archive is the property of the Editorial Board of TAC and is maintained by the Managing Editor.
2. A secondary electronic archive of TAC is maintained by the Canadian Mathematical Society.
3. A paper copy of the typeset version of each article accepted in TAC is provided to the Mount Allison University Library for archiving.
Return to Information for Authors.
The style file for the journal is:
tac.cls
It was modified from the LaTeX article style by Michael Barr
and TAC authors.
Also available are brief hints on how to use the style files. Please consult that page only in conjunction with the full Format for Submission. For advice on use of other flavours of TeX, please write to the Managing Editor, Robert Rosebrugh, rrosebrugh@mta.ca
Note: The LaTeX 2.09 style file for the journal is no longer being maintained
Return to Format for Submission
The links here are to macro packages (and their documentation) intended to facilitate creation of diagrams in (La)TeX.
The links below are to appropriate directories at a CTAN (Comprehensive TeX Archive Network) site. Try ftp.dante.de or ftp.tex.ac.uk . The packages are:
Michael Barr's package based on the LaTeX
picture mode at
ftp://ftp.dante.de/tex-archive/macros/generic/diagrams/barr
For a front-end for XY-pic
that uses a syntax similar to the package above see
ftp://ftp.math.mcgill.ca/pub/barr/diagxy.zip
Francis Borceux' package based on matrices at
ftp://ftp.dante.de/tex-archive/macros/generic/diagrams/borceux
Kris Rose and Ross Moore's XY-pic package is at
ftp://ftp.dante.de/tex-archive/macros/generic/diagrams/xypic
Paul Taylor's package is at
ftp://ftp.dante.de/tex-archive/macros/generic/diagrams/taylor
Return to Format for submission.