Guidelines for DAO authors

Inter-Research considers for publication: Research Articles (usually not more than 10 printed pages); Reviews, state-of-the-art evaluations of important current research areas (up to 25 printed pages); Invited Reviews, authored by prominent experts; Notes, brief reports of important new information deserving priority publication (up to 4 printed pages); Comments, critical, fair assessments of published works and Reply Comments, replies to Comments (normally 2 to 3 printed pages; for details on Comments/Reply Comments click here) as well as Theme Sections, integrated expert analyses highlighting an important current research area or problem (as brief as possible) and As I See It, important, personal views on hot topics (brief and fair). Articles of exceptional significance may be selected as Feature Articles and made available to the scientific community by open access on our website.

 

 

Authors will be offered the option of publishing their article as Open Access. For further details see Open Access Initiative.

 

 

MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION

 

Submitted manuscripts (mss) must (1) not be submitted simultaneously to any other publication outlet; (2) be original, i.e. not published before; (3) have been approved by all immediately involved, e.g. authors, institutional authorities; (4) meet ethics guidelines (see below). If the ms has previously been submitted to any publication outlet, this must be disclosed and a rationale for its submission to DAO provided. Submission of a ms implies agreement to Inter-Research terms of publication, including transfer of copyright to Inter-Research and the online posting of a prepress abstract.

 

Submissions should consist of: (1) a cover letter with a brief description of the main goals and findings contained in the ms, and the response to reviews if the submission is a revision, (2) the ms itself. Acceptable electronic formats are Adobe pdf and MS-Word. Pages and lines should be numbered. All fonts must be embedded in the file, which must not contain any security settings. Mss should be submitted in a single file that contains all text, tables, and figures. Total file size should be no more than 5 MB. High quality figure files needed for production will be requested if necessary later when the ms is accepted.

 

All mss must be submitted via the DAO editorial office, either online, by email, or by post. Authors are invited to specify their preference for which editor should handle the ms, and (in their cover letter) to identify 3-5 suitable referees.

 

1. Online manuscript submission system: click here AUTHOR GATEWAY.

 

2. Email submission: to the DAO editorial office (dao-submissions@int-res.com). Attach two files (1: the cover letter, which may include a list of potential reviewers, and which must include the response to reviews if the submission is a revision; and 2: the ms). Hard copies are NOT required unless electronic submission is impossible. In that case, mss may be submitted - one hard copy and an electronic file on disc - by post.

 

3. By post: to Inter-Research, Nordbünte 23, 21385 Oldendorf/Luhe, Germany.

 

 

MANUSCRIPT PROCESSING

 

Mss are critically evaluated by at least 3 reviewers. The Editor decides on acceptance, revision, or rejection. Mss returned to authors for revision should be revised and resubmitted within 3 months, otherwise they may be considered as withdrawn.

 

Titles of accepted mss are added to 'Forthcoming publications' on the IR Web site, together with a prepress abstract. Articles are published within a few days after corrected proofs have been returned by the corresponding author. Orders for offprints must be made when returning the proof (use the form provided). A copy of the journal volume or number, and offprints ordered will be mailed to the corresponding author after an issue is printed.

 

 

MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION

Please consider the following when preparing your ms. Consult recent IR publications as a general guide.

 

Once a ms has been accepted, upload or send it as a word-processing file (e.g. MS Word, not pdf or TeX), with separate figure files. Large files (>1 MB) can be uploaded to our ftp site (ftp.int-res.com), which can be freely accessed (please inform us if you upload anything).

 

Manuscript length

 

The target length of Research Articles is approximately 10 printed pages (about 6000 words).

 

Cover page

 

Title: Avoid 'A', 'An', 'The', 'On', etc. at the beginning; the title should have not more than 100 characters (ca. 15 words, 2 lines in print), and 150 characters at most. Compare:

'A novel method for the production of monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) specific to an envelope protein (28kDa) of white spot syndrome virus (WSSV) of shrimp and detection of WSSV by MAb-based antigen-capture enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay'

(236 characters, 37 words)

vs.

'Detection of white spot syndrome virus of shrimp by means of monoclonal antibodies specific to an envelope protein'

(114 characters, 19 words).

 

Provide a running head with 3 to 6 words; e.g. 'Detection of shrimp WSSV'.

 

Authors and addresses: If a ms has several authors from different institutions:

 

 

Abstract: Limit length to 250 words. Provide concise information on your work and its principal results. Avoid literature cites, series of data, or meaningless clauses such as 'the results are discussed'.

 

Key words: Supply 3 to 8 key words, listed in order of importance.

 

Text

 

Please use numbered pages and lines, 12 point font, and double spacing. Do your very best to use correct English grammar, spelling and punctuation; if you are not a native English speaker, you should have the text edited by someone who is, before sending the ms to IR. You may also wish to consult a 'How to' book such as Day & Gastel (2006) How to write and publish a scientific paper, 6th edn (Greenwood Press, Westport, CT).

