Conservation Biology Style for Authors -- updated: October 2004

Avoid another revision by adhering to the following guidelines.

Word count

Adhere to the following word counts. Do not exceed word counts prescribed to address reviewer comments. Additionally, adhere to the ratio of number of pages to supporting elements (see below Supporting Elements).

Contributed Papers 3000-6000 words

Research Notes < 3000 words

Reviews < 7500 words

Essays < 6000 words

Conservation in Practice < 5000 words

Conservation and Policy < 2500 words

Comments < 2000 words

Diversity < 2000 words

More information on these categories and the types of papers published in Conservation Biology is available from http://www.conbio.org/Publications/ConsBio/Instructions/.

Common pitfalls

Highlighted text below points to factors that authors need to consider but often do not.

Writing Style

Clarity is everything

Our audience is the general and international conservation biology reader, so clarity in language and syntax is important, especially for readers who do not speak English as their first language. For Contributed Papers, Reviews, most Essays, Conservation in Practice, Conservation Policy, and Research Notes informal language is not acceptable. And, consider that “ [L]iterary devices, metaphors and the like, divert attention from the substance to the style [and]…should be used rarely in scientific writing” (Day 1998).

Avoid jargon

In general writers (and speakers) should avoid the use of jargon. But because we have a broad and international readership, it is even more important for Conservation Biology authors to avoid it.

Abbreviations, acronyms, and initializations

•  Do not begin a sentence with an abbreviation.

•  Use them sparingly. Overuse of these devices makes reading and comprehension difficult. One or two abbreviations for terms particular to your paper or topic used throughout is acceptable, but many more is questionable. The text needs to be understandable to a reader who is not a specialist in the subject matter at hand. Define all abbreviations, initializations, and acronyms at first use, e.g., analysis of variance (ANOVA), World Conservation Union (IUCN).

Use active voice most of the time

Use we or I regularly (e.g., “We converted all GIS data to raster format.”, not “All GIS data were converted to raster format.” Or, “Trained technicians surveyed the plots.”, not “The plots were surveyed by trained technicians.”) In particular, your methods should not be written entirely in passive voice.

Tense

•  Past tense: use it in the methods (telling what you did) and results (telling what your results were) sections. Also use it in the Discussion when you refer to your results. This helps the reader differentiate between your findings in this study and findings from other studies (referred to in present tense, see next item).

•  Present tense: use it when you refer to previously published findings.

In general, most of the abstract, methods, and results should be in past tense, and most of the introduction and discussion should be in present tense. “When a…paper…has been published…in a primary journal, …it becomes knowledge. Therefore, whenever you quote previously published work, ethics requires you …treat that work with respect. You do this by using the present tense …The principal exception to this rule is in the area of attribution and presentation. It is correct to say “Smith showed [past] that streptomycin inhibits [present] S. nocolor” (Day 1998).

Non-native English Speakers

If English is not your first language, we strongly recommend you have your paper edited by a native English speaker with experience in publishing scientific papers.

Organization: IMRAD Format

Contributed Papers and Research Notes should be in IMRAD format: introduction, methods, results, and discussion. In general, do not combine sections (e.g., results and discussion) or mix, for example, results in with methods. Do not use outline formatting (i.e., number headings and subheadings). A conclusion section following the discussion is permitted as long as it is not repetitive of material that has been covered previously.

Title

Most people will decide whether or not to read your paper based solely on its title. This makes it the most important part of the paper. Researchers… “will read the title, either in the original journal or in…secondary….publications. Therefore all words in the title should be chosen with great care, and their association with one another must be managed carefully. …[I]ndexing and abstracting services [and Internet searches] depend heavily on the accuracy of the title as do many…literature retrieval systems” (Day 1998). Your paper may not reach its audience if the title is not to the point and does not include the pertinent vocabulary. Aim for a clear, concise, but informative title.

•  Hanging titles (those with a colon) are overused and often use more words than necessary.

