September 7, 2017
R.T. Thomason, Ph.D., Figure Editor
This week on It Figures with Dr. Bec, we will be discussing a very simple, yet important topic: typography. According to everyone’s favorite informational site, “typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable, and appealing when displayed” [1]. Generally, there are two types of fonts we deal with in scientific writing: serifs and sans-serif. Serifs are the small lines you see attached to the end stoke of your letter or number. You often see this type of font in printed material (such as magazines, newspapers, etc.) and you probably know these font names as Times New Roman or Book Antiqua. But, for scientific writing, a lot of journals will require that you submit a manuscript in a sans-serif font such as Arial or Helvetica.
Next time on It Figures with Dr. Bec, we’ll continue our discussion with typography and how to incorporate some of these formatting techniques this into your manuscripts, posters and presentations.