Common typesetting issues and Editorial recommendations

Contents

Hyphen vs. Dash
Decimal separator vs. Thousands separator
Bottom line vs. Midline horizontal ellipsis


Hyphen vs. Dash

When a concept is named after the names of two or more people, then the correct way to indicate this is with DASH:

  • Pell–Lucas numbers
  • Cauchy–Bunyakovsky–Schwarz inequality

When a concept is named after the name of one person with a double-barrelled surname, then the correct way to indicate this is with HYPHEN:

  • Mittag-Leffler function
  • Morgan-Voyce polynomials

When a concept contains a parameter in the name, the correct way to indicate it is with HYPHEN and ITALICS on the parameter:

  • k-Pell numbers
  • k-Pell–Lucas numbers

Decimal separator vs. Thousands separator

Being an international journal, and to avoid confusions, NNTDM follows international conventions and standards. The SI metric advises the following:

  • Thousands separator is NON-BREAKABLE SPACE (not point or comma).
    • In Latex, use the symbol ~ ,
    • In MS Word, use the key combination: Ctrl+Shift+Space  .
  • Decimal separator is POINT (not comma).

Bottom line vs. Midline horizontal ellipsis

Mathematical texts often contain bottom line and midline horizontal ellipses, more widely known for the Latex users as \ldots and \cdots , respectively, or the Unicode symbols in Word and .

The distinction between them is subtle: \ldots aligns the ellipsis with the bottom of the text while \cdots centers the ellipsis. Typographical style considerations dictate which of the two commands to use:

  • For lists, use \ldots (…) . Example: x_1, x_2, \ldots, x_n
  • For matrices and binary operations, use \cdots (⋯) . Example: x_1 + x_2 + \cdots + x_n

In addition, matrices further may require the use of a vertical ellipsis and a diagonal (downward-sloped, down-right) ellipsis, denoted respectively by \vdots (⋮) and \ddots (⋱) .

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