•  Avoid titles that are complete sentences. They are dogmatic, and “…knowledge in science is…evolving; consequently, what is considered true today probably will be questioned tomorrow and may be rejected…in the future” (Carraway 2006).

•  Avoid interrogative titles because they are difficult to index properly and the reader is lead to believe your work can be summed up in one word (i.e., yes or no). For example, “Agricultural Intensification: Will Land Spared from Farming be Land Spared for Nature?” Other than agricultural intensification , there are few informative keywords in this title that a computerized word-indexing system can pick up that will be useful for researchers searching for papers. 

•  Avoid cute titles that refer to contemporary or country-specific cultural phenomena (e.g., movie titles or turisms).

•  Scientific names are not needed in the title for commonly recognized species, unless the common name might be confusing. For uncommon species it is informative for our general conservation audience to have a description (e.g., Local Adaptation and General-Purpose Genotypes in the Weed Verbascum thapsus ).

Abstract

An abstract is a <span class="hilite">miniversion of your paper</span>: 1-2 sentences of introduction (justification for your study), methods, results, and discussion (to include general conservation implications if they are not obvious). Length should not exceed 1 page. It should not contain literature citations, much data, or meaningless clauses such as “We discuss results…” or “We summarize implications…” The following is an example of how these types of phrases can be deleted: We describe t T he major drivers of postfire salvage logging in Canadian boreal forests , are -- societal perceptions, overallocation of forest resources, and economic and policy incentives , and identify how postfire salvage compromises…

Keywords

Five to eight words or phrases is sufficient. Include these words and phrases in your abstract and title. This adds weight to terms used in indexing, which will help researchers find papers relevant to their topics. People tend to search for specifics, not just one word (e.g., Neotropical bird conservation not conservation ), so avoid terms that are overly general (e.g., conservation ). Key phrases need to make sense within the title and abstract and flow well.

Acknowledgments

Do not fully spell out first names. Provide the first initial (even if the initial starts a sentence). Authors of the manuscript should be referred to in initials only (e.g., S.T.W. was supported by a Torry Foundation grant.).

Grammatical Bugaboos

Using (the word)

In scientific writing, the word using is often the culprit in dangling participles and misplaced modifiers.

•  Misplaced modifier: Ivory samples were taken from tusks using a 16-mm drill bit on a 40-cm drill. This reads as if the tusks used the drill. Keep related words together and in the order that conveys the intended meaning (and use active voice).

•  Dangling participle: Using tissue isolation protocol, mtDNA was isolated from dried skins. In this sentence it is unclear who is doing the using; it has no actor and reads as if mtDNA is doing the using.

Multiple modifiers

Too many modifiers: Do not pile up multiple adjectives (or nouns turned adjectives) in front of a noun (difficult to follow: “infected bird populations' responses”; better: responses of infected bird populations; a new type motor skills college performance test; better: a new kind of motor-skills test used in colleges).

Pronouns

Be careful, in particular, with the pronouns this, these, and it . If you do not provide a qualifier, it is sometimes difficult to tell to what these words refer. Example, Unclear: This program offers solutions to that problem. Clear: This computer program offers solutions to the problem of incorrect number sequencing.

References

In-text citations

•  In most cases, enclose citations in text in parentheses.

“Human-modified habitats that look suitable but provide poor reproductive rewards are called ecological traps (Gates & Gysel 1978).” Instead of “According to Gates and Gysel (1978), human modified habitats…”

•  Use an ampersand (&) between author surnames (Gates & Gysel 1978) when the citation is parenthetical.

•  When a citation is not parenthetical use and e.g., “Our results agree with predictions made by Wolf and Rhymer (2001).”

•  For citations with more than two authors use et al. (Hatchwell et al. 1996). Do not italicize et al.

•  List parenthetical citations chronologically (from oldest to newest) and separate entries with a semicolon (Zorenstein et al. 1991; Waddell & Fretwell 2001).

