Author Guidelines

AIM & SCOPE

Megataxa is designed for monographic reviews and highly significant original articles reporting major advances in taxonomy. It is a sister journal of Zootaxa/Phytotaxa but aims to be a premium journal of high impact and will primarily be a forum for most important works in taxonomy. To serve the broad taxonomic community, it will also include editorial/correspondence sections to allow invited editorials, major news and announcements, debates, theory/method papers of general taxonomic interests, database reviews, biographic pieces for recently deceased eminent taxonomists. It will have a special focus on big science questions in biology that are taxonomic in nature and essence.

Megataxa will be linked with a new international society for taxonomists (to be named), with the mission to promote taxonomy, facilitate collaboration among taxonomists and increase the impact and outreach of taxonomy. Membership is via in-kind contributions as authors, reviewers and editors of the journal in the initial phase. Others can participate via in-kind support or the payment of a membership fee in the future when the society is fully formed. Taxonomists who wish to be authors/reviewer should contact the chief editor who will register an account for each. Members of the editorial board are normally by invitation; if you feel you are qualified to contribute to editing, please contact the chief editor with a letter of intent and resume.

TYPES OF MANUSCRIPTS

The following categories of manuscripts are considered.

1) Article

Articles are significant original papers of at least 60 printed pages (invited articles and those reporting exceptionally important discoveries may be shorter), reporting major advances in taxonomic research (e.g. large comprehensive revision with many new taxa and revision of many described taxa, new systems of classification based on new analysis of phylogenetic relationships). There is no upper limit on the length of manuscripts, although authors are advised to break monographs of over 1,000 pages into a multi-volume contribution simply because books over 1,000 pages are difficult to bind and too heavy to hold. Articles of monographic size (200 or more printed pages) are individually issued with ISBNs. Authors are advised to contact the editors about the suitability of their manuscripts prior to submission.

2) Review

Reviews provide synthesis and review of past taxonomic research and must present new insights and significant advances to the field. Reviews should be at least 60 printed pages in length (invited reviews may be shorter). There is no upper limit on the length of manuscripts, although authors are advised to break monographs of over 1,000 pages into a multi-volume contribution. Reviews of monographic scale (200 or more printed pages) are individually issued with ISBNs. Authors are advised to contact the editors about the suitability of their manuscripts prior to submission.

Checklists/catalogues are the simplest forms of reviews of taxonomic information and only those of the highest quality and broad scale will be suitable for Megataxa (e.g. of global scale and with at least 1,000 taxa, including many new data such as new classification, new synonyms, new placements).

3) Editorial

These are usually prepared by the editors, but sometimes other authors may be invited to write opinions, debates, and policy issues of general interests to taxonomists. We are flexible about length of editorials. Long editorials of over 10 pages may include an abstract. Short editorials should be similar to correspondence in format (see below).

4) Correspondence

High quality and important short manuscripts of normally up to 6 printed pages are sometimes considered as correspondence. Megataxa publishes the following five types of correspondence:

• opinions and views as well as debates on current issues of broad interests to taxonomists
• commentary on or additions to papers previously published in Megataxa (within the last three months)
• short contributions reporting new methods/theories
• short contributions reporting major discoveries in taxonomy
• short reviews of emerging trends or other important topics in taxonomic research

These short contributions should have no more than 30 references and its total length should not exceed six printed pages. Neither an abstract nor a list of key words is needed; major headings (Introduction, Material and methods...) should NOT be used, except for new taxon heading and references. A typical correspondence should consist of (1) a short and concise title, (2) author name and address (email address plus Orcid id), (3) a series of paragraphs of the main text, Acknowledgement/Funding, and (4) a list of References if any. The first or last paragraph may be a summary.

Commentaries on published papers are intended for scholarly exchange of different views or interpretations of published data and should not contain personal attacks; authors of concerned papers may be invited to reply to comments on their papers.

Potential authors are advised to contact the editors about the suitability of their manuscripts prior to submission.

5) Biographic items

These include short obituaries in memory of recently deceased eminent taxonomists or large manuscripts detailing the life and contributions (e.g. list of all new taxa named by that taxonomist).  We especially welcome contributions on taxonomists (past or present) who have named 500 or more new taxa. Our top priority now is to compile a list of those who had named 1,000 taxa or more (e.g. Alexander Fain of Belgium, 1912–2009, had named over 2,580 Acari and other animal parasites). These will be added to our Taxonomists Hall of Fame. Please write to the chief editor if your taxonomic group has such giants in taxonomy.

6) News items

These include short introductions to major ground-breaking taxonomic discoveries published elsewhere or in Megataxa, as well as announcements of major events, online databases or other resources.

7) Erratum

For corrections of errors and/or minor additions to papers published in Megataxa.

8) Special issues

Megataxa will include two sub series of mega-papers with the main title "Toward a million new species" and "All genera of the world".

"Toward a million new species" will accept normally large collaborative papers having at least 100 new species each, with a focus on hyper-rich taxa such as invertebrates and fungi (see an example here: One hundred new species of lichenized fungi: a signature of undiscovered global diversity http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/phytotaxa.18.1.1
Communities of taxonomists can propose projects to be published in this series.  This series will allow participation of taxonomists who have at least one new species to contribute in a premium biology journal. It will also accept large papers describing over 100 new species by individual authors or small teams.  Authors are advised to contact the chief editor about the suitability of their manuscripts prior to submission.

"All genera of the world" series invites large manuscripts each with a full list of all genera (at least 100 per paper) of a large taxon in a currently accepted consensus higher classification, including list of species richness and type species of each genus (junior synonyms of a genus should be listed if any). These can be by individual authors or a very large team, which is preferred as it allows participation of many taxonomists. Authors are advised to contact the chief editor about the suitability of their manuscripts prior to submission.

Proposal for other special issues should be sent to the chief editor.

PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPTS

1) General. All papers must be in English. Authors whose native language is not English are encouraged to have their manuscripts read by a native English-speaking colleague before submission (We also offer an in-house proofreading and editing service here: https://store.mapress.com/author-service/93-copy-editing.html). Nomenclature must be in agreement with codes of nomenclature. Author(s) of species name must be provided when the scientific name of any species is first mentioned (the year of publication needs not be given; if you give it, then provide a full reference of this in the reference list).  If possible, use the common font Times New Roman and use as little formatting as possible (use only bold and italics where necessary and indentions of paragraphs except the first). Special symbols (e.g. male or female sign) should be avoided because they are likely to be altered when files are read on different machines (Mac versus PC with different language systems). You can code them as m# and f#, which can be replaced during page setting. The style of each author is generally respected, but they must follow the following general guidelines.