Stata Technical Bulletin
STB-22
an50 Submission guidelines
Sean Becketti, Stata Technical Bulletin, FAX 914-533-2902
In recent months, I have received an increasing number of requests for written copies of our submission guidelines. In
order to reduce the demand for mailed copies, this insert reproduces our current guidelines. Please regard these instructions as
guidelines and not as rules or restrictions. As our masthead states, the Stata Technical Bulletin exists “to promote communication
among Stata users”, and my goal as editor is to make the STB as responsive as possible to the needs and desires of Stata users.
If you have questions about the suitability of a potential submission, please contact me directly.
Content of submissions
The STB welcomes diversity in submissions. We regularly publish scholarly papers that promote new statistics or explore
the operating characteristics of existing estimators. We also publish inserts that present simple but useful utility programs. And
we encourage and publish questions and communications from users. Some communications provide new data sets for research
or teaching; some use Stata to review material of pedagogical interest; some simply report personal experiences using Stata in
combination with other software or hardware. The guiding principle in choosing submissions for publication is their usefulness
to Stata users. If a submission will interest or benefit a substantial number of readers, we will find space for it.
There are some general guidelines that indicate the types of submissions that are most appropriate for the STB. While we
publish inserts that draw on all subject areas, we are more interested in inserts that emphasize the use of Stata than in ones that
emphasize the subject matter. A lengthy empirical investigation of, say, the carcinogenic properties of industrial solvents may
not be interesting to a large group of STB readers unless it emphasizes how Stata was (or was not) useful in completing the
study. Many authors find it useful to write two versions of their papers. One version, highlighting their substantive findings, is
submitted to the appropriate professional journal. The second version, highlighting the role of Stata in their research, is submitted
to the STB.
There is an important exception to this guideline: papers focusing on statistics or statistical computing. An interest in these
two topics is the common bond among STB readers; thus, these articles are always appropriate for the STB. For example, we
published a long and fruitful series of inserts debating the performance of competing tests of normality. These inserts provided
Stata programs to calculate the different test statistics, but, throughout, the focus was on the performance of the tests and not
on their implementation in Stata.
I have noted a concern on the part of some authors that their submission may not be “sophisticated” enough for the STB.
Let me put that concern to rest once and for all. While it is gratifying to publish inserts that report new and important research,
our most popular inserts remain the more modest pieces that present interesting tips and/or simple utility programs that make
Stata easier to use. As a consequence, most issues of the STB have devoted and will continue to devote a significant share of
the pages to these more utilitarian inserts. If you have written a Stata program that you find useful, it is likely that other Stata
users will find the program useful as well.
Format of submissions
Please send two copies of your submissions directly to the Editor, one hard copy and one copy on diskette. The diskette
can be either DOS or Unix format; DOS is preferred. Submissions consist of the text of the insert and any ado-files, graphs, data
sets, examples, or other supporting material.
The STB is published using TEX, a formatting program for mathematical documents. In TEX, documents are stored in ordinary
ASCII files, without any control or special characters. To allow us to format your submission for publication, you must send us
the text of your insert in an ordinary ASCII file. We can sometimes convert files stored in the more common word processor
formats, but there is no guarantee we can do so. Feel free to prepare your submission using your favorite word processor, but
include a plain ASCII version on the diskette you submit. And if you use TEX, limit your use of custom macros. The STB is
formatted using only a handful of custom macros. To publish your insert, our production staff must remove any custom macros
you use and replace them with standard TEX control sequences. Heavy use of custom macros may permit you to mimic the
appearance of an STB insert, but it will only delay the publication of your submission.
Publishing the STB presents a typographical challenge because STB inserts combine significant amounts of mathematical,
tabular, and graphical material with computer listings and syntax diagrams, which require their own special typographical
treatment. Authors face a similar challenge in preparing submissions. The hard copy of your insert should document any special
typographical effects needed. If your word processor produces the desired effect, include it directly in the hard copy of your insert.
Otherwise, add a notation, either in your word processor or simply by writing on the hard copy, to indicate the needed effect.
To avoid last-minute revisions of the proofs of your insert, please be as clear as possible in communicating these typographical
instructions.