•  Multiple papers by the same author: (Cox et al. 1991, 1992; Chapman 2001, 2002)

•  In press papers: ( In press means the paper being cited has been officially accepted for publication. Provide the year the paper will be published in the text and in the Literature Cited use in press (…in landscapes. Conservation Biology 17: in press).

•  Papers in review: These papers must be cited as unpublished until the paper has been officially accepted and should not appear in the Literature Cited.

•  Unpublished data: (C.S.C. & L.K., unpublished data) for the authors of the article and (R. Fowler, unpublished data; M. E. Soulé, personal communication) for others.

•  Make sure all references cited in text are listed in Literature Cited and vice versa. When text citations do not match contents of Literature Cited publication is delayed.

•  Avoid “in. lit.” citations. Provide the original citations whenever possible.

Literature Cited section

•  Spell out all journal titles in full. Titles are not italicized.

•  "Submitted" papers, papers in review, and personal communications should not be in the Literature Cited (see above).

•  Remove "Inc.," " Co. ," etc. from reference in text and Lit. Cited: (SAS Institute 1998) not (SAS Institute, Inc. 1998).

•  Conference proceedings and conference abstracts can be cited in Literature Cited only if they have a “publisher” and the location of said publisher can be provided. If not formally published, the publisher is the organization from which a copy can be obtained.

•  Issue number: Do not use an issue number unless every issue in a volume begins with page 1 (i.e., pages in a volume are not numbered consecutively from the first issue to the last, as they are with Conservation Biology ).

•  If there are more than 10 authors, use et al. (e.g., Howard, G., et al.) instead of listing all the authors.

Sample citations

•  Institutions as authors: Spell out name of the institution and include location of publisher.

Example: World Wildlife Fund (WWF). 2002. Giant panda home ranges. WWF, Washington , D.C.

or WWF (World Wildlife Fund). 2002. Title of work. WWF, Washington , D.C. How the institution is cited

in Lit. Cited needs to match how it is cited in the text: WWF vs. World Wildlife Fund.

•  Journal articles: Christensen, N. D., and J. Eu. 2003. Ecology of cranberry bogs: Ecology 59: 1147–1167, 1178–1187. For a supplement citation: … 13 (supplement 1) : 172–180. If a paper is in press, the “in press” follows the journal title (i.e., Ecology: in press.).

•  Edited books : Cran, B., C. Boy, and L. Shi. 1911. Native forest birds of Guam . Pages 4-8 in T. Wu and L. Lee, editors. Flora and fauna of Guam . 2 nd edition. Tell Books, Ace, Ohio .

•  Reports : Barnes, J., and S. Craig. 2003. Conservation status of riparian areas in southeastern Oregon . General technical report N-24. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Portland , Oregon .

•  Web-based journals : Sandringham , J. 2006. Effects of urbanization of agricultural land on an endemic moth, rosemary pink. Conservation Ecology 3: http://ConservationEcology…./ESA.org. (No access date needed.)

•  Web sources other than journals (e.g., reports): Include the name of the organization sponsoring the Web site and their physical location and an access date. Example: Carne, A. 2003. The art of leaving well enough alone. National Science Teachers Association, Washington , D.C. Available from http:www.nsta.org/art2/scienceandchildren (accessed March 2002).

•  DOI numbers: Boscastle, C. 2006. Tree management in the River Valency Valley . Conservation Today DOI: 23674xxi21.

Supporting Elements (Tables, Figures, Appendices)

Number of elements

Strive for a ratio of no more than 1 supporting element to every 4 pages of text (text includes Literature Cited). Too many supporting elements is one of the most common problems we encounter. Publication of raw data, even in an appendix, is usually not vital to the results and conclusions of a study. If a table or figure has only a few data points, incorporate them into the text. Do not put more than one supporting element on a page.

