Instruction for authors
Instruction for Authors
Content
SCOPE 2
CATEGORIES OF PAPERS PUBLISHED 2
JOURNAL POLICIES 2
Editorial policy 2
Copyright 2
SUBMISSION AND REVIEW 3
TECHNICAL INSTRUCTIONS 3
Structure of manuscripts 3
FORMAT OF MANUSCRIPTS 4
General information 4
First page 4
Second page 4
Introduction 4
Material and methods 5
Results 5
Discussion 5
References 5
Examples of appropriate formats for references are: 6
Illustrations 7
Tables 7
Supplementary files 7
NOMENCLATURE 7
DESCRIBED TAXA PRESENTATION 7
Material examined 8
Compliance with the Nomenclature Codes 8
Authorship citation 9
Taxon authority 9
Bibliographic references 9
The Journaal van Syrphidae (JvS) is published and fully funded by the Syrphidae Foundation, and therefore neither authors nor readers are required to pay open-access fees or subscriptions. By coordinating world-wide resources to create a single publishing platform, the journal encourages excellence, prevents redundancy, and increases efficiency in the dissemination of data on all topics concerning Syrphidae (Diptera). It hopes to provide a secure long-term publication platform at minimum cost.
JvS is a high-quality, fully free, primarily taxonomic journal that offers modern interactive web-based facilities expected of a good-level journal. JvS endeavours to set a good standard in taxonomic publishing.
See the “Focus and scope” section here.
JvS publishes the following categories of papers:
Research articles: contributions to the field of descriptive taxonomy, including (re-) descriptions of taxa or global checklists, taxonomic revisions, etc.
Monographs: papers falling into the categories listed above and exceeding 50 printed pages.
Opinion papers: in which authors offer information and interpretation of issues related to all subjects concerning Syrphidae like systematic biology and science policy making.
JvS may also publish correspondence, short notes, book reviews or any other kind of announcements. Submitted manuscripts will need to have sufficient critical mass to be considered by JvS. For example, manuscripts describing a single species will need to demonstrate the general relevance of their publication.
Authors are required to deposit (holo)type specimens in an official natural history collection with public access prior to publication.
Submitted manuscripts will be checked for language, presentation and style. Scientists using English as a foreign language are urged to have their manuscript read by a native English-speaking colleague or a professional proofreader.
Papers which conform to journal scope and style will be sent to two referees by a member of the editorial board, who will then act as the handling editor.
JvS is a free open-access journal licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Authors publishing with this journal agree to the following conditions:
● Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work as long as they acknowledge the work’s authorship and initial publication in this journal.
● Authors are able to enter into separate additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal’s published version of the work (e.g. post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
● Authors are NOT PERMITTED to post their submitted work online (e.g. in institutional repositories or on personal websites) prior to or during the submission process, as it may lead to nomenclatural problems arising.
Papers submitted for publication in JvS should be sent by e-mail to infojvs@syrphidaeintrees.com. If there are multiple authors for one article, only the corresponding author is able to track the submission status.
Manuscripts should conform to standard rules of English grammar and style. Either British, American or Australian spelling may be used as long as usage is consistent throughout the manuscript. Scientists using English as a foreign language are urged to have their manuscript read by a native English-speaking colleague or a professional proofreader and this should be made clear in the acknowledgement section.
Although no page limit is imposed, manuscripts should always be as concise as possible.
Submitting a paper to JvS implies that the manuscript has not been submitted to another journal, and that it will not be for at least 4 months after initial submission to JvS, unless it is rejected by the editor in chief.
Only the structure of ‘opinion’ manuscripts is flexible, all other contributions should follow the IMRAD format: Abstract, Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgements, References.
Authors should submit the following elements:
● one MS Word (.doc, .docx or .rtf) or Open Office/Libre Office (.odt) file including the main text as well as all captions for tables and figures
● all tables, each in an individual file (.doc, .docx, .odt and .rtf formats accepted)
● all figures together with their captions in a single pdf; other formats are not accepted. Each page of the pdf should be composed of one figure and its caption. If the manuscript contains more than 10 figures, authors can provide several pdfs, e.g. figs_1-10.pdf, figs_11-20.pdf, figs 21-30.pdf, etc. When a manuscript is accepted, authors will be asked to provide high-resolution figure files separately, as specified below.
The handling editor will then build a single pdf file from the various manuscript elements for author approval.
Only the terms ‘tables’ and ‘figures’ should be used. Other categories (e.g. ‘plates’) are not accepted. Monographs can include a table of contents and an index. If electronic supplementary material is provided other than text or figures, it should be uploaded during the submission process.
Text should be in Times New Roman font size 12, single spaced. The margin width should be at 2,5 cm on all sides. All pages of the text file should be numbered sequentially. Each line of the text should be numbered throughout the document.
Bold font should be only used for headings and subheadings. Bold italic font should only be used for taxa names in treatment headings and within an identification key.
Italic font is used in the main text for genera and infrageneric names.
JvS has the option to carry out XML conversion for material citations, allowing the rich specimen data and relative nomenclatural acts to be distributed to biodiversity databases and linked back to the article (see ‘FAIR & Open Science’). To achieve optimal results, it is recommended to use standardised formats that will allow the data to be accurately harvested and efficiently disseminated. Detailed guidelines on how to format the specimen citations for the material examined are given in the ‘Material Citations Formatting Guide’ (pdf to download).
The first page should contain the title (preferrably less than 110 characters, spaces included), the list of authors in the desired order, followed by their various addresses, then emails. Each author is designated in the list by a superscript number, which also precedes the address(es) and email of this author. The corresponding author is additionally differentiated with a superscript asterisk. Authors are advised to include a personal LSID and/or ORCID, and these should also be included on the first page.
A running title (preferrably less than 50 characters) should be provided.
The title should always include the reference to the two higher hierarchical taxonomic categories of the taxon under discussion, e.g.:
‘Faunistics of the genus Sphegina (Diptera, Syrphidae) from the Nearctic region.’
The title page should also include the disclaimer ‘The present paper has not been submitted to another journal, nor will it be in the 4 months after initial submission to JvS. All co-authors are aware of the present submission.’
Authors are required to suggest at least 2, but preferably 3–5 reviewers (name, affiliation and email address) for their manuscript. This information must be inserted in the email.
The second page should contain the abstract and 5 keywords.
Abstracts are typically less than 200 words, except for monographs with many new taxa and alterations in the taxonomy. Abstracts should contain neither references, nor unexplained abbreviations.
The Introduction should provide an overview of past work in the field, illustrate why the present work is needed and in which domain it is situated. The progress offered by the present contribution should be summarised in one or two paragraphs at the end of the introduction.
In Material and Methods, only acronyms of collections should be cited (not a detailed account of all museum material used, which should be given in the Results section). Additionally, authors might add the origin of the new material, technical equipment used, major technical literature applied, and software used for analyses or illustrations. If molecular analyses are performed, the methodology should be described in detail so that all procedures are reproducible.
All abbreviations used within the article (parts of animals/plants, collections, localities, etc.) should be listed and explained here.
The main part of the paper will be found under the Results, including taxonomic descriptions, ecology, (molecular) phylogeny, biostratigraphy, etc. This section should start with a contextual account of the current taxonomic hierarchy of the target taxon. Each taxon account should, at least, include the following items in the order listed:
● accepted taxon name with author and year of description;
● reference to illustrations or tables in the present paper;
● list of synonymies, with full references to cited papers, including figures (see format below);
● for new species, diagnosis or differential diagnosis;
● etymology (for new taxa), with indication if it is a noun or adjective and in genus names its gender;
● material examined (download recommended format here), separated into type material (with collection registry and deposition) followed by additional material, indicating full (type) locality data (including geocoordinates) and other relevant collection data, where available;
● full description of all relevant characters;
● taxonomic remarks, ecology and distribution.
If no holotype was originally designated from the available type material (syntypes), it is strongly recommended to designate a lectotype.
Redundancy of data should be avoided.
The Discussion will consider the findings of the paper in the context of the wider literature and indicates progress made within the field.
References in the main text should be written in lowercase and without commas and “et al.” in italics as follows: ‘(van Steenis 2020)’, ‘(van Steenis et al. 2020)’, ‘van Steenis (2020)’ and ‘van Steenis et al. (2020)’. Multiple references should be cited in chronological order as ‘(van Steenis 2000; Gilasian et al. 2020; van Steenis & Waytt 2020)’. Papers published in the same year and containing the same author surnames should be differentiated as follows: ‘van Steenis et al. (2018a)’, ‘van Steenis et al. (2018b)’. In the references list, the same convention (letters a, b, c, etc.) should be used.
At the end of the manuscript, references are listed in alphabetical order, based on the surname of the first author. If two first authors share the same surname, the alphabetical order is then based also on the first name initial of each author: van Steenis W. (van Steenis et al. 2013) comes after van Steenis J. (van Steenis & Zuidhoff 2013).
References sharing the same first author surname and initial are arranged according to the following order:
1°) single-authored papers are listed first and arranged chronologically (from the oldest to the newest year of publication)
2°) two-authored papers are then listed, arranged alphabetically based on surname of second author; when papers share the same authorship in this list, they are arranged chronologically
3°) three-or-more-authored papers are then listed, arranged chronologically.
When three-or-more-authored papers share the same year of publication, they are listed according to surname of the second author, surname of the third author, etc. The alphabetical order of second author surname, third author surname determines the use of letters a, b, c, etc.
The format adopted for the list of references has been kept simple: italics should only be used in case of a book chapter where "In" is in italics and for infraspecific and genus names); no bold font should be used in the references; journal names should be given in full and not abbreviated.
DOI (Digital Object Identifier) numbers of references must be provided where available. You can easily find DOIs using the following tool: https://doi.crossref.org/simpleTextQuery
Article in a journal
van Steenis J. 2000. The West-Palaearctic species of Spilomyia Meigen (Diptera, Syrphidae). Mitteilungen der Schweizerischen entomologischen Gesellschaft 73, 143–168.
van Steenis J, Gharali B., Zeegers T. & Sadeghi Namaghi H. 2018a. Trichopsomyia ochrozona (Stackelberg, 1952) (Diptera: Syrphidae) recorded from Iran for the first time with a key to the West Palaearctic Trichopsomyia Williston, 1888 species. Zoology in the Middle East 64 (4): 345–359. https://doi.org/10.1080/09397140.2018.1511284
van Steenis J, Hippa H. & Mutin V.A. 2018b. Revision of the Oriental species of the genus Sphegina Meigen, 1822 (Diptera: Syrphidae). European Journal of Taxonomy 489: 1–198. https://doi.org/10.5852/ejt.2018.489
van Steenis J & Zuidhoff F.S. 2013. Hoverflies (Diptera: Syrphidae) of Laivadalen, a palsa bog in northern Sweden, with notes on possible bio-indicator species. Entomologisk Tidskrift 134(4): 181–192.
van Steenis W, Groot M. de & van Steenis J. 2013. New data on the hoverflies (Diptera: Syrphidae) of Slovenia. Acta Entomologica Slovenica 21(2): 131–162.
Book
Bartsch H., Binkiewicz E., Klintbjer A., Rådén A. & Nasibov E. 2009. Nationalnyckeln till Sveriges flora och fauna. Tvåvingar: Blomflugor: Eristalinae & Microdontinae. Diptera: Syrphidae: Eristalinae & Microdontinae. ArtDatabanken, SLU, Uppsala. 478 pp.
Chapter or article in a book
Smit, J., van Steenis J & Reemer M. 2009. Zelf zweefvliegen onderzoeken. Hoofdstuk 9. In: Reemer et al. (Eds) De Nederlandse zweefvliegen (Diptera: Syrphidae): 105–110. KNNV Uitgeverij, Zeist, The Netherlands.
Website
WFO 2019. World Flora Online. An online Flora of all known Plants. Online at http://www.worldfloraonline.org [accessed 17 May 2020].
During peer-review, figures are provided to referees together with their captions in a single pdf file.
If the manuscript is accepted, authors will be asked to provide each figure as a separate image file. Authors will receive instructions on how separate figure files can be transmitted to the editorial office. For publication, illustrations must be high quality, high resolution and in portrait format. Standards for size and resolution are: maximum width of 16 cm, for a resolution of at least 300 dpi for photographs or 1200 dpi for line drawings, in .jpeg or .tiff format.
As JvS is published online, illustrations in full colour are accepted free of charge. Scale bars are required for each figure. Lettering should be uniform and consistent, using Arial font, size 12. Composite figures are always preferred and it is strongly recommended to use A, B, C, etc. to denote the different illustrations. Figures must be numbered sequentially as they first appear in the text.
Authors are free to present tables in the way that suits their publication best, but all tables must have a title, be numbered sequentially as they first appear in the text and preferably presented in portrait format. The accepted formats are .doc, .docx, .odt and .rtf.
Authors are free to publish underlying/complementary data that support the study as supplementary files if the format is not suitable for inclusion within the article (e.g., high volume of material or incompatible file type).
