Supplemental Material

Definition

Supplements should contain material that is typically not part of a standard journal article; this material should not be essential to the article itself, which must stand alone. Supplements should not be used as a vehicle to circumvent manuscript word limits or page charges. If accepted, this material will be available online only via a link in the final publication and assigned a separate DOI number.

Note that as related material, article supplements are covered under the AMS Copyright Policy, and as such the same conditions and reuse policies that apply to articles also apply to supplements.

Examples of materials that may be appropriate for supplements:

  • Animations
  • Computer codes not available through external reference (data citation or publication)
  • Tables too large to be formatted properly on a printed journal page
  • Compilation of graphics that are not essential for understanding the article

Examples of materials that are not appropriate for supplements:

  • Material that is suitable for inclusion in an appendix (descriptions of datasets, models, techniques, etc.)
  • Additional figures and/or text that would be considered more appropriate as part of the article itself

All authors are strongly encouraged to store relevant datasets in official repositories as described in Data Policy and Guidelines. If this is not possible, small datasets can potentially be included as supplements if necessary.

Review Process

Journal Editors and, if requested, peer reviewers will evaluate electronic supplements using the same scientific standards as are used for the rest of the manuscript to determine if they are appropriate and truly supplemental.

Editors will have the ultimate responsibility for determining whether the supplement is appropriate and acceptable. Authors should provide a short justification to the editor that explains how the supplement will benefit the readers of the article, and why the material is not included in the article. Supplements of excessive length will not be approved.

Submission

Supplemental Material should be uploaded separately from the main manuscript file. Standard formatting requirements for the technical journals and BAMS do not apply. The “Supplemental Material” item type should be used for all supplementary files.

Supplemental content will not be processed or formatted during production. Source files are not required. Authors should upload their supplemental content exactly as they intend it to appear for final publication online. LaTeX authors should upload a compiled PDF of their supplemental content rather than their source files.

For BAMS only: Authors whose first full manuscript (after an accepted proposal) was submitted on or before 31 December 2021 must provide supplemental text and figure source files at revision, and supplemental content will be charged $50 per page. These supplements will be typeset.
For papers where the first full manuscript is submitted on or after 1 January 2022, supplemental content will be charged a flat fee of $50 as listed in BAMS Page Charges. Supplemental source files will not be required, and supplements should be provided exactly as the author intends them to appear.

Animations: There are no file type restrictions for content that is an animation or video footage. It is recommended that authors use a file format that is easily viewed in a standard program, such as QuickTime, Windows Media Player, or a web browser.

Compressed files: To increase ease of access for editors and reviewers, it is recommended that authors compress their supplemental content when it consists of multiple files. This allows a user to download a single, smaller file. The “Supplemental Material” item type is configured to not unpack compressed files.

Our submission system is limited to a maximum file size of 500 MB for a single uploaded file. In addition, please note that files over 200 MB may not upload successfully because of the speed of a user’s internet connection. Consider uploading content in multiple parts if possible. You may also contact the journal you are submitting to if you are experiencing any difficulty.