Appendices

We print appendices only rarely and ask instead that interesting details and data be mentioned in the text, provided on a Web site, made available upon request directly from an author, or made available as supplementary material associated with the electronic version of the manuscript. For example, say in text, “A list of sampled plant species is available from http:/….” or “A list of sampled plant species is available from J.B.K” (an author). Use the latter example if no Web site is available. In the supplementary-material option appendices are posted in conjunction with the on-line version of the paper (material is cited in the paper, but it can only be viewed on-line). Material posted on-line must be of value to researchers far into the future. Justify the use of this option to the editor in the cover letter accompanying your paper. If you have supplementary material, cite it (e.g., see Supplementary Material) parenthetically in the body of the paper and add the following after the acknowledgments:

Supplementary Material

XXX (Appendix S1) and XXX (Appendix S2) are available as part of the on-line article from http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/. The author is responsible for the content and functionality of these materials. Queries (other than absence of the material) should be directed to the corresponding author.

Content

Tables and figures should be self-explanatory and should supplement (not duplicate) the text. Do not present large amounts of raw data in tables (or appendices). A reader should be able to interpret tables and figures without referring to the text. This means all abbreviations and terms unique to your paper must be defined. Common statistical notations do not need to be defined. Use the same terminology in supporting elements as you did in the text.

Citation in text

Provide a summary or generalization of data and cite supporting elements parenthetically.

•  Incorrect: Perception and tolerance indices are shown in Fig. 2.

•  Correct: Cheetahs were increasingly perceived as a problem on farms, but the level of tolerance of them did not increase (Fig. 2).

•  Spell out the word figure only at the beginning of a sentence; otherwise, abbreviate (e.g., Fig. 1).

Tables

•  Legends need to be informative within 1 sentence. A list of column or row headings is not informative or sufficient. Use the legend and footnotes to fully inform readers.

•  Define abbreviations (in footnote) even if they are already defined in text.

•  If there is only one footnote, use an asterisk (*). If there is more than one footnote, use letters ( a , b , c ,). Order footnotes alphabetically left to right and top to bottom.

•  Bold type is not allowed in tables.

•  Do not use grid lines on tables.

•  If you have more than one table with the same data provided for, say, different species, combine the tables if you can. To set entries within a column apart from each other use indentation.

•  Unless an entry is a complete sentence capitalize only the first word of the first entry in a row (exception is proper nouns) and do not use periods.

•  Do not split tables into separate parts (e.g., Table 1a and Table 1b). Make separate tables or combine data

under the same columns or rows.

•  Use indentation to set off secondary (or tertiary) entries within a column (see example below).

Table Example

Table 1. Logistic-regression models built with...^a

Variable	Symbol	p	df
General modelb	fg	0.0015	3
landscape ruggedness	rug	0.0113
forest cover (%)	bosque	0.0085
Human model		p	df
human population	pob1	0.0113
....

^aSignificance level of coefficients...
^bNext most parsimonious models at...

Figures

Figures that do not follow our style can delay publication. Carefully adhere to the instructions below and refer to a recent issue of CB. Figures must also be of very high quality and sized so that they can withstand 60% reduction. Jagged type, type that is overlapping or too close together, shadings that cannot be differentiated, and lettering that is too small are examples of unacceptable features.

Legends

The figure legend should not appear on the page with the figure. Put figure legends together on a separate page that precedes the figures.

File format

Before publication you will be asked to supply figures in TIF, EPS, or PDF format (at least 300 dpi; 600 dpi is better for figures with lettering). The original quality of the figure will be reflected in the quality of the TIFF, EPS, or PDF file. Simply converting a poor-quality image will not improve the quality, so before conversion make sure the figure in the original format is of the highest quality possible.

Color figures

We have to pass the cost of color printing on to authors: $700 per page. If color figures are to be used, indicate in your cover letter that you will pay this cost.

Graphs

•  Do not use top and right-hand axis lines if they do not have units associated with them.

•  Do not enclose graphs in a square.

