[texhax] article formatting help?

[Christopher Olah]

> hello,

Greetings!

>i'm writing an article that needs to be 2-column, with abstract at
> the top going across both columns,

There's a way built into most document classes, but it's probably
easiest to just use the package multicol:

\usepackage{multicol}
....
\begin{multicols}{2}%Or however many columns you want
...
\end{multicols}
...

The multicol package is very flexible and the appearance (eg. space
between columns, lines between columns) can be automatically.

> labeled sections with the content of
> 'materials' and 'methods' in a smaller font size, and citations in the
> bottom of each page rather than all at the end.  most of those elements i
> have already, but how do i specify a smaller font size for certain
> sections?

Just use { \small text}... For more sizes, see
http://www-h.eng.cam.ac.uk/help/tpl/textprocessing/teTeX/latex/latex2e-html/ltx-178.html

> and how do i get the citations to appear on each page as they
> show up in the text?

Maybe use footnotes?

Sincerely,

Christopher Olah

PS. I need to stop forgetting to click Reply To all. Sorry about the
double messages for Sara.

-- 
Christopher Olah
Email:   christopherolah.co at gmail.com