Instructions for Authors TREE Reviews Trends in Ecology & Evolution (TREE) is a journal of news, review and comment, designed to help a general audience of ecologists and evolutionary biologists to stay abreast of current trends throughout the field. Please follow these instructions carefully because our editorial policy differs in important respects from that of primary research journals: General Considerations TREE Reviews are concise reviews of recent research in fast-moving or newly emerging areas and form the backbone of Trends Journals content. They should briefly set the background and then concentrate on setting recent findings in context. It is crucial that they should give a balanced view of developments, even in fields that are controversial, and authors must never concentrate unduly on their own research. Although Reviews do allow room for some speculation and debate, it should be made clear where the authors own opinions are being presented. In particular, to maximize the impact of their article, authors should bear in mind the following considerations: Start with a strong introduction outlining the timeliness, importance and rationale behind your review. Finish with clearly stated conclusions, including an indication of expected developments in the subject and the direction that future research should take. Do not include unpublished data, new hypotheses, formal models or meta-analysis. Very occasionally, unpublished data can be referred to, but only when essential and they should be clearly identified as unpublished and never be used to substantiate any significant point. TREE reviews are authoritative considerations of recent, peer-reviewed studies. We encourage the use of straightforward illustrations, simple tables and short boxes to enhance the message of the main text. Your readers will range from student to professor, so when writing for us, please aim to make your Review accessible to the entire readership of TREE. You can assume that your audience is competent in the basic language of the subject, but may require explanation or definition of technical terms, concepts and assumptions specific to your topic. Avoid jargon, but do not oversimplify or cut corners: be accurate and precise throughout. TREE is a peer-reviewed journal. Review manuscripts are usually sent to at least two referees. Manuscripts that fail to meet our criteria for scientific content and style will be rejected, but, more usually, authors are asked to submit a revised version based on referees' and Editor's recommendations. Further editing may take place after acceptance. To fulfil its role as a current awareness journal, TREE depends on rapid publication and tight schedules: if you cannot complete your manuscript by the deadline agreed with the Editor, please inform us of the delay and indicate the target date for completion. Late articles may be cancelled. Specific Guidelines To help you prepare your article, please take careful note of the following guidelines. Those given under the optional section are available for use if you wish. A more detailed checklist follows these instructions Title Titles should be short and enticing No more than eight words. Avoid very specialist terminology. Authors No more than 5 authors. names Full contact details for all authors (indicate corresponding author). Abstract Briefly explain the necessary background. Encapsulate the main conclusions for a non-specialist readership. Emphasize the recent developments that make your review timely.
Between 100 and 150 words. Teaser In addition to the Abstract, all Review articles should include a very short teaser, which will be used to convey rapidly to the reader why the article is relevant and interesting. The teaser should be a short, single sentence (20-35 words) - the equivalent of the first sentence of a news report - and will appear under the article s title in BioMedNet s e-mailed tables of contents, newsletters and such. It should be a simple statement highlighting your article, not a comprehensive summary of the work. Review structure To help guide the reader through the article, your review should follow the basic structure outlined below: Start with a short introduction aimed at nonspecialist readers. Use subheadings to guide readers through the review. End with conclusions, including an indication of future directions. Length Reviews have a word limit of 2500. This word limit does not include text in boxes, tables or figure legends. References Concentrate on the seminal references of the past 2-3 years (the majority of your references should be no more than five years old). Reviews should be cited if necessary to refer to older data. The limit of 60 references should not be exceeded. Optional Figures* Use of clear figures is strongly encouraged. Titles should be short and explanatory. Legends must fully explain the figure without reference to the text Tables* Require a single sentence title but no legend. Abbreviations and full explanations should be footnoted (using letters). Text Boxes* Didactic aids which should be used to display additional information that would interfere with the flow of the main text. Ideal for providing explanations of basic concepts or theories, giving detailed mechanisms or discussing case studies. Text Boxes can occasionally contain small figures and tables (with legend or title). Maximum of 400 words per Box and 8 references (cited within the box - see checklist below). No more than 4 boxes per article (new rule). Conclusions These can be summarized at the end of the article if desired. /Outstanding Counted separately from Text Boxes (above). Questions Box Maximum of 200 words. Only if necessary Glossaries For use when Reviews contain extensive amounts of specialist language (for instance, terms unknown to senior undergraduates). Counted separately from Text Boxes (above). *A maximum of 4 Figures, Tables or boxes (or combination of) is permitted per Review. Transfer of Copyright All authors must sign the 'Transfer of Copyright' agreement before the article can be published. This transfer agreement enables Elsevier Science Ltd to protect the copyrighted material for the authors, but does not relinquish the author's proprietary rights. The copyright transfer covers the exclusive rights to reproduce and distribute the article, including reprints, photographic reproductions, microform or any other reproductions of similar nature and translations, and includes the right to adapt the article for use in conjunction with computer systems and programs, including reproduction or publication in machine-readable form and incorporation in retrieval systems. Authors are responsible for obtaining from the copyright holder permission to reproduce any figures for which copyright exists. A copy of the Transfer of Copyright agreement will be sent to you on acceptance of your article.
