Use Authorea or Overleaf to Submit to AAS Journals

Do you use collaborative document preparation software like Authorea or Overleaf? If so, submitting to AAS journals just got easier. Both systems are now partnered with the American Astronomical Society so that you can directly submit to AAS journals from within Authorea or Overleaf.

What Are Authorea and Overleaf?

Authorea and Overleaf are both collaborative, online word processors for technical documents — like scientific articles. For scientists used to writing up their research articles in LaTeX, Authorea and Overleaf provide a way of working in that same, familiar environment while building the paper online simultaneously with multiple collaborators, much like in a Google Doc. This software allows users to write, track changes via version control, host data, provide commentary, and ultimately publish their research.

For more information on how Authorea or Overleaf can be used for scientific manuscript preparation, you can check out this Authorea demo of “The ‘Paper’ of the Future” led by Alyssa Goodman (Harvard University), or read up on Overleaf’s benefits for writing and collaborating.

What Does This Partnership Mean?

The partnership between the AAS and Authorea and Overleaf is intended to make life easier for AAS authors who work with these collaborative authoring tools and wish to submit their article to AAS journals when the manuscript is complete.

For initial submissions to all AAS Journals — The Astronomical Journal, The Astrophysical Journal, The Astrophysical Journal Supplements, The Astrophysical Journal Letters, and Research Notes of the AAS — authors can now submit their LaTeX manuscript and all their figures directly from Authorea or Overleaf to the AAS journal peer-review system when the files are complete. The direct submission from Authorea or Overleaf will also pre-populate the submission forms with some of the metadata, reducing the information that the authors will need to enter by hand when they go to the peer-review system to complete the submission process.

What Else Should You Know?

The AAS provides LaTeX templates for author use in preparing manuscripts for submission to AAS journals (for more on this, see previous posts about AASTex 6.0 and AASTex 6.1), and these templates are now integrated into Authorea and Overleaf for use preparing manuscripts for AAS journal submission with these tools. You can find the templates for the two services here:
Authorea templates for submission to AAS journals
Overleaf templates for submission to AAS journals

Instructions on how to submit to AAS journals via Authorea can be found here. Any questions about the Overleaf submission process can be directed to the Overleaf contact page.

If you would like more information about the details of submitting to AAS journals from within Authorea or Overleaf, you can visit the AAS journals FAQ on collaborative authoring services here.