•  Label all axes and include units of measure in the label: Number of species/km 2 , Basal area (m 2 /ha).

•  Use of upper and lowercase letters in axis labels: Years since burn, Burned area (%), Burned area (ha), Seed production (seeds/plot).

•  Use a key instead of describing shading or shapes in the legend.

•  Match typeface and type size among figures and make sure axis labels and units are not out of proportion (e.g., very large axis label and very small numbers along the axis).

•  If a figure has more than one part that needs to be specifically identified, use lowercase letters. Make sure if the figure has letter labels they are used or referred to in the legend.

•  If identifiers to be placed along the x-axis are long, slant them for easier reading (no vertical orientation).

•  Significant figures along an axis need to match, i.e., 1.0, 2.5, 2.0 (not 1, 2.5, 2).

•  The label for the y-axis should run vertically to the left of the numbers, and numbers should be horizontally oriented.

•  Labels along both axis lines should be centered.

•  Do not use color on line art (e.g., a graph) that will be published in black and white.

Maps

•  Do not gratuitously include maps of the study area. Descriptions in text are often sufficient.

•  Maps must have a scale.

•  Make sure shadings can be differentiated.

Numbers and Statistical Elements

•  Longitude and latitude (l48 o N, 78 o W) (no periods)

•  Percentages and degrees: use symbols.

•  Fractions may be spelled out (one-half, one-third) unless used with units of measure (0.5 mm or 0.5 years).

•  Use 0 before decimal point.

•  Dates: 6 October 1987

•  Numbered lists: (1)…, (2)…, and (3)…

•  Put a space between numbers and the unit of measure (6 m, 14 mL)

•  p , probability; df, degrees of freedom; SE, standard error; SD, standard deviation, e.g., (SD 2.5) or mean

(SD) = 44% (SD 3) (do not use ±); ? 2 , chi-square; F ; F ST

Variables

•  Model variables : Whole words used as a model variable are lowercase (e.g., species). Multiple-letter abbreviations that are not complete words are all capital letters (e.g., acceptable, DEM for digital elevation model; unacceptable, PATCH for patch area).

•  Italicize all single-letter variables in equations, except for Greek letters. Variables of more than one letter are not italicized (e.g., RU, meaning reproductive units as opposed to RU , in which R and U are separate interacting terms).

•  Define every variable used in equations.

Scientific Names

•  Common names: all lower case (creeping thistle, tiger); both words capitalized for birds (American Robin) except with hyphenated (Dark-eyed Junco, but Western Scrub-Jay); lowercase for birds of no particular species (e.g., swallows)

•  Scientific names : In the abstract and at first mention in the text, use common name followed by scientific name (genus and species) in parentheses, cane toad ( Bufo marinus ) and Douglas-fir ( Pseudotsuga menziesii )

•  Organisms: Clarkia springvillensis (first use); C. springvillensis (thereafter, even starting sentence); Clarkia spp. or sp. or var. (no italics)

Miscellaneous Style Points

•  Computer applications: Initial cap only (i.e., Partition, ArcInfo) if the name of the program is a word. If the name is not a word, use all caps, e.g., SAS.

•  Footnotes: Avoid footnotes in text. Use parentheses instead.

•  No trademark symbols

•  Washington , D.C. (with periods)

•  Regions: western states; the West (U.S.); Southeast Asia; U.S. statistics, but statistics from the United States

Bibliography

Day, R.A. 1998. How to write and publish a scientific paper. 5 th edition. Oryx Press, Westport , Connecticut .

Carraway, L. 2006. Improve scientific writing and avoid perishing. American Midland Naturalist 155:383–394.

Council of Biology Editors. 2006. Scientific style and format. 7 th edition. Council of Science Editors, Reston , Virginia .

University of Chicago Press. 2003. The Chicago manual of style. 15 th edition. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Walsh, B. 2000. Lapsing into a comma. Contemporary Books, Lincolnwood , Illinois .

May 2008