Manuscript Preparation Please use this as a checklist, and return to TREE with your manuscript Throughout: double space (not one-and-a-half) including references and tables unjustified right margin use a nonproportional typeface minimum font size: 12pt for text, 14pt for algebra number pages (page 1 is title page) Title page: Title (lower case, except first letters of nouns) authors' names (maximum five) authors' addresses and emails indicate corresponding author with an asterisk keywords (maximum 10) Preface paragraph: (bold ) 100 150 words to capture the reader's interest, emphasizing recent advances and encapsulating the message of the article; must not contain references) Subheadings in text: first-order subheadings in bold second-order italic use informative subheadings (not 'Introduction', 'Discussion' etc.) References in text: use numerical font in square brackets, not superscript [1,2] in order of citation [3 5] References in boxes: use letters in square brackets [a,b] in order of citation [b e]. Repetition of references in main list permitted. Algebra: display on separate well-spaced lines use a large font (minimum 14pt) variables in italic vectors bold long or complex equations should be supplied as laser-printed finished artwork Species names: always supply Latin names as well as common names Acknowledgements: place at end of main text (before references) be brief Reference lists in main text and boxes (citation differs): References in main text, figures and tables are numbered and cited at the end of the main text. References in boxes are listed separately in the box and letters, rather than numbers, should be used to refer to them. references listed in order of citation, not alphabetically one reference per number (or per letter in a box) if two authors, print both names (separated by and ); if three or more authors, use et al. after first author date in parentheses
journals: abbreviate journal name using Biological Abstracts give volume and page numbers (start and end) whole books: give title and publisher book chapters: give book title, editors' names, page numbers, publisher unpublished work, including theses: don't cite it initials closed up numbers and titles are plain-text, Roman, sentence case (1st letter only is caps) (can be >1 sentence) and is closed with a full-stop (or? /! etc.) NB: URLs for Web pages go in main text, not in reference lists Examples of references in main text (note order, punctuation, spacing, use of italics and no bold): 1 Sharp, P.M. (1991) Genome organization and evolution. Trends Ecol. Evol. 6, 71 72 2 Li, W-H. and Graur, D. (1991) Fundamentals of Molecular Evolution, Sinauer 3 Clutton-Brock, T. and Godfray, H.C.J. (1991) Parental investment. In Behavioural Ecology (3rd edn) (Krebs, J.R. and Davies, N.B., eds), pp. 234 262, Blackwell 4 Bailey, W.J. and Rentz, D.C.F., eds (1990) The Tettigonidae: Biology, Systematics and Evolution, Springer-Verlag 5 Gomez, L. Nonparametric statistics in ecology. J. Ecol. (in press) 6 Hu, S. et al. (1999) Soil microbial feedbacks to atmospheric CO 2 enrichment. Trends Ecol. Evol. 14, 433 437 Examples of references in boxes (note letters, not numbers, are used): a Sharp, P.M. (1991) Genome organization and evolution. Trends Ecol. Evol. 6, 71 72 b Li, W-H. and Graur, D. (1991) Fundamentals of Molecular Evolution, Sinauer c Clutton-Brock, T. and Godfray, H.C.J. (1991) Parental investment. In Behavioural Ecology (3rd edn) (Krebs, J.R. and Davies, N.B., eds), pp. 234 262, Blackwell Boxes: Use for additional explanatory material (models, experiments, theory, etc.) 400 words, 8 refs, maximum, double spaced Single-sentence title References cited and listed within boxes - use superscript letters. These references are separate to those in the main text, figures and tables. Tables: Double space throughout Single sentence title Use superscript letters to refer to footnotes Alphabetically ordered footnotes should provide enough explanation to allow the reader to understand the table without reference to the main text (redefine any abbreviations, jargon etc.) Any references cited in tables should be listed in the main reference list (in sequence from end of main reference list) Figures: Please supply both an electronic file and a hard copy of all figures, and ensure that whoever generates your figures sees a copy of the figure instructions instructions. Any references cited in the figure legend should be listed in the main reference list (in sequence from end of list) General information You must obtain permission to reproduce copyrighted material from the authors and publishers, using the form attached.
