Sheridan has 5 full business days to prepare a Contract Proof, and this does NOT include the day they receive the files.
Note: If you make corrections to a proof, it can be up to another 5 business days before you receive the second proof.
Journals can send any pre-contract proof files to their authors for final author approval.
Contract Proofs should never be sent to authors.
We allow you as the editors to make minor changes to correct typos, italicization, etc. but authors oftentimes want more substantial changes at this point, and to keep everyone under budget, this cannot be allowed.
If an author complains and is persistent about wanting to see a proof before printing, you can have them contact Jessica Pasquale (hanesjl@umich.edu).
Copy your Journal's business email (ex: mlr-business@umich.edu) when you send the files for Contract Proof preparation to Sheridan so we can prepare all of the necessary forms.
Before you send files for Contract Proof preparation, make sure you have completed or received all of the following:
License Agreements - Journal Editors will handle PART of this. We need one from every author of every piece before we can send the files to Sheridan. The editors will send the agreements to their journal-business address, then the Library will send the authors the agreement to sign electronically using SignNow. See the page on Working with Authors for more details about this process. The Library will also save a signed copy for our records. CHANGES to the agreement are NOT ALLOWED. IF, an author wants to change something in the agreement, you should contact Jessica Pasquale and she will work with you and the Office of the General Counsel to decide whether the change can be made.
Specialty Pages - Journal Editors will handle this. Journal editors will use Adobe InDesign (already installed on certain Journal Office computers, or available through the University's license for Adobe Creative Cloud) to update the specialty pages from issue to issue. Each Journal should have instructions specific to their Journal about how to do this, but contact Jessica if you have questions.
* These files should be sent to Sheridan as PDFs.
Specialty Pages are what we call any page in the Journal that is not the substantive / article content. Specifically, specialty pages are things like:
Issue Cover
Offprint Covers
Masthead
'Cite As' Page
Table of Contents (TOC)
Spine
Back Cover (If relevant)
Faculty Pages - Email Jessica Pasquale for the most current version of the Faculty pages.
Order of Materials - Journal Editors will handle this. See the previous volume's issue for which front pages to include and in what order. (Sometimes this changes issue to issue so make sure you're referring to the same one if using a previous year / volume as an example.) You can download a blank copy of the form here:
