Instructions for authors

Online submission and review of manuscripts is now mandatory for all types of papers submitted to Journal of Biourbanism. Please read and follow the instructions for authors given below.

All subsequent correspondence regarding papers and all other enquiries should be sent toJBU@biourbanism.org 

Types of Papers Published. Journal of Biourbanism publishes the following types of papers.

• Standard Papers – a typical comparative or theoretical paper.
• Reviews – syntheses of topics of broad biourbanism interest.
• Perspectives – short articles presenting new ideas (without data) intended to stimulate scientific debate.
• Special Features – a collection of manuscripts, typically Reviews or Perspectives, on a single theme.

Page Limits. The journal does not impose specific length constraints on papers. However, preference is given to shorter, more concise papers. Papers may be returned for shortening before review if the editor deems the paper to be longer than the topic or data warrant. Papers that will be longer than 10-12 typeset pages are usually returned for shortening before review.

Manuscript Submission. send manuscript to:  JBU@biourbanism.org 

All submitted papers must be double-spaced, with sequential line numbers throughout the entire document. It is the authors’ responsibility to ensure that the submission is complete and correctly formatted, to avoid delay or rejection. During submission, all authors must confirm that:

• the work as submitted has not been published or accepted for publication, nor is being considered for publication elsewhere, either in whole or substantial part;
• the work is original and all necessary acknowledgements have been made;
• all authors and relevant institutions have read the submitted version of the manuscript and approve its submission;
• all persons entitled to authorship have been so included;

The typescript should be arranged as follows:

Title page. This should contain the following.

•  A concise and informative title.
• A list of authors’ names, with names and addresses of their Institutions.
• The name, address and e-mail address of the correspondence author to whom proofs will be sent.

Summary. This should list the main results and conclusions, using simple, factual, numbered statements. Summaries are typically less than 450 words and should be understandable in isolation and by the non-specialist.

Introduction. The Introduction should state the reason for doing the work, the nature of the hypothesis or hypotheses under consideration, and the essential background. Though the exact structure of Introductions will vary among papers, they should always start by developing the broad conceptual context for the work before delving into the details of the study system and the specific question as framed for this paper.

Discussion. This should point out the significance of the results in relation to the reasons for doing the work, and place them in the context of other work.

Acknowledgements. In addition to acknowledging collaborators, research assistants, and previous reviewers of your manuscript and acknowledgment.

References (see Specifications)

Tables. These should be referred to in the text as Table 1, Table 2, etc. Do not present the same data in both figure and table form. Do not use an excessive number of digits when writing a decimal number to represent the mean of a set of measurements (the number of digits should reflect the precision of the measurement).

Figures. Figures should be referred to in the text as Fig. 1,Fig.2,  etc. (note Figs 1 and 2 with no period). Illustrations should be referred to as Figures.

Reviews and Perspectives. Most Reviews and Perspectives will be in essay format, with the subject headings dependent on the topic of the paper. See recent editions of the journal for examples.

Manuscript Specifications

Manuscripts. Manuscripts should be typed in double spacing with a generous margin. The paper must include sequential line numbering throughout, and pages should be numbered consecutively, including those containing acknowledgements, references, tables and figure legends. Authors should submit the main document as a RTF or Word file. Figures can be embedded or uploaded as separate files.  The RTF and Word will be converted to PDF (portable document format) upon upload. Reviewers will review the PDF version while the Word file will remain accessible by the Editorial Office. Manuscripts must be in English, and spelling should conform to the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English.

Figures. Please submit electronic artwork as JPG high res  files (min. 2600 pixel, 300 dpi) if possible.

Please ensure that symbols, labels, etc. are large enough for 50% reduction. If several photographs are used together to make one figure, they should be well matched for tonal range. All figure files should be labelled with the manuscript number and figure number.

Figure legends. In the full-text online edition of the journal, figure legends may be truncated in abbreviated links to the full-screen version. Therefore the first 100 characters of any legend should inform the reader of key aspects of the figure.

Tables. Each table should be on a separate page, numbered and titled.

References. References to work by up to three authors in the text should be in full on first mention, e.g. (Able, Baker & Charles 1986), and subsequently abbreviated (Able et al. 1986). When different groups of authors with the same first author and date occur, they should be cited thus: (Able, Baker & Charles 1986a; Able, David & Edwards 1986b), then subsequently abbreviated to (Able et al. 1986a; Able et al. 1986b). If the number of authors exceeds three, they should always be abbreviated thus: (Carroll et al. 2007). References in the text should be listed in chronological order. References in the list should be in alphabetical order with the journal name in full. The format for papers, entire books, and chapters in books is as follows.

Carroll, S.P., Hendry A.P., Reznick, D.N. & Fox, C.W. (2007) Evolution on ecological time-scales. Functional Ecology, 21, 387-393.
Darwin, C. (1859) On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. J. Murray, London.
Travis, J. (1994) Evaluating the adaptive role of morphological plasticity. Ecological Morphology (eds P.C. Wainwright & S.M. Reilly), pp. 99-122. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Platenkamp, G.A.J. (1989) Phenotypic plasticity and genetic differentiation in the demography of the grassAnthoxanthum odoratum L. PhD thesis, University of California, Davis.

References should be cited as ‘in press’ only if the paper has been accepted for publication. Other references should be cited as ‘unpublished’ and not included in the list. Any paper cited as ‘in press’ must be uploaded with the manuscript as a file ‘not for review’ so that it can be seen by the editors and, if necessary, made available to the reviewers. Work not yet submitted for publication may be cited in the text and attributed to its author as: ‘full author name, unpublished data’.

Citations from World Wide Web. Citations from the World Wide Web are allowed only when alternative hard literature sources do not exist for the cited information. Authors are asked to ensure that:

•  fully authenticated addresses are included in the reference list, along with titles, years and authors of the sources being cited;
• the sites or information sources have sufficient longevity and ease of access for others to follow up the citation;
• the information is of a scientific quality at least equal to that of peer-reviewed information available in learned scientific journals.

Requests for Revisions and Processing of Accepted Papers
Revision. A revision should be submitted within 2 months of being requested unless the editor agrees to an extension. Revisions may be re-reviewed, at the discretion of the editor.

Final versions of papers. Final versions of accepted manuscript must be submitted in an electronic word processor format (such as MS Word). These files will be used by the publisher and must exactly match the accepted version. Do not use the carriage return (enter) at the end of lines within a paragraph. Turn the hyphenation option off and remove any footnotes. Where possible, figures and tables should be embedded in the text before the final version is sent to the publisher.

Editors reserve the right to modify manuscripts that do not conform to scientific, technical, stylistic or grammatical standards, and minor alterations of this nature will normally be seen by authors only at the proof stage.

For any enquiries regarding the Journal of Biourbanism or submitting papers to the journal then please contact the Managing Editor,  at JBU@biourbanism.org