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Final Manuscript Preparation Guidelines for Western North American Naturalist

This document provides details on preparation, submission, and page charges for manuscripts submitted to Western North American Naturalist.

Manuscript Submission

    Submit manuscripts through the web interface at PeerTrack or send electronic files to Mark C. Belk, Editor, Western North American Naturalist, wnan@byu.edu. Authors will be expected to provide information describing the extent to which data, text, or illustrations have been used in other papers or books that are published, in press, submitted, or soon to be submitted elsewhere. Theses are not considered prior publications, and preprints are allowable with identification of the URL. Manuscripts will undergo a technical check upon submission and may be returned for revision if basic guidelines are not followed or if tables/figures are misnumbered.

    Manuscript Preparation

      In general, the Western North American Naturalist follows recommendations in Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers, 8th edition (University of Chicago Press; http://www.councilscienceeditors.org). However, we do differ in minor stylistic matters and in our treatment of literature cited entries. Authors should consult recent issues of the journal for formatting examples.

      Type and double space all materials, including literature cited, tables, and figure captions. Use a standard page size and margin allowance.

      Submit electronic files Please follow the online instructions for file submission. A PDF file will be compiled automatically and made available for your approval before the submission is finalized.

      Manuscript Elements

        Title page includes an informative title no longer than 20 words; names, affiliations, and email addresses of all authors; a running head of fewer than 40 letters; and notes to indicate the corresponding author and changes of address. Inclusion of ORCID identifiers is encouraged but not required (register at orcid.org).

        Abstract states briefly the purpose, methods, results, and conclusions of the research. Authors are welcome to provide a Spanish translation of their abstract for a reduction of total page charges by $65 for articles and $40 for notes.

        Text has centered main headings printed in all capital letters; 2nd-level headings are centered in upper- and lowercase letters; 3rd-level headings begin paragraphs.

        Voucher specimens. Authors are encouraged to designate, properly prepare, label, and deposit high-quality voucher specimens and cultures documenting their research in an established permanent collection, and to cite the repository in their publication.

        References in the text are cited by author and date: e.g., Martin (1998) or (Martin 1998). Multiple citations should be separated by commas and listed in chronological order. Use “et al.” after the name the of first author for citations having more than 2 authors.

        Acknowledgments, under a centered main heading, include special publication numbers, grant or contract numbers, and protocol numbers when appropriate.

        Literature cited, also under a centered main heading, lists references alphabetically in the following formats (journal article, book, edited work):

        Kondole, G.M. 1997. Hungry water: effects of dams and gravel mining on river channels. Environmental Management 21:533–551.

        Brady, N.C. 1990. The nature and properties of soils. 10th edition. Macmillan, New York, NY.

        Tokeshi, M. 1995. Life cycles and population dynamics. Pages 225–268 in P. Armitage, P.S. Cranston, and L.C.V. Pinder, editors, The Chironomidae: biology and ecology of non-biting midges. Chapman and Hall, London, England.

        Tables are prepared as separate word processing files. Authors should consider that tables will be typeset to fit the width of either a single column (6.7 cm) or a page (14.0 cm). Wider tables will be rotated 90° and can have a maximum width of 21 cm. Typically, lowercase letters are used to indicate footnotes.

        Figures are prepared as separate files in the following acceptable formats: EPS, TIF, JPEG, or PDF. Lettering on figures should be large enough to withstand reduction to a width of 6.7, 10.5, or 14 cm. Resolution should be 300 dpi for photographs and up to 1200 dpi for black-and-white line art. Please note that nonphotographic materials (e.g., line art, some maps, graphs, charts) exported to JPG format often result in poor-quality printed figures.

        Supplementary material. Supporting materials that cannot be included, and which are not essential for inclusion, in the full text may be uploaded with the manuscript submission files. Examples include audio/video files, spreadsheets, programming files, figures, tables, and so forth. The files will be hosted alongside the published article at https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/wnan and with other electronic distributors (e.g., BioOne, ProQuest, EBSCO, etc.) as permissible.

        Notes

        If the manuscript would be more appropriate as a short communication or note, follow the above instructions but do not include section headings.

        Page Charges

        $55 per printed page will be assessed for published articles and notes ($40 per page if any one of the authors is an individual subscriber at the time of publication or has submitted a review within the 2 years prior to submission). Color figures can be accommodated at no extra charge. A flat fee of $40 will be assessed for processing of supplementary materials. A press-quality PDF file of the published article will be provided to the corresponding author for distribution.