Computer Basics

For publishing your article.

e.g., Reproductive Health

• Reproductive Health is an Open Access, peer-reviewed, online journal soon to be launched by BioMed Central.

Manuscript Submission Requirements

• Online submission – a description can be found on Biomede.g., http://www.biomedcentral.com/bmcinfectdis/ifora/

– Formats: Microsoft-Word, Word-Perfect, RTF, PDF, DVI . . . Star-Office

– Sections : Title-Page, Abstract, Background, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions, Contributions, Acknowledgements, References, Figure-Legends, Tables & Captions, Description of Additional data-files (if any).

• Use our TEMPLATE– It provides a standard set of headings & dummy text that you can

modify.

Using the Template

• Replace the dummy text for Title, Author details, Institutional affiliations, and the other sections of the manuscript with your own text (either by entering the text directly or by cutting and pasting from your own manuscript document).

• delete sections which you do not need.

• Allow the template default-settings to define :– Font, Style, Size, colour, effects, character spacing, poisition, kerning,

alignement, left/right margins, top/bottom margins, spacing pagination, paper-size, layout etc.

Preparing Illustrations & Figures

• Illustrations are separate files, not embedded in the text file, as format EPS, PDF, PNG, Word, Powerpoint, TIFF, JPEG, BMP

• Figures should include a closely-cropped single illustration, which should be submitted as a separate graphics file.

• Illustrations & included-text should be legible when scaled to a horizontal width of 600 pixels (ImageMagickTM, GraphicConverter etc. to rescale)

• image files should be submitted at 300 dpi or greater to provide high resolution images.

• Text should use either Arial or Helvetica fonts, although Courier may also be used.

• Colour is ok.• Do NOT use Zipit, Stuffit, etc.

Illustrations & Figures…

• Figure legends are included in the main manuscript text, following the references (not part of the figure file).

For each figure: – Figure number (in sequence, using Arabic numerals - i.e. Figure

1, 2, 3 etc); – short title of figure (maximum 15 words); – detailed legend, up to 300 words.

• Get permission from the copyright holder !

Tables (inside & outside)

• INSIDE : Small tables are pasted into the end of the document text file. – Use the ‘table’ object in the word-processing software– Ensure the borders of each cell are black lines

• OUTSIDE : Large datasets can be uploaded separately as additional files. These will not be displayed in the final, published form of the article, but a link will be provided.

– can be uploaded as an Excel spreadsheet (.xls) – more on how to do this, later

Labelling Tables…• Number the tables in sequence using Arabic numerals (i.e. Table 1, 2, 3 etc.). Tables

should also have a title that summarizes the whole table, maximum 15 words. Detailed legends may then follow.

Practical Exercise

• Registering on BioMed

• Creating a Draft Paper from Template

• Adding an Illustration

• Adding an internal Table

• Adding an External Table

Step One. Create the Draft Paper

• 1. Open the template using StarOffice– Open the template, and then use Save As…

– Save the manuscript in a new folder on your Diskette

• 2. Replace headers/subheaders and bodies with a sample text

– For this exercise use text from http://www.gfmer.ch/Endo/Course2003

– Remove sections that you don’t need

• 3. Add a table inspired from example text– Tables go at the end, with an appropriate caption.

• 4. Add an Image/Illustration from example image.– Images are referenced at the end with an appropriate caption.

Adding an External Table

• Learn how to use Excel– Use Star-Office/SpreadSheet

Why a SpreadSheet?• A spreadsheet is the computer equivalent of a paper ledger sheet. It consists of a

grid made from columns and rows. It is an environment that can make number manipulation easy.

• If you change the mg/day amount, you will have to start the math all over again. On the computer version you can change the values and the result is automatically re-calculated.

• Let the COMPUTER do the calculations

Basics of a Spreadsheet

• Spreadsheets are made up of – columns – rows – and their intersections are called cells

• In each cell there may be the following types of data – text (labels) – number data (constants) – formulas (mathematical equations that do all the

work)

Letters denote a columns location.

e.g., column C

Numbers denote a rows location.

e.g., row 4

Cells are denoted by the

Column and the row.

e.g., cell B6

Types of Data you will type

• three basic types of data that can be entered.

– labels - (text with no numerical value) e.g., “Life Stage Group”, or “0-6 months”

– constants - (just a number -- constant value) e.g., “210”, or “270”

– formulas* - (a mathematical equation used to calculate)e.g., “=10+100”, or “=123*12+78.2

Basic Math

• Spreadsheets have many Math functions built into them. Of the most basic operations are the standard multiply, divide, add and subtract. These operations follow the order of operations (just like algebra).

• Examples

A1 (column A, row 1) = 5 A2 (column A, row 2) = 7 A3 (column A, row 3) = 8 B1 (column B, row 1) = 3 B2 (column B, row 2) = 4 B3 (column B, row 3) = 6

Operation Symbol Constants References ResultMultiplication * = 5 * 6 = A1 * B3 30Division / = 8 / 4 = A3 / B2 2Addition + = 4 + 7 = B2 + A2 11Subtraction - = 8 – 3 = A3 - B1 5

Selecting Cells• Learn to REFERENCE your data from other parts of the spreadsheet.

– When entering your selection you may use the keyboard or the mouse.

– Select cells together by specifying a starting-cell and a stopping-cell.This will select ALL the cells within this specified BLOCK of cells.

– When cells are not together use the comma to separate the cells or by holding down the control-key and selecting cells or blocks of cells (the comma will be inserted automatically to separate these chunks of data.)

• E.g., the ‘SUM’ function

The Sum function takes all of the values in each of the specified cells and totals their values. The syntax is: =SUM(first value, second value, etc)

– In the first and second spots you can enter constants, cells, range of cells. – Blank cells will return a value of zero to be added to the total. – Text cells can not be added to a number and will produce an error.

Sum Example

= sum(B2:B8)

Note: text values will cause errors,.. And empty values are counted as ‘0’

Other Functions

• Average• Max

– Returns the largest value in a range

• Min– Returns the smallest value in a range

• Count– Returns the number number-data cells

• CountA – Returns the number of non-empty cells

ignores text & blanks

The ‘IF’ function

• check the logical condition of a statement and return one value if true and a different value if false. The syntax is – =IF (condition; value-if-true; value-if-false)

– value returned may be either a number or text

– if value returned is text, it must be in quotes

=IF(B2>755;

"yes";"no")

Note: Other logical functions can also be used (NOT, OR, AND, TRUE, FALSE)

Making a Graph

• Insert > chart