The Journal of Forth Application and Research
ISSN: 0738-2022

Forth Institute

Editorial Board

Author's Guidelines


Authors Index


Volume 7
Volume 6
Volume 5
Volume 4
Volume 3
Volume 2
Volume 1

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Guidance for Authors


  1. Papers should be original work which has not been published elsewhere. A revision of an earlier paper, highlighting the use of Forth, may be considered for publication. Papers presented in conference may be revised and extended for inclusion in the Journal. We also welcome review articles, short technical notes and announcements.
  2. The language of the journal is American English.
  3. All papers will be copyrighted by the Institute for Applied Forth Research, Inc. (with full permission for further use by the author) except those which have a previous copyright. Previously copyrighted work will appear only with written consent from the copyright holder.
  4. Each submitted paper should contain:
    1. An abstract of 200 words or less.
    2. A brief biography of the author(s).
    3. Where applicable, a Configuration section describing the hardware system, equipment, Forth system origin and relevant divergence from the ANS Forth, Forth-83, or Forth-79 standards as appropriate.
  5. Text should use as few fonts and type sizes as possible. We allow up to two levels of sectional hierarchy, and discourage "outline-style" sectioning.
  6. Source code must be clear and well documented, particularly when non-standard words are used without being defined in the body of the code presented.
  7. Diagrams, charts, and illustrations should be in PNG format or equivalent camera-ready if possible. They should be separate from the main body of the paper. The position of figures should be indicated in the text. Black and white photographs are acceptable if necessary to the presentation. Computer generated illustrations should be included on disk in a common graphic format.
  8. Relevant references should be cited in a References section at the end of the paper. References should be given in numeric form.

    All relevant references should be included. These will include books, articles, correspondence and so on. Each entry in the section should have the following layout:

    Author. Title. Publisher Pages.
    1. Author: The name of the author(s) of the reference with the surname given first followed by the initials (eg., "Noble, J. V."). In the case of two authors the names should be separated by the word and (ie., "Stoddart, W. J and Knaggs, P. J."). For more than two authors give the name of the first author followed the the words at al to show that there are additional authors (eg., "Rather, E. D. et al"). Where the name of the author is unknown (eg., reference manuals) the name of the publisher or organisation is used in its place (eg., "Microsoft").

      The date of publication (year and month where available) should follow the author's name, in brackets (eg., "Noble, J. V. (1992, April)"). When the author has published more than one item in the year these should be listed in order of reference and are differentiated by placing a letter after the year (eg., "Microsoft (1996a)", and "Microsoft (1996b)").

    2. Title: The title is the full title of the reference. Where the reference is a book or a report, the title should be highlighted (emphasised).
    3. Publisher: For books and reports, this is the name of the publisher (eg., "Mechum Banks Publishing").

      In the case of journal articles this is the name of the journal, the volume and number of the journal in which the article may be found. The format of a Journal reference is:

      Journal title Volume(number)
      where the journal title is highlighted in the same manner as book titles. The volume number follows the journal title without intervening punctuation. If there is an issue number, it may be included after the volume number, enclosed in parentheses (eg., "Journal Forth Application and Research 6(2)").
    4. Pages: Page numbers should be included as appropriate. For a books and reports this is used to direct the readers attention to a particular section of the item, in which case the page numbers are preceded with the abbreviation "pp".

      In the case of a journal article it is normal to include the page numbers, preceded by a colon, immediately follows the issue information and is separated from the page reference by a space (eg., "6(2): 165-174").

    5. Examples:
      [1] Stoddart, W. J and Knaggs, P. J. (1993).
      Type Inference in Stack Based Languages. Formal Aspects of Computing 5(4): 289-298
      [2] Noble, J. V. (1992, April).
      Scientific Forth: A modern language for scientific computing. Mechum Banks Publishing.
      [3] Rather, E. D. et al (1993, March).
      The Evolution of Forth. ACM SIGPLAN Notices 28(3).
      [4] Solntseff, N. and Rodriguez, B. (1990).
      Strings, Associative Access, and Memory Allocation. Journal of Forth Application and Research 6(2): 165-174
    6. BibTeX: Authors using the BibTeX package to manage there reference should use the plain bibliography style.
  9. The use of footnotes is discouraged as they tend to detract from the flow of the text. They are frequently short asides, in which case they should be included in the text at the appropriate point in parenthesis. Footnote should be indicated with a superscript and should be numbered sequentially from the start of the paper.
  10. The electronic submission of manuscripts is encouraged. LaTeX is preferred, but other formats are acceptable.

Paper manuscripts or 3.5" Ms-Dos compatible floppy can be sent via post-office mail to one of the regional editors.

Please note that our ability to meet community needs, depends upon support from the community by the submission of appropriate papers. If you have projects with Forth software, please share them with the community.