 

Verbosity: Please eliminate verbiage; example:

'This speed was chosen because past studies by Miller (1995) and Smith (1998) have shown this to be slightly greater than the maximum sustained swimming speed.'

vs.

'This is slightly greater than the maximum sustained swimming speed (Miller 1995, Smith 1998).'

 

Genus and species names must be in italics; write the genus name in full at first mention in each paragraph and abbreviate whenever mentioned again in the same paragraph. When referring to a species, do not use the genus name alone, unless you have previously defined it that way; be precise when using 'sp.' (singular) and 'spp.' (plural).

 

Sequence data: Full information is required when molecular methods are used. The sequences of novel primers must be given. Novel nucleotide or protein sequences must be deposited in the GenBank, EMBL or DDBJ databases and an accession number obtained.

 

Abbreviations: Define abbreviations and acronyms in the 'Abstract' and at first mention in the main text, and thereafter use only the abbreviation / acronym.

 

Equations and units: Use standard SI units. Relations or concentrations (e.g. mg per l) must be given as 'mg l-1' (not mg/l). Variables are usually italicised (except for Greek letters). Italicisation should be consistent in normal, superscript and subscripted text. Leave one blank space on either side of '=', '>', ± etc. where these denote equalities or inequalities.

Example: 'p < 0.05, r2 = 0.879' (not 'p<0.05, r2=0.879'); but: 'we studied organisms of size <0.5 µm'

 

Figures and tables

 

Figures: Please consult Guidelines to Authors on Figure Preparation.

Figures, tables, and their captions should be self-explanatory; e.g. abbreviations and acronyms must be defined again here. If a figure or table provides data on biological species, its legend should begin with the full Latin name of that species. For table footnotes, use superscripted lower case letters; asterisks can be used to indicate statistical significance.

 

Literature cited

 

All quoted literature must be listed, and all listed literature must be quoted.

 

Periodicals: Use standard abbreviations according to 'BIOSIS Serial Sources'. You can download a list of journal abbreviations from www.int-res.com/misc/journallist.txt or use the bibliographic database software 'EndNote' . You can obtain styles for IR journals at www.endnote.com/support/enstyles.asp or download here.

 

How to cite from DAO (example):

Books: Write the title of the book in lower case, and give the publisher and place of publication. In the case of book series, give the series editor as well. Example:

Papers from books, conference reports, symposium proceedings, etc.: Give the title of the chapter, the editor(s) and title of the volume, the publisher and place of the publisher (not the location where the conference was held), and the pages of the chapter. The date of the cite must be the year of publication (not the year in which the conference was held). Example:

Dissertations: Write the title in lower case, 'MS / PhD thesis / dissertation', and give the university and its location. Example:

Websites: Permanent databases such as FishBase, GenBank, or climatological sources may be included in the Literature Cited list; the date accessed must be given. URLs for printed publications also available online may be included with their citations. Other website references should only be cited in the body text. Example:

 

Electronic supplements

 

Material in a format unsuitable for inclusion within the article (overlong tables, mathematical derivations, video clips, computer code, etc.) may be published on the Inter-Research web-site as an electronic supplement, with a direct link from the online article. Supplementary Material must be closely integrated with the article itself and should not be misused as a convenient way of disseminating large amounts of extra information that would be better presented in a separate article or in an online repository. It must be carefully prepared, as it will not go through the full prepublication process of checking and copyediting. Inclusion of material in the electronic supplement is at the discretion of the Editors.

 

 

ETHICS

 

Research published in IR journals must have been conducted in accordance with institutional, national and international guidelines concerning the use of animals in research and/or the sampling of endangered species.

 

 

AUTHORSHIP

 

Individuals listed as authors must: (1) agree to be listed; (2) have contributed to the research reported; (3) approve the submitted version of the ms.

 

 

COPYRIGHT

 

Scientific information appearing in IR journals has been rigorously refereed, carefully quality-improved, and professionally selected by our editorial staff. These publications, and all parts thereof, are therefore protected by copyright. This covers the exclusive rights of the publisher to sell, reproduce (by any means, including photographic or electronic), distribute (including via photocopies, reprints, or electronic means), and store (on microfilm, in electronic data bases, ms video disks, etc.) this material.

The acceptance regulations of a ms for publication automatically include the consent of the author(s) to transfer the copyright to the publisher. Permission for exceptions to these rules must be obtained in writing from the publisher at the time of ms submission. In the USA, photocopies may be made for personal or in-house use beyond the limitations stipulated under Section 107 or 108 of U.S. Copyright Law.

 

 

DISCLAIMER

 

Publisher, editors, reviewers and authors do not accept any legal responsibility for errors, omissions or claims, nor do they provide any warranty, express or implied, with respect to information published in IR journals.

 

Inter-Research:

Nordbünte 23 (+3, 5, 28, 30)

21385 Oldendorf/Luhe

Germany

Inter-Research levies no page charge.

The last issue of each set of 10 volumes features a combined author/title index.