IUCN Otter Specialist Group Bulletin - Guidelines for Authors

NB: These have recently been updated, so use this document as a guide rather than relying on previous issues of the Bulletin.

Submission of Papers

All manuscripts should be submitted electronically through iucnosgbull@yahoo.co.uk

IMPORTANT INFORMATION BEFORE SUBMISSION

1. Submission of a paper implies that it has not been published previously, that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, and that if accepted it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, and/or similar content, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the Publisher. By the same token, papers previously published in proceedings or any other journal in any other language should not be submitted without significant modification.
2. Manuscripts submitted under multiple authorships are reviewed on the assumption that all listed authors concur with the submission and that a copy of the final manuscript has been approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities in the laboratories/organisation where the work was carried out.
3. It is understood that with submission of this article the authors have complied with the institutional policies governing the humane and ethical treatment of the experimental subjects, and that they are willing to share the original data and materials if so requested.

Types of Contributions

IUCN Otter Spec. Group Bull. accepts Viewpoints, Research Articles, Review Papers, Short Communications, Research Reports, Letters to the Editor, Replies and Discussion Papers. Please note that papers of a routine nature and lacking originality, novelty and uniqueness will not be accepted for publication.

A Short Communication should be of significant scientific merit (a novel finding that warrants immediate publication).

Manuscript Preparation

General: Manuscripts must be in double-spaced form with wide margins. A font size of 12 pt is required. The corresponding author should be identified (include a full postal address, Fax number and E-mail address). Photos of all authors in jpg format should be submitted together with a final version of the manuscript. The Editors reserve the right to adjust style to certain standards of uniformity.

Line Numbers: To facilitate the review process continuous line numbers should be inserted in the text of the manuscript.

Paper Length: The Editors generally encourage brevity for all Research Papers. Every page of the manuscript, including the title page, references, tables, etc. should be numbered.

Abstracts: Abstracts should not exceed 250 words, and should not contain any references.

Keywords: 4-6 keywords must be included on a separate line below the main abstract and labelled 'Keywords'. To optimise searching, avoid key words already used in the title.

Text: Follow this order when composing manuscripts: Title, Authors, Affiliations, Abstract, Keywords, Text (Introduction; Animals, Material and Methods or whatever is appropriate, Results, Discussion, Conclusion where relevant, Acknowledgements, References, Figure Captions, Figures and then Tables. Figures and Tables may also be inserted into the text. The corresponding author should be identified with an asterisk and footnote.

Non-English Summaries: Whenever possible Spanish and French summaries will be included. Authors are encouraged to find a native speaker and organise the translation by themselves. Other languages may be discussed with the editor.

Units: Use SI Units. If other units are necessary, include the conversion factor and add the non-standard unit in parenthesis. Units should be in the form " g cm-1" rather than "g/cm".

Animals: Please note that if handling of animals has been performed, the relevant chapter has to be called Animals, Materials and Methods and an ethical statement on acceptance of the animal experiment (authority etc.) has to be given in the text.

Maths: Avoid double suffix. Punctuate carefully. Use dy/dx = a + bx. Statistical programmes used for calculations have to be identified in the Method Section. Significant differences should be stated as: * P<0.05; ** P<0.01; *** P<0.001.

References: All publications cited in the text should be presented in a list of references following the text of the manuscript. In the text refer to: The author's name (without initials) and year of publication (e.g. "Since Anton (1993) has shown that..." or "This is in agreement with results obtained later (Berta, 1994; Cesar et al., 1998; Dora and Frieda, 1999)"). Please follow the chronological order. For three or more authors use the first author followed by "et al." in the text.

The list of references should be arranged alphabetically by authors' names. The manuscript should be carefully checked to ensure that the spelling of authors' names and dates are exactly the same in the text as in the reference list. International abbreviations should be used for journal names as determined by ISI. For a listing please refer to: http://library.caltech.edu/reference/abbreviations. If the journal is not included in the ISI list, a second consultation on http://in-cites.com/journal-list/index.html is recommended. References should therefore be given in the following form:
Journal article:
Anton, A., Berta, M., Cesar, C.C. (1998). Modelling otter movements in an open coastal environment. J. Mov. Res. 103: 7693-7708.
Book:
Dora, D. (1995). Statistics for Spatial Data. John Wiley, New York.
Article or chapter in edited book:
Frieda, F., Gustav, G. (1994). Otters and humans. In: Hans, H., Ida, I.M. (Eds.). Impact of Human Activities. Buchen Verlag, Basel, Switzerland, pp. 101-115.
Format for personal communication:
Smith, J., Personal communication.
References to personal correspondence or to unarchived material obtained from the World Wide Web are discouraged. "Anonymous" is not acceptable as an author. Citations in other languages that do not contain an English abstract are discouraged. Citations in other languages should have the addition [in “Language” with English abstract].

Illustrations:
Photographs, charts and diagrams are all to be referred to as "Figure(s)" and should be numbered consecutively in the order to which they are referred. They should accompany the manuscript, and may be included in the text.
All illustrations should be clearly marked with the figure number. All figures are to have a caption.
Line drawings: Lines should be black, of an adequate thickness (around 1 pt) and curves should be smooth. Shading (tints) that simulate grey should not be used and replaced by line shading (hatched)
Photographs: No restrictions on the use of photographs. Submitting a photograph implies that that the author holds the copyright. If necessary, a scale should be marked on the photograph. Please note that photocopies of photographs are not acceptable.
Colour: Colour illustrations are encouraged and no extra costs apply.

Tables: Tables should be numbered consecutively and given a suitable caption. Footnotes to tables should be typed below the table and should be referred to by superscript lowercase letters. No vertical rules should be used. Tables should not duplicate results presented elsewhere in the manuscript (e.g. in graphs).

Multimedia Files: The IUCN Otter Spec. Group Bull. now accepts electronic supplementary material to support and enhance your scientific research. Supplementary files offer the author additional possibilities for publishing supporting applications, movies, animation sequences, high-resolution images, background datasets, sound clips and more. Supplementary files supplied will be published online alongside the electronic version of your article on
http://www.otterspecialistgroup.org/Bulletin/IUCNOSGBull.html

Miscellaneous: Be careful about the use of significant figures; provide concise description about QA/QC of your data; use periods for your decimal points; define acronyms when they first appear in the text; be consistent in the format of your unit expressions.

Proofs: PDF proofs will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author. To avoid delay in publication, only necessary changes should be made, and corrections should be returned promptly.

Copyright: Authors are responsible for obtaining from the copyright holder permission to reproduce any material for which copyright already exists.

Online Publication: Your article will appear on http://www.otterspecialistgroup.org/Bulletin/IUCNOSGBull.html