USGA has a responsibility to effectively communicate the results of projects funded through its Turfgrass and Environmental Research Program.  To do so, USGA Turfgrass and Environmental Research Online (http://usgatero.msu.edu) has been created to offer this information in a usable format to researchers, educators, and superintendents.

All researchers receiving USGA funding are expected to submit articles that describe the results of their work in a format that is understandable by superintendents.  Authors will be paid $200 per accepted manuscript, above and beyond the grant monies already awarded to the university in support of that project.  TERO papers are variable in length but typically range from 2,000 to 2,500 words.  TERO papers are expected to be well-referenced and well-illustrated with appropriate images, graphics, and data presentation.  Authors are encouraged to peruse previously published TERO articles to get a feel for the length and style of TERO papers (http://usgatero.msu.edu).

Manuscript Elements

All manuscripts should contain a title, names of authors, author’s titles and affiliations, bulleted summary, text body, acknowledgments, literature cited, artwork, and figure and table captions.

Titles should be descriptive of the project, but not excessively long.  Titles for this publication should not be written in a style commonly found in academic journals, but rather be somewhat shorter and more stylized, reflecting the non-academic superintendent audience.

Author names, titles and affiliations are important in not only giving appropriate publishing credit to researchers, but this information allows interested readers author contact information if they have further questions about the work.  Titles (e.g., Associate Professor of Turfgrass Science) and affiliations (Department, University, Institute, etc.) of each author should be provided in the case of papers with multiple authors.  Senior authors (first author listed) will be considered the corresponding author unless otherwise noted.

Please provide up to a 200-word summary that describes the general nature of the work the results that the project was able to obtain.  Summaries are usually the first-read part of the manuscript and should be sufficiently detailed so that the reader can ascertain most of the important points of the work.  Keep in mind that superintendents, as well as fellow scientists, will want to quickly ascertain the importance of your work and how it may relate to them.  A list of up to six bullet points should be included in your summary that characterizes what you think are the main findings of your work.

The text body should represent the main part of your manuscript.  The general approach should be to first introduce the topic and establish why the research is important.  Literature should be cited to support your case.  Next, briefly describe the materials and methods that you employed to perform the work.  Please keep in mind that not all of your audience are scientists.  Superintendents should be able to read a brief description of the methods and have at least a general idea of how the research was conducted.  Lastly, include the results and a discussion of how those results affect or could affect the management of golf courses now or in the future.   However, rather than use the terms Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion as headers, please use sub-heads that more stylistically relate to your work.  Sub-heads can be up to five to six words long and inform the reader about the general nature of that corresponding section of the text body.  Subheads should be used every four to seven paragraphs, or so, to break up text and further describe the work.  An article about nitrogen fertilizers might include sub-heads such as “Turfgrass Needs for Nitrogen”, “Fate of Applied Nitrogen”, or “Protecting Water Resources”, for instance.  An article about modeling pesticides may have sub-heads such as “Previous Attempts to Characterize Pesticide Fate”, or “Best Management Practices to Minimize Pesticide Movement.”

Please use the acknowledgments to thank helpful colleagues, fellow researchers, graduate students, technicians, and anyone else for whom you think deserves a special mention.  Also, please acknowledge all your funding sources for supporting your work.

Literature cited is very important.  By citing other work, you substantiate the need and relevancy of your research.  Citing other literature adds context and understanding necessary in discussing the results as they relate to the work of others.  Please include a sufficient number of citations in the literature cited section to adequately support your manuscript.  Citations should use the Council of Biological Editors style that can be found in the Publications Handbook and Style Manual published by the American Society of Agronomy, 677 S. Segoe Road, Madison, Wisc. 53711.  The Turfgrass Information File (TGIF) contains over 110,000 records, each with a specific record number.  Articles referenced in the literature cited section of manuscripts published in USGA Turfgrass and Environmental Research Online are “fast linked” to that record contained in TGIF.  In this way, readers can gain instant access to that record in TGIF by clicking on the TGIF record number listed at the end of each citation of the TERO paper.  Readers can very quickly gain valuable insight and context in this manner.

Include a minimum of four to eight high-quality images, as well as graphs, charts, curves, or tables to illustrate and present the article’s data.  The images should illustrate a variety of topics, not just one aspect of your work.  If 35-mm slides or photographs are provided, they will be returned after they have been scanned and digitized files produced.  Digital images must be saved at a file size for sufficient printing resolution.  The file size required for a digital image depends on the final size of the image to be printed.  Digital files that are to be used for full-page-width shots should be at least one megabyte in size and saved as a jpeg file.  Digital images that will span only a single column can be smaller (e.g., 250 Kb, or so).  All images, figures, charts, graphs, and curves should be provided as separate jpeg files.  Once embedded in a word processing program (i.e. Word or Word Perfect), image and graphics files cannot be imported into picture boxes of QuarkExpress, the desktop publishing software used to produce TERO.    It is essential that all supporting image and graphics files be provided as separate jpeg files large enough to ensure sufficient resolution when printed.

Include a complete caption for each illustration.  Captions should be succinct, but include enough information to allow the picture to stand on its own.  It is common for readers to look at the captions and photos first before reading the entire article.

• The research article should describe the research project and its results and discuss the implications of the work.
• Thoroughly check all technical information (technical accuracy, spelling, Latin names, etc).
• Submit research articles in Word or Word Perfect using 12-point type, double-spaced and left justified.
• Submit digitized files articles including supporting jpeg image and graphics files  via e-mail to jnus@usga.org  or send them on CD to:

Dr. Jeff Nus
USGA Green Section
1032 Rogers Place
Lawrence, KS 66049

• If you’d like to discuss your paper with Dr. Nus, please don’t hesitate to contact him via e-mail or call him at 785-832-2300.  He’ll be happy to discuss your paper or ideas you may have for additional publications from your work.
• A $200 honorarium is offered for each research article published in USGA Turfgrass and Environmental Research Online and multiple papers may be published from each sponsored research project. Honorariums are provided by Golf House following uploading of the paper to the TERO site (http://usgatero.msu.edu).