Legends typed on separate sheet: please ensure they are self-contained and independent of the main text (not 'See text for details'): all acronyms and jargon should be redefined in full and both Latin and common names given at first mention. Acknowledge permission for reproduction Figures should be clearly labelled Start with a capital but otherwise always lower case roman (not italic except species), except acronyms. Please use (a), (b), (c) etc., in plain text to label figure components. Please be sure to cite all components and put them in sequence. Use Helvetica font where possible. Place the figure number and author s name onto the back of each original and/or disk. Use a scale bar where appropriate. Transport media: We can accept disks formatted for PC or Macintosh in the following formats: 3.5 floppy, Optical (128 or 230 Mb), ZIP, JAZ, CD Figure submission: guidelines for authors General information Please obtain permission to reproduce copyrighted material from the authors and publishers, using the form attached. We use Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop* when processing figures for publication. You must therefore supply files in one of the following formats. Schematic figures, graphs or charts Photographic images or structural representations EPS (Encapsulated postscript) Adobe Photoshop* (all versions) Adobe Illustrator (all versions) TIFF Canvas JPEG Postscript Chemdraw (supply Chemdraw file) CorelDraw (all versions) Freehand (all versions) ISISDraw *If using Photoshop, please compress the files using the LZW compression option (simply click on Save as and select LZW compression for mac or pc in the pop-up box. Photographic images or structural representations must be supplied at 300 dpi (print resolution) not 72 dpi (screen resolution), and this resolution must be generated in the application used to create the image and at approximately the correct size. Please ensure that you do not supply placed images. i.e. files that are imported into one of the above programs rather than saved in the appropriate format. If in doubt, also supply the original file (regardless of the application used to create it). If you have placed a photographic image into a schematic figure, graph or chart pleases also supply the photographic image (without labels) as a separate TIFF file at a resolution of 300 dpi. For correct printing, we must convert all RGB images to CMYK. This can make images less vibrant and alter the colour somewhat It would be helpful to us if file names do not exceed 8 characters in length, and it is essential that they end with the correct 3-letter extension e.g. 12345678.tif or 12345.eps. Images should be larger than they will appear in the journal to ensure good resolution when they are resized to our dimensions. If your system cannot produce variable output resolutions then the image should be created at a larger size, so that the effective resolution is increased when the image is scaled down later. Our final sizes are: 85 mm = single column width (996 pixels at 300 dpi) 176 mm = double column (2060 pixels at 300 dpi).
Supply of materials 1. Electronic files Please send us your figures via FTP. This is the preferred method for authors sending image files. Use FTP (file transfer protocol) to deposit files on our site by logging on using any ftp client, such as Fetch or FTP explorer. Please transfer files as binary. If you experience any problems with this process, please e-mail the Illustration studio for expert assistance: studio@epress.co.uk Host name: Login: Password: Directory: ftp.eslo.co.uk eslondon elsevier /incoming/trends/tree When the files have been sent, please alert the editorial office by e-mail, providing the file names and a full description of the programme used to create the figures and the formats in which the figures have been submitted. Alternatively, figures sent by e-mail (if under 2MB) or on disk are also acceptable. We can accept disks formatted for PC or Macintosh in the following formats: 3.5 floppy, ZIP, JAZ or CD. 2. Submission of electronic copies for rapid peer-review We prefer electronic copies of the figures and text for the peer-review process particularly if the figures are in colour and will not photocopy or fax well. Please include text and figures as attachments to your e-mail, with any letter in the main body of the text. In this letter, please state the file names and give a full description of the programme used to create the figures and the formats in which the figures have been submitted. E-mails should be sent to tree@current-trends.com and all manuscripts received will be acknowledged. If there is a problem with opening or reading a file, you will be informed immediately. Text: the preferred format is PC Word 97 Other acceptable formats: Microsoft Word, for PC or Mac (pre-word 97 preferred); Rich-Text Format (RTF); WordPerfect 5.x or 6.x. If you are using a version of Word since Word 97, please Save as a previous version. For other formats, or if you are in any doubt, please save your file as RTF format, as this can be readily opened. Figures: at this stage we prefer TIFF, JPG or EPS files, although we can usually translate any of the formats listed earlier. PLEASE NOTE: If submitting figures via e-mail or FTP, it is also important to send a good quality hard copy of each figure to the editorial office. This is to allow comparison between electronic and printed versions. 3. Supply of hard copy originals If for any reason you are unable to supply electronic copies of the figures for peer-review then please provide high-quality printouts: Colour: supply, FOUR colour copies, transparencies or prints. Black and white photographic images/line drawings: supply high-quality prints. In an accompanying letter please provide current contact details for 3 4 suitable referees. Although there is no guarantee that we will approach these specific individuals, the provision of contact details may help to ensure rapid progress through the peer-review process. If you have any difficulties preparing your text or figures, please contact the Editor for clarification: The Editor, Trends in Ecology and Evolution Elsevier Science London, 84 Theobald s Road, London UK WC1X 8RR Tel +44 (0)20 7611 4400 Fax +44 (0)20 7611 4485/4470 E-mail tree@current-trends.com
http://tree.trends.com