Q: What guidance can you offer as to the inclusion of white space in a publication? My company prefers that level 1 headings begin on a new page, but if the text beneath the heading is only a single paragraph, wouldn’t it be preferable for that heading and its text to share the page with the preceding or the subsequent heading and text?

A: This is really an individual decision for each publisher/publication. Especially in the days of print-only publications, many journal editors tried to optimize the use of every page as each journal had a page budget per issue/per year. In some of the JAMA Network specialty journals. for instance, the journal editors specifically developed short items that could be placed, as space allowed, at the ends of articles that ended with at least half a page of white space…thereby using every bit of space that they could to provide interesting and educational information to their readers. White space was never (to my knowledge) used within an article in the way you are describing.

In the JAMA Network journals, there is no page break before the major headings in an article (eg, Methods, Results, Discussion). This would indeed create a lot of white space. In books, on the other hand, this is fairly customary…you do see that each chapter begins on a new page.

In conclusion, to start each major part of a journal article on a new page would create a very odd-looking journal with lots of white space scattered willy-nilly throughout. Perhaps the desire to emphasize each major part of an article could be accomplished with some other design consideration (eg, style of headings).—Cheryl Iverson, MA