Journal of Integer Sequences

This is the home page for the electronic Journal of Integer Sequences, ISSN 1530-7638.

The journal is devoted to papers dealing with integer sequences and closely related topics.

Editorial board:

Submission instructions

If you don't follow these instructions, your paper might be immediately rejected.

  1. Electronic submission is required. Please submit your paper in LaTeX format using a 12pt font. No other formats are currently acceptable. Do NOT send pdf, dvi, doc, or docx files of your paper; we do not look at them. (You can send pdf files of accompanying figures.) Do not use tcilatex macros; these result in very poor output. Do not use tools like "GrindEQ Word-to-LaTeX"; they typically do not produce the high-quality LaTeX that is required. We regret that we cannot handle submissions in Microsoft Word or Word Perfect formats. Submissions must be in English. No cover letter is needed. If you are not experienced with LaTeX, please read our style guide before preparing your file.

  2. If there are accompanying style files or diagrams, please be sure to include them. If there are multiple files, please send all of them together as a single tar or zip file. You can use this BibTeX style file if you are preparing your bibliography in BibTeX.

  3. The subject line of your email message should read "Submission to the Journal of Integer Sequences". (Any other header is in danger of being discarded by a spam filter.) This is also true for any revision, inquiries about your submission, etc.

  4. Have your paper proofread by a colleague before you submit. This can help you find all types of weaknesses in your arguments and presentation. This is particularly important if you are not a native English speaker.

  5. The Journal's main topic is integer sequences. Because of the volume of submissions, we are restricting our attention to papers that deal explicitly with this topic. Please be sure to justify that the subject of your article is relevant. For example, you should cite relevant sequences from the OEIS. If you have new sequences, please submit them to the OEIS before submission and cite the relevant A-numbers.

    The kinds of papers we seek are typically as follows:

  6. Be sure that your submission LaTeX'es properly with no errors or important warning messages. Check the .log files before submission. If you do not know where the .log files are, ask someone to help you find them. If there are errors or important warning messages (such as multiply-defined labels) in the .log file, your paper risks immediate rejection without possibility of resubmission. If you use TeXworks you will need to remove the --clean option in the preferences in order to see the .log file. Reported problems like "Token not allowed in a PDF string" can be ignored.

  7. Run your paper through a spell-checker before submission. Papers with spelling errors risk being rejected immediately with no possibility for resubmission.

  8. Inspect your LaTeX source (and bib files, if there are any) carefully to remove all non-ASCII characters. These often arise from cutting-and-pasting references from the web. One way to do this is to use this web page. The most common non-ASCII characters are the wrong - sign (especially in page ranges), the wrong quote mark, wrong apostrophe, and accented letters. Our style guide explains how to do accented letters in LaTeX. Do not use UNICODE characters for accents.

  9. Authors may want to suggest two or three names of possible referees. (Do not suggest members of the editorial board.)

  10. Please do not submit additional papers while your current paper is under review. One paper at a time.

  11. Any submission claiming to solve a significant open problem (e.g., Goldbach's conjecture; Gilbreath's conjecture; Beal's conjecture; infinitely many twin primes; Riemann hypothesis; 3x+1 or "Collatz" problem) or a major result such as Fermat's last theorem must either

  12. Do not use ChatGPT or any LLM (large language model) to write your paper. Use of these tools will result in immediate rejection. Depending on the severity of the offense, you could also get a lifetime ban from the Journal.

  13. By submitting, you certify that you have not already published the same paper (or substantially similar paper) in another journal. (Preprint archives are fine.) Simultaneous submission of the same paper (or substantially similar paper) to another journal (or journals), in addition to JIS, is also not permitted.

  • All submissions should be sent to the editor-in-chief,

    Jeffrey O. Shallit
    shallit@uwaterloo.ca
    School of Computer Science
    University of Waterloo
    Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1
    Canada

    Notes

    Note to submitters from China: e-mail from many servers in China, such as 163.com, is typically marked as spam. Please try submitting from a different e-mail address, such as gmail.com.

    We do not read e-mail every day. If you do not receive an acknowledgment from us within fourteen days, then we have not received your paper. Please do not send any inquiries until at least 14 days have passed. In addition, during certain periods (e.g., start of school terms, August, late December to early January) there will likely be no processing of papers.

    JIS is completely free for both authors and readers. There are no article processing charges, submission charges, or page charges. Members of the editorial board, including the editor-in-chief, receive no remuneration. The Journal is published with all-volunteer labor. If you have received an invoice to pay for publication, this is a scam! Do not pay it.

    Therefore, publishing a paper in JIS requires a higher standard of manuscript preparation than many other journals, which have a large editorial staff to fix problems. We ask that you read our style guide with care and make a real effort to make your paper conform. This also means that if you are not a native English speaker, you will want to find a native English speaker to proofread your paper.

    By submitting you agree to follow the guidelines in our LaTeX style guide in the final version of your paper:

    These guidelines include an agreement to provide a paper in grammatically correct English. If you are not a native speaker, you may need to find someone who is one to proofread your paper. The style guide (above) also suggests paid services you can hire to proofread your paper.

    If you cannot commit to doing, once your paper is accepted, the minimal work (generally 2-4 hours) required to read the style guide and ensure that your paper conforms, please do not submit.

    Papers should be original, of high quality, and should not have been published in any other journal. (However, publication on web sites or e-print servers is explicitly allowed.) All submissions will be refereed. The standards are those of any serious mathematical journal. Papers should be worthy of being reviewed by Mathematical Reviews. Unlike a traditional journal, there are no page limits. Authors should feel free to include as much expository material as they like, provided it adds to the paper and makes it easier to understand. Feel free to submit accompanying documents and files, such as computer programs, Maple or Mathematica worksheets, tables, and so forth. All will be published and accompany your paper.

    Refereeing

    We typically ask referees to complete their reports within two months. However, in practice, you will often not get a report this quickly. There are delays at both ends (asking a referee; reading and evaluating the report) and sometimes we have to ask 5 or 6 people before we can find someone willing to read your paper. If we cannot find someone willing to read your submission after asking for several months, it is likely that your paper is not really suitable for our Journal, and we will let you know this.

    Copyright Statement

    Authors agree that by publishing in the Journal of Integer Sequences, they have created an original paper which shall not be published in the same, or substantially the same, form in any other journal without acknowledging prior publication in the Journal.

    By publishing a paper in the Journal, authors grant the Journal a perpetual, royalty-free license to publish this paper in any collection of Journal papers in any form. Authors retain the copyright of their submitted papers. Authors may, of course, submit their paper to the Arxiv or any other preprint archive, at any time.

    Why we don't currently belong to the DOAJ

    Because their requirements are many and sometimes silly; because their decisions are arbitrary and take too long; because they do not reply to messages pointing out false claims in their decisions.

    Perhaps in the future, if they reform themselves, we'll join. The DOAJ is, in principle, a good idea.

    Google search for the Journal:

    Current Volumes


    Backlog information for Volume 26, 2023, as submitted to the AMS:

    Median time from submission to final decision: 118 days
    Median time from final acceptance to publication: 4 days

    These are median times only and are not guarantees.


    See also the On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences