Preparing a Paper for Entomologist's Record and Journal of Variation:

This page contains information on preparing a paper for the journal

Introduction:

. Papers submitted to this journal should normally impart new information, or provide a comprehensive review of existing information.
. We accept papers describing new species.
. We have no page charges (you do not have to pay to publish in this journal)
.Illustrations (including colour plates) may be included
. There are no restrictions on who can submit papers to us - you do not have to be a subscriber
. We can prepare British Isles vice-county distribution maps from artwork provided at no fee (in fact we normally prefer to do this). To view a typical map to see its format, click here.
. However, we tend to avoid papers that employ detailed statistical analyses.
. If we do not consider we are the appropriate journal for your paper we will tell you and will normally recommend an alternative publication.
. Papers will normally fill two or more pages of the journal including tables, drawings and photographs, and will contain at least 1500 words of text. However, this is not a hard and fast rule.
. All papers should present their information clearly and concisely. The Editor will cut out waffle - if you can say it in one line then don't say it in ten!
. As with other journals, please do not offer us papers that are simultaneously being offered elsewhere.

The Title

We index papers strictly alphabetically. If your paper starts with the word "The" then it will be indexed under "T". Bear this in mind when thinking of your title.

Procedure

Please submit papers in a file format that can be read by Word 2000 software running on a PC.

We do not usually require paper copy of papers submitted electronically, but we may ask for a copy if we feel that anything has been lost during electronic transmission (male and female symbols, for example, do not always come through). Please note the following points:

. drawings, figures, graphs, photographs etc should be sent as separate files and not embodied in the text of a word processed document. For information on acceptable formats please click here.
. We require the originals of colour photographs by post please, as without these we can not guarantee that the colour reproduction will be the same as the original.
. Because of the risk of computer viruses, generally disseminated as e-mail attachments by a criminal minority, please ensure that the e-mail message to which you attach your submission includes your name and a note of what the attachments are. Unsolicited attachments from unknown persons are always deleted without being read and we will obviously not be able to tell you that we have done this. Attached programme files (e.g., all files ending in .exe) are never accepted under any circumstance.

When you submit a paper we will respond by giving it a reference number. Please quote this number in communications about that particular paper as this helps us to find out what stage it is at.

All papers, except for the annual reviews of immigrant lepidoptera and of microlepidoptera, will be peer-reviewed before acceptance. We normally use only one referee (but descriptions of new species will be refereed by two persons), and he or she remains anonymous unless he or she says otherwise. It is quite normal for a paper to be returned to an author for alterations to be made, so if this happens to you please don't worry. Some journals do it as a matter of principal. It is, in any case, far better to look mildly silly in private than a complete fool in public - the referee's job is to make sure that your paper is accurate, comprehensive and intelligible. If you want to see the form we send to referees with your paper click here. Experience suggests that about two-thirds of papers will be returned to authors for corrections that the editor is not prepared to make alone and the other third either pass with flying colours or else are corrected by the editor.

It is not compulsory to make the corrections suggested by the referee, but if you do not make a particular correction you must justify not doing so or we may make it anyway!

When you have returned the revised manuscript to the editor (or if the referee does not ask for any corrections), we will edit this to conform to house style and send it to our printers where it will be prepared as a galley proof.

When we are ready to publish the paper we will send you the galley proof. You must then correct any errors in it and return it within seven days if possible. Note that tables, figures, photos etc will probably be placed at the end of the text. You must mark the text with the position where you would like these to appear. However, because we need to fit a certain page size, it is not always possible to put the illustrative material exactly where you wish. Therefore what you must actually do is mark the earliest point at which it can appear. Since you should not place such material before it is referred to in the text, we suggest you highlight the text where it is mentioned for the first time and we can then insert it at the most convenient position after here.

An order form for offprints will be provided with the galley proofs. 25 copies are provided free and more can be purchased (multiple authors may negotiate for more than 25 freebies), but ALL reprints must be ordered, by post, on the form with the galley proofs.

When we get the galley proof back we will make the corrections and prepare the paper to pages. Page proofs will not normally be sent to an author unless we have a specific reason for doing so or unless requested by the author. If we choose to send you page proofs there is no fee, but if you make such a request and then make changes to the paper, a £5 fee will be charged per corrected page to cover costs and must be paid prior to publication.

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