1.The SAIMM publishes technical and associated legal and economic information on all aspects of the minerals and metals industry and uses the following:

1.11The SAIMM Journal

The Journal is made up of:

• The Transactions which are refereed, scientific research and development papers in line with international standards for reporting major advances in mining, minerals and metals technology. Items in the Transactions will be eligible for the Institute’s gold or silver medal award and certificate of merit.
• The Journal section which contains articles, reports and news items on new developments related to the industry but which are not subject to the rigid refereeing procedures of the transaction section. The items are selected by the Publications Committee from many sources including the colloquia and seminar presentations of the Institute.

Authors may specify Transaction or Journal Papers, whichever would be most appropriate. An author may request that a contribution to colloquium or to the Journal may be submitted for refereeing for publication in the Transactions.

1.2 Monograph Series

These are high quality books which provide detailed discussions on specialized topics. They are usually compiled by authors and editors at the invitation of the Institute.

1.3 Symposium Series

These consist of the proceedings of international conferences and congresses that are presented or supported by the SAIMM.

1.4 School, Seminar and Colloquia Notes

The papers from all such activities of the SAIMM are published and distributed to delegates and made available for sale after the event.

1.5 Special Publications Series

These cover books, brochures and printed items which do not form part of the monograph or symposium series.

2.GENERAL STANDARDS

To merit consideration, papers should conform to the high standards that have been established over many years. Papers on research and scientific items should contain matter that is new, interpretations that are novel or of new significance and conclusions that cast a fresh light on old ideas. Descriptive papers should not be a repetition of well-known practices or concepts but should incorporate developments that would be of interest to technical people and of benefit to the industry. Well prepared and original review papers will be considered for publication.

All papers, particularly research papers, no matter how technical the subject, should be written with the average professional reader in mind and with sufficient background to enable the implications of the work to be easily understood. The amount of text book material should be kept to the minimum essential to the argument. The length of a paper is not the criterion of its work and all submissions should be as brief and concise as possible. Although reference to the name of new products, processes and services is not restricted, it is not the SAIMM's policy to allow editorial matter to be used for blatant advertising purposes.

3.COPYRIGHT

Copyright and first publication rights for all contributions to be published or presented at SAIMM meetings are strictly reserved by the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy. Reproduction of material is permitted and indeed encouraged provided there is full acknowledgement of the source.

4. PREPARATION AND SUBMISSION OF CONTRIBUTIONS

Authors may submit their paper in printed or electronic (e-mail) format or on CD. Details of the word processing package or other programs that is/are used to prepare the paper should be provided. Please note that diagrams cannot be accessed electronically unless a programme that is compatible with the Apple Macintosh system is used. Diagrams should be saved TIFF, EPS or JPEG files or downloaded on the SAIMM website. Should you need assistance in this regard, please call the Journal co-ordinator, Ms Abigail Lawrence.

Papers submitted through the post should be sent to:
The SAIMM, P O Box 61127, Marshalltown, 2107, South Africa. Attention of Ms A Lawrence.
or E-mail address: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

5. LAYOUT AND STYLE

• The manuscript must be typed double-spaced, on one side only on white bond paper A4 (295 x 210mm) size paper leaving a left hand and right hand margin of 30mm. Pages must be numbered.
• Be objective. Do not include irrelevant or extraneous matter. Avoid unnecessary use of capitals and hyphens; punctuation's should be used sparingly and be governed by the needs of sense and diction. Sentences should be short, uninvolved and unambiguous. Paragraphs should be short and serve to separate basic ideas into compact groups. Quotation marks should be the 'single' type for quotations and "double" for quoted matter within quotations. Words representing quotations from elsewhere should be printed in italics. If an italic typeface is not available they should be underlined singly.
• Bold typeface can be used for emphasis rather than uppercase or underlined text.
• Headings should be kept to a maximum of three levels.
• All illustrations and tables should appear on separate sheets at the end of the text. However, as a guide to the printer, authors should indicate by means of notes in the typescript where tables and illustrations, etc. are to appear in the text. Illustrations should be clearly identified in the text and should be referred to as Figure 1 and not Fig. 1. A few well-selected illustrations are often more pertinent than an amorphous mass of text.
• Interpretations in the text should be marked off by parentheses ().
• If there is any problem in producing formulae accurately by word processor, they should be hand written in ink. Equation numbers should be placed in square brackets on the right-hand side of the page, thus [1].
• Abbreviations and symbols are laid down in British Standard 1991. Where acronyms (e.g. UNO) are used for the first time the full words must be given with the abbreviation in brackets thereafter. Abbreviations are the same for the singular and plural, e.g. cm for centimetre and centimetres, kg for kilogram and kilograms. Percentages are written in the text as 'per cent', the use of the symbol, %, is restricted to tables. A full stop after an abbreviation is only used when the last letter of the abbreviation is not the last letter of the word.
• Units should be in metric terms and should conform to SI conversions.
• Authors are urged to have a colleague check their paper for clarity of presentation and typographical errors.
• The use of capitals for captions, headings or references must be avoided, because that means resetting. The typesetter can change lower case to upper case with the push of a button, but upper case letters need to be reset in order to get lower case letters.

