Author Guidelines

Aim and Scope:  The Bulletin of Phylogenetic Nomenclature is a peer-reviewed journal of the International Society for Phylogenetic Nomenclature (ISPN) that aims to publish articles essential to the operation of the International Code of Phylogenetic Nomenclature (ICPN) but which might not be appropriate for publication in other journals.  Such articles include, but are not limited to, the establishment of clade names that were originally published following the rules of the ICPN but prior to its starting date (30 April 2020), proposed unrestricted emendations of phylogenetic definitions, proposals to conserve and/or suppress names and decisions by the Committee for Phylogenetic Nomenclature (CPN) regarding such proposals, proposed restricted emendations of phylogenetic definitions and decisions by the CPN regarding such proposals, proposals to modify the ICPN and decisions by the CPN regarding such proposals, and general articles on the theory and practice of phylogenetic nomenclature.  Articles proposing the establishment of (new or converted) clade names that have not been previously published following the rules of the ICPN are appropriate if the establishment of clade names is their primary purpose; however, articles whose primary propose is something other than the establishment of clade names (e.g., studies of phylogeny, biogeography, character evolution) are best published in other journals.

Categories of articles.  Two categories of articles will be considered.

1)      Regular articles.  Regular articles include articles establishing clade names that were originally published following the rules of the ICPN but prior to its starting date (30 April 2020), articles newly establishing clade names whose primary purpose is to establish those names, articles proposing unrestricted emendations of phylogenetic definitions, and general articles on the theory and practice of phylogenetic nomenclature. 

2)      Proposals to the CPN (see ICPN, Art. 22).  Proposals include proposals to conserve and/or suppress names (see ICPN, Arts. 15.1–15.7), proposals to emend phylogenetic definitions (restricted emendations; see ICPN, Arts. 15.8–15.10), and proposals to modify the International Code of Phylogenetic Nomenclature (see ICPN, Art. 22.9–22.11).  Each proposal will be assigned a number to facilitate cross referencing to decisions by the CPN regarding the proposals, which will also be published in the Bulletin of Phylogenetic Nomenclature.

Preparation of manuscripts

1) General.  All papers must be in English.  Authors whose native language is not English should have their manuscripts edited by a native English-speaking colleague prior to submission (We also offer an in-house proofreading and editing service here: https://store.mapress.com/author-service/93-copy-editing.html).  Nomenclature must conform to the rules of the International Code of Phylogenetic Nomenclature (Cantino and de Queiroz 2020).  Author(s) and year of publication of species names must be provided when mentioned as specifiers in phylogenetic definitions, but the references for species names need not be provided in the Literature Cited.  The metric system should be used for all measurements.  Use the Times New Roman font, 12 point, and as little formatting as possible (use only bold and italics where necessary and indentions of paragraphs except the first of each section or subsection).  All scientific names should be italicized. 

Copy-editing. We offer a proofreading and editing service that corrects for grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors, and improves flow, clarity, and readability in a natural English tone. Your paper will also be checked for in-text citations consistent with the reference list. Whether you are a native English speaker or not, an alternate pair of eyes always helps!
Order our copy-editing service here: https://store.mapress.com/author-service/93-copy-editing.html

2) The title should be concise and informative.  The names of one or more higher taxa containing the taxa that are the focus of the paper should be indicated in parentheses and listed in order of decreasing inclusiveness (e.g., Opisthokonta/Metazoa/Deuterostomia).

3) The names of all authors of the paper must be provided and should be in upper case.  The address of each author, referenced to the author names by superscript numbers, should be given in italics, each starting a separate line.  E-mail addresses should be provided if available. 

4) The abstract should be concise and informative.  Any new or newly converted names proposed for establishment in the paper should be mentioned.  The abstract should be followed by a list of key words that are not present in the title.

5) The arrangement of the main text varies with different types of articles, but should usually start with an introduction and end with a list of the literature cited.  Use bold and title case (capitalize all major words) for the main section headings; use bold and sentence case (capitalize only the first word) for secondary section headings.  Each heading should be on a separate line.

6) References should be cited in the text as Soltis (2010), Soltis and Soltis (2011) or Soltis et al. (2012) (3 or more authors), or alternatively within parentheses as (Soltis 2010; Soltis and Soltis 2011; Soltis et al. 2012). All references cited in the text must be listed in the Literature Cited in the following formats [clarifications in square brackets].

A) Journal article: 

Soltis, P. 2010. Title of the paper [sentence case]. Title of the Journal [title case, not abbreviated] volume number:xx–yy [page range].

B) Book chapter: 

Soltis, P., and D. Soltis. 2011. Title of the chapter [sentence case]. Pp. xx–yy in Title of Book [title case] (A. Smith, B. Smith, and C. Smith, eds.). Publisher Name, Publisher City.

C) Book: 

Soltis, P., D. Soltis, and C. Smith. 2012. Title of Book [title case]. Publisher Name, Publisher City.

