Comments on Botsalano paper

Hello Editors,

Thank you for feedback. I am experimenting with Blogger and at the same time responding to your comments. The layout here is haywire, if you PREVIEW but that does not matter. This platform is not user-friendly.

If you don't have one yet, I suggest you start a Style Manual that you can send to prospective authors instead of spelling it out every time. Here is a start.

Typography

Font type- Verdana Font size normal, Paragraph normal, Not bold,  not underlined, not italics

Main headings - ?? Verdana Font size Medium, Heading, Bold

Subheadings - ??

Photo and diagram captions - ??

I have spent hours this morning trying to understand Headings, Paragraphs, Normal, etc. It is a mess. Maybe Graham has cracked it. You have to look in Preview to see what the change did - not in Post: Edit. I have tried to standardise on Heading, Medium, Bold but there could still be different layouts in my paper.

Language

Latin names in italics

Common names lower case (ref Kate). Need to discuss. Maybe I am old fashioned and out of touch. I like capitalisation of proper nouns  - Black jack, Vaderlandswilg

Abbreviations end with full stop (var., subsp., exceptions?)

Spacing - 100km or 100 km. If the latter then 'no break space' has to be used to prevent line break between the two parts

Points of the compass - North or north

Numbers

Spell out one to nine, thereafter use digits?

Photo specifications

etc, etc

from Graham

Please look at Richard and Kate's comments in the strings above and deal with them as best you can.

I have already made some spacing and image size changes as well as formatting your reference and CV sections - thanks for that last note on your profile.

This way of doing things worked pretty well, but given your past experience with using Blogger, that is not really surprising. Please let me know whan you have done whatever you want to doto finish you input so I know if is "publish ready". I publish all the contributions in reverse order so that the cover page ends up on the top of the pile where it should be.

I look forward to discussing possible improvements to this blog with you once we have put this edition to bed.

• Thanks Graham, will do
• The section headings are different sizes in the Preview. Will try to fix. Please check again.
• I quite like the blue headings in Preview but don't know where the blue came from. If it is important to you I can investigate further.
• The captions of the first two photos are bold in Preview and I cannot find a way to make them match the others.
• The first paragraph is double spaced in Preview and I can't change it. Should it be like that?

from Kate

On Sun, 4 Jul 2021 at 15:20, Kate Grieve <kw.grieve@gmail.com> wrote:

I have been through Jeff's paper and made a few changes to make it easier to read.  SANBI's policy is lower case for common names but I am not sure whether we need to do that here.  Two points: Common names - see note above.

1 the paragraph on Camel thorn sandveld and  Black thorn scrub -- should the latin names be mentioned? I don't think so because I explain where the name comes from in the following paragraph and adding latin at the beginning was an unnecessary complication. The outcome is the Tourist Guide that I tried to make tourist friendly but stay scientific. Happy to discuss further if you have a suggestion.

2 the phrase 'not only a "Pierneef" tree' should be clarified or omitted. Done

Otherwise okay.

from Richard

It looks good to me and very carefully and thoroughly written. He has done a nice job of avoiding the PCA detail and providing links to the source works. Lots of nice photos too. I have very little to say about it.

1. The text formatting in the references section was hard to read when I viewed it. Some lines seem to be corrupted. Looks corrupt in Post: Edit view. Looks OK in Preview.

2. The text in the section about the author needs to be added. Done.

3. The second and third photos are the same. I presume one should be removed or replaced? Well spotted!

4. The only other image I would quibble about is the right hand one in the first pair in the geology section. The caption refers to rocks but I don't see any in the image. Attended to.

In this para var robusta is missing the full stop. It is there now. Must have been put in by Graham?

In this para one of the Umbrelllas is missing a capital. See beginning of the last sentence. Fixed.