Guidelines for Formatting the Term Paper

You are allowed from four to six pages for your paper. This includes all figures, tables, and references. There will be a penalty if you do not meet the page limits. You are required to submit two copies of your document in two different file formats electronically with all the figures embedded.    

1. As an editable file, like a LaTeX (*.tex) file or a Microsoft Word (*.doc) file, in the application you originally used to create the paper.

2. As a read only file in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) or in PostScript (PS) format.

LaTeX users: A LaTeX environment with suitable margins, page layout, text as well as a bibliography style is available from this web site.                                    

LaTeX style file with the definitions of margin, page layout, font, etc.
BiBTeX style file with bibliography style definitions
LaTeX template file, an example of using the "spconf.sty" and "IEEEbib.bst" files above

A formatted sample paper in PDF format is available here and a graphical outline is available here

Microsoft Word users: A sample Word97 document is available for download.

General: When preparing your paper, please follow the following guidelines:

· Any text or other material outside the margins specified below will not be printed:

1. All text and figures must be contained in a 175 mm x 226 mm (6.9 inch x 8.9 inch) image area.

2. The left margin has to be 19 mm (0.75 inch).

3. The top margin has to be 25 mm (1.0 inch), except for the title page where is has to be 35 mm (1-3/8 inches).

4. Text should appear in two columns, each 83 mm wide with 8 mm space between columns.

5. On the first page, the top 50 mm (2 inches) of both columns is reserved for the title, author(s), and affiliation(s). These items should be centered across both columns, starting at 25 mm (1 inch) from the top of the paper.

6. The abstract should appear at the top of the left-hand column of text, about 12 mm (1/2 inch) below the title area and of 100 to 150 words.

7. The paper title has to appear in capital letters, boldface. The authors' name(s) and affiliation(s) appear below the title in capital and lower case letters. 

8. Major headings appear in capital letters, bold face if possible, centered in the column. Subheadings appear in capital and lower case, in boldface. They start at the
left margin on a separate line. Sub-subheadings are discouraged, but if they must be used, they should appear in capital and lower case, and start at the left margin on a separate line. They may be underlined or in italics.

9. List and number all references at the end of the paper. The references can be numbered in alphabetic order or in order of appearance in the document. When referring to them in the text, type the corresponding reference number in square brackets as shown at the end of this sentence [1]. [1] D. E. Ingalls, "An Important Paper," IEEE Trans. ASSP, vol. ASSP-36, pp. 932-948, 1988.

10. Illustrations must appear within the designated margins. They may span the two columns. If possible, position illustrations at the top of columns, rather than in the middle or at the bottom. Caption and number every illustration. All halftone illustrations must be clear black and white prints. Do not use any colors in illustrations.

11. Use Times-Roman font that is no smaller than nine point type throughout the paper, including figure captions. In nine-point type font, capital letters are 2 mm high. For 9-point type font, there should be no more than 3.2 lines/cm (8 lines/inch) vertically. This is a minimum spacing; 2.75 lines/cm (7 lines/inch) will make the paper much more readable. Larger type sizes require correspondingly larger vertical spacing.

12. Please do not paginate your paper.