D) Internet resources

Soltis, P. 2014. Title of Website, Database or Other Resource [title case]. Publisher Name [if indicated], Publisher City [if indicated]. Available at: http://xxx.xxx.xxx/ (Accessed: date of access [e.g., 30 April 2020]).

E) Dissertations and theses

Gauthier, J. A. 1984. Title of Dissertation [title case]. PhD dissertation [or MS thesis]. University, City.

Articles and abstracts published in non-serial proceedings of conferences or symposia are to be treated as chapters in books.

Papers not cited in the text must not be listed in the Literature Cited.

Page ranges are connected by an en dash (–), not a hyphen (-).  More generally, hyphens are used to link words (e.g., personal names, compound adjectives), while en dashes are used to link the elements of ranges (e.g., of dates, of page numbers). Still longer em dashes (—) are used for asides (analogous to parentheses) or changes in the direction of thought (analogous to commas).  En dashes and em dashes should not have spaces on either side.

7) Figure legends should be listed in order after the list of references.  Small illustrations should be grouped into compound figures when possible.  When preparing illustrations, authors should bear in mind that matter (text, tables, illustrations) size of the journal is 25 cm by 17 cm and is formatted for A4 paper. 

8) Tables should be included at the end of the manuscript.  Please use the table function in a word-processing program to build tables so that the cells, rows, and columns can remain aligned when font size and width of the table are changed.  Please do not use the tab key or the space bar to build tables.

Submission

Please follow the basic style and formatting guidelines described above and check if your manuscript has been prepared according to those guidelines.  Authors are asked to submit manuscripts through the on-line submission system (https://www.mapress.com/j/bpn).

When you submit your manuscript, it is important to include the following statements in your cover letter:

1) All authors agree to the submission of the manuscript, and the corresponding author has been authorized to submit it by all co-authors; 2) This article has not been published previously and is not concurrently being considered for publication elsewhere; 3) This article does not violate any copyright or other personal proprietary right of any person or entity, and it contains no abusive, defamatory, obscene or fraudulent statements, nor any other statements that are unlawful in any way.  4) No preprint of the article will be made available (e.g., through BioRxiv) prior to publication of the article.  Without these statements, the manuscript will not be processed.

For manuscripts with numerous illustrations, which might be saved as separate TIFF or JPG files, it will be easier and more efficient for the editors and reviewers to have the text and figures combined into a single DOCX (Microsoft Word) or PDF (Portable Document Format) file.  Authors should retain the original figures in a higher resolution format for the final production of the accepted paper.

For manuscripts proposing to establish clade names that were published previously following the rules of the ICPN but prior to its starting date, please include the primary reference phylogeny (a copy of the figure, not just a citation) as part of the submission, even if it is not intended to be published as a figure in the article.

After an article is accepted for publication, the text must be resubmitted as an RTF or MS Word file and the figures as TIFF files.  

When submitting the final version of a revised manuscript to editors, authors are asked to provide the following information for typesetting and indexing of the manuscript:

1) All authors’ names, emails, and ORCIDs (https://orcid.org/).

2) Running title (<60 characters; to be used in header).

3) Names of major clades that include the focal taxon (to aid the reader) and number of clade (and species) names to be established in the article.

Authors need to complete and return an Assignment of Copyright]  form when the paper is accepted and processed for publication.  Authors at institutions that do not allow the transfer of copyrights to publishers (e.g., government institutions such as USDA, CSIRO) should attach a copyright waiver or similar documents.

Ethics. We endorse the ethics guidelines recommended by the Commission on Publication Ethics (COPE). We are firmly against any form of falsification or fabrication of data and plagiarism (as well as the use of an author's own previously published work without proper attribution) and will treat any breach of ethics standards seriously in accordance with the COPE guidelines.

Review process

When a manuscript is received by the Chief Editor via the online submission system (https://www.mapress.com/j/bpn), he will assess it for suitability and then assign it to one of the Subject Editors, who will have it reviewed by at least two peers qualified to evaluate the manuscript.  The Subject Editor normally will ask each reviewer to complete his/her review within one month; however, the entire review process will normally take longer.

Publication

Once the manuscript is accepted by the subject editor, final files, produced according to the requirements of The Bulletin of Phylogenetic Nomenclature, will be forwarded by the subject editor to the production staff, who will then coordinate with the corresponding author and the printer to ensure that the article is published without unnecessary delay.  Normally, the proofs will be sent to the author for checking 1 to 3 weeks after the final files are accepted.  The article will usually be published within two weeks (although long papers may require more time) once the corrections to the proofs have been received.

Page/open-access charges and color plates.  The Bulletin of Phylogenetic Nomenclature is a GOLD open access journal with free online access for all.  Authors will be asked to pay a publication processing fee of 20 USD per printed page for open access to their articles. 

Publication of color figures/photographs in the online edition is free of charge (print version in black and white).  If color plates in the print edition are desired, authors will be asked to contribute 100 USD for the first color page and 50 USD for each additional color page.

All open-access articles are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Reprints.  Printed copies of each article (reprints) can be produced by the Publisher for purchase by authors, with a discount based on the number of copies ordered.  Please ask the production team for a quote.