Abstract

Cartographic practice and standards in Geography journals
Track: Cartography and Map Production
Authors: Robert Norheim

With the proliferation of GIS, cartography sometimes suffers. Many GIS professionals have difficulty keeping up with the software and don't take the time to take training in cartography. While it is difficult to address this challenge in general, there is an opportunity to improve the situation in edited journals. Editors of academic journals could provide guidelines for maps that are submitted. This presentation reviews the guidelines for map submission that are provided by approximately 100 journals in Geography and related fields. One would think these journals might have some requirements for cartography, but most guidelines are either vague or comically specific. The talk concludes with a set of guidelines recommended to journal editors. The guidelines address some of the issues that are specific to journals, such as the small page size, and are intended to be practical, so that GIS analysts without specific cartographic training can implement them.