RnD Technical provides high-quality, cost-effective editorial and publication services to the geology and mining sector in Canada and around the world. With expert knowledge and hands-on experience in all aspects of the geoscience publishing process, we offer a one-stop solution to the publishing challenges currently being experienced by geological surveys, universities and other geology and mining organizations.

Services include scientific and technical editing, standards development, project management, desktop publishing, and paper document capture. These are described in more detail under Services.

Editorial Tip

The tips provided here, which will be changed regularly, are based on our experience in editing geoscience manuscripts. For a collection of past tips, go to Archived Tips.

  numerical ranges: The following common-sense guidelines are reproduced from the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board Style Guide. They have been modified to reflect the fact that modern word-processing software makes it easy to use the en-dash in this context, rather than the hyphen, because a pair of numbers joined by an en-dash will not break between lines.

En-dashes are used to show inclusion (e.g., 1968−1972; p. 38−45), but are used only if the number range is not introduced by a preposition. If the range is introduced by a preposition, words must be used:

...from 1968 to 1972 (never from 1968−1972).
...between 1968 and 1972 (never between 1968−1972).

The same guidelines apply to ranges in geochemical values:

Zinc values ranged from 100 to 250 ppm.
Zinc values in the range 100−250 ppm are characteristic of these rocks.

Contact Information

Bob Davie, P. Geo.
RnD Technical
Peterborough, Ontario

Phone & fax: (705) 750-0981
E-mail: info@rndtechnical.com