6. REFERENCES

References must follow the British Standard BS 4148. Number your references in the text in order of appearance with superscripts (without brackets) e.g. according to Blum1,
or …research2. References should be listed in numerical order at the end of the text.

Reference to articles in publications should be given as follows:

• a)Lewis, J.R. Physical properties of stainless steel. Handbook of stainless steels. Peckner, D., and Bernstein, I.M. (eds). New York, McGraw-Hill, 1977. Pp. 19-36.
• b)Reference to papers presented at conferences or congress should be given as follows:
• Dresler, W., Jena, B.C., and Mclean, A. Carbothermic reduction and desulphurization of chromite with nickel oxide and sulphide. INFACON 6. Proceedings 1st International Chromium Steel and Alloys Congress, Cape Town. Glen, H.W. (ed.). Johannesburg.
  The South African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, 1992. Vol. 2, pp. 111-116.
• c)Patents should be listed as follows:
  Ingram, Sir Herbert. Improvements in or relating to electrical condensers. Brit Pat 552, 707: Appl. 18 July 1941: Acc. 18 November 1943.

7. ILLUSTRATIONS, TABLES AND PHOTOGRAPHS

All illustrations (this includes line diagrams, maps, charts and graphs) should be of good quality, preferably in black and white. All the lettering and lines should be of consistent density. Please insure that diagrams are 100 per cent square on the paper. All illustrations, tables and photographs must appear on separate pages. Authors are advised to consult a draughts person or another experienced colleague on the quality required and, if possible, to use such help when preparing the illustrations. Computer printouts, especially in dot matrix lettering, do not reproduce well, and should therefore be avoided. Where printouts are essential, the material should be black and of equal density, and the paper must be white.

A laser printer should be used. As a last resort, a 24-pin dot matrix printer might be acceptable but a 9-pin one is always unacceptable.

7.1 Illustrations

The numbering of figures should be in Arabic numerals, e.g. Figure 1 and Figure 2. Each figure must have a short title. Illustrations should be clearly identified in the text on the actual page where the figure appears and should be clearly marked with the surname of the senior author and the number of the figure. The style of the illustration for a particular paper should be uniform i.e. typeface of wording, line widths, etc. The use of a san-serif typeface like Helvetica is preferable. The illustrations should be as simple as possible and should contain only essential wording such as the indication of nature and units on the axes of graphs. Please keep in mind that your illustration will be reduced to fit in the most appropriate of the following section column widths of 65, 103, 135 and 175mm. Lettering should therefore be big enough on the original to still be legible on the reduced final product.

7.2 Tables

The numbering of tables must be with Roman numerals, e.g. Table I, Table II, etc. Tables should be set out clearly and each table should have a short title (heading).

7.3 Photographs

High resolution colour photographs are acceptable and should be saved as TIFF, EPS or JPEG files.

8. REVISION PROCEDURE

The initial manuscript will be read by a minimum of two referees who will recommend acceptance, provisional acceptance with revision, or rejection. After revision, papers must be submitted to the SAIMM to ensure that all recommended modifications have been satisfactorily carried out as requested by the Publications Committee.

9. FINAL MANUSCRIPT

One copy of the revised and final manuscript should be submitted, in double line spacing. Illustrations should not be folded, pinned or stapled together.

10. CORRECTION OF THE PROOFS

The papers will be returned to the authors in proof form for final checking and authors are urged to ensure that the final version conforms to their requirements. It must be emphasised that proofs are supplied to correct errors made by the typesetter and not in order to provide the author the opportunity to rewrite or update the material. The revised and final paper must be returned together with the signed copyright forms and author’s approval.