The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (https://www.iczn.org/the-code/the-code-online/), should be followed rigorously. Genera or infrageneric names should always be in italic font, names of higher taxonomic categories should not be in italic font. For uniformity, authors should use the following abbreviations: ‘sp. nov.’, ‘gen. nov.’ at each occurrence of a new taxon, ‘comb. nov.’ for each new combination, ‘syn. nov.’ for each new synonym, etc. All new taxa names, new combinations and new synonymies must be recorded in the abstract. When citing a taxonomic name (genus or species) for the first time in the core text, author and year of publication should always be noted.
The synonymy list, if necessary, should be presented as follows:
- First: actual synonyms, listed in chronological order, with full references to cited papers, including figures;
- Second: non-original uses of taxonomic names, considered as synonyms of the described taxon, listed in chronological order with references to the cited papers, including figures. To avoid confusion with the previous list, these taxa names and their bibliographic references are separated by an ‘en-dash’, example as follows:
Brachyopa dorsata – van Steenis et al. 2020.
- Third: incorrect referral to a taxon: these names are listed in chronological order and preceded by ‘non’, with full references to cited papers. These names are also separated from their bibliographical references by an ‘en-dash’.
Examples of presentation
Ceriana brunettii (Shannon, 1927)
Figs 1, 2, 19, 20, 37, 56–58, 64, 166
Tenthredomyia brunettii Shannon 1927b: 45. Type locality: Pakistan [HT ♂, AT ♀, NHM].
Ceriana brunettii – Violovitsh 1974 (comb. nov).
Ceriana skevingtoni van Steenis & Ricarte spec. nov.
Figs 17, 18, 35, 36, 46, 86, 101, 106–108, 167
Cerioides caucasica – Zimina 1960.
Ceriana caucasica – Peck 1988 (comb. nov.); Hauser 1998; Dousti & Hayat 2006.
Primocerioides regale Violovitsh, 1985
Figs 51, 114, 115, 122, 123, 130, 131, 138, 141–144, 145, 151, 171
Primocerioides regale Violovitsh, 1985: 95. Type locality ‘Yugoslavia, near Belgrade' [HT ♂ ZIN, lost?].
Sphiximorpha hiemalis Ricarte, Nedeljković & Hancock, in Ricarte et al. 2012: 18. Type locality Greece, Lesvos [HT ♂ HMUG] syn. nov.
Sphiximorpha hiemalis – Speight 2013.
The required elements to present for type material used to describe new taxa are the collection registry and deposition codes with the acronym of the repository (as given in the Material and Methods section), as well as full data on the type locality (including geocoordinates), date of collection and collector. Detailed guidelines on how to format the specimen citations for the material examined are given in the ‘Material Citations Formatting Guide’ (pdf to download).
Printed versions of JvS papers can be ordered on request and will be paid at cost price. Authors are encouraged to disseminate their work; they can download the pdf files of their articles directly from the platform, and distribute printed copies among their colleagues.
JvS adheres to the CETAF e-publishing recommendations for authorship citation, as detailed by Bénichou et al. (2018) (https://doi.org/10.5852/ejt.2018.475). Authors are encouraged to apply Appropriate Citation of Taxonomy: authors who want their citations of taxonomic names to be considered as references (and consequently to appear in the references list) should formally cite the taxonomic papers where they originate in their articles. See the required format in the “References” section.
For example, instead of writing “Cacoceria Hull, 1930 was first described from South America”, write: “Cacoceria was first described from South America (Hull 1930)”. In the latter case, the reference “(Hull 1930)” is a real reference and citation (name and date not separated by a comma), in the former it is the authorship of the taxon (name and date separated by a comma). Works given in the References section but only cited in the text as taxon authorship will be removed, with the exception of the synonyms given in a taxonomic treatment that provide precise page references.
The authority should be cited at the first mention of the taxon in the abstract and the main text and all keys, as well as figure and table captions.
Zoology, palaeozoology: Author, YYYY. E.g. Syrphus ribesii (Linnaeus, 1758). When a species-group name is combined with a generic name other than the original one, the name of the author of the species-group name, along with the date, is to be enclosed in parentheses (ICZN Art. 51.3).
Botany: Only the author(s) need(s) to be mentioned in the way usual for botany, e.g “Bolboschoenus maritimus (L.) Palla”.
Authorship is only to be considered as a bibliographic reference if it is formally cited as a reference in the article, by indicating, for instance, the page number. In this case, it is mandatory to report the reference under the References section.