brycewang-stanford PRL Supplemental Material (prl-supplementary)
When to trigger
- The Letter is over length and detail must move out of the body
- A reader cannot follow the Letter without consulting the SM
- You have derivations, extended datasets, or methods detail with no home
- You are unsure what is allowed in SM versus what must stay in the Letter
- Referees of a prior version asked for material that would bloat the body
The stand-alone rule (non-negotiable)
The Letter must be fully understandable on its own. The Supplemental Material supports the Letter; it must never be load-bearing for the central claim. A reader who never opens the SM should still grasp the result, the evidence for it, and why it matters.
- The central claim, its key evidence, and the decisive control live in the Letter.
- The SM holds the exhaustive backup that a skeptical referee or replicator wants.
- Every SM section is cited from the body at the point it is relevant.
If removing the SM breaks the argument, the partition is wrong — pull the essential piece back into the Letter (and trim elsewhere via prl-length-management).
What belongs in Supplemental Material
| Content | Home |
|---|---|
| Full derivations / lengthy algebra | SM |
| Extended datasets, additional samples, full sweeps | SM |
| Detailed apparatus, growth, calibration | SM |
| Secondary controls and robustness checks | SM |
| Full error budget / systematics breakdown | SM |
| Numerical convergence studies | SM |
| Additional figures / movies / large tables | SM |
| The central claim and its decisive evidence | Letter |
| The one control ruling out the obvious artifact | Letter |
| The headline uncertainty | Letter |
SM organization
- Mirror the Letter's logic: order SM sections to match the order they are cited.
- Give SM sections their own clear headings (S1, S2, ...) and self-contained captions.
- SM references: include the works the SM itself needs; follow current APS practice on how SM citations are counted and listed (verify).
- Label SM figures/tables distinctly (Fig. S1, Table S1) to avoid confusion with the Letter.
- Keep the SM honest: it is peer-reviewed alongside the Letter, not a place to hide weak results.
Checklist
- The Letter is understandable without ever opening the SM
- No central-claim evidence is only in the SM
- Every SM section is cited from the body at the relevant point
- SM sections ordered to match their citation order in the Letter
- SM figures/tables labeled S1, S2, ... distinctly
- Derivations, extended data, secondary controls live in SM
- SM is internally consistent in notation with the Letter
- SM citation handling follows current APS practice
Anti-patterns
- A Letter that silently depends on the SM to be understood
- Burying the decisive control or key uncertainty in the SM
- An SM that is a disorganized dump rather than a structured appendix
- SM figures referenced out of order or never cited from the body
- Notation drift between Letter and SM
- Using the SM to smuggle in claims the referees did not vet
Output format
【Letter stands alone】yes / fix (pull back: ...)
【SM sections】S1: ... / S2: ... (cited from body?)
【Central evidence only in SM?】none / move back: ...
【SM figure/table labels】S-prefixed? yes / fix
【Notation consistent Letter↔SM】yes / fix
【Next】prl-writing-style or prl-length-management
SM scope, citation counting, and file-format rules evolve — verify on the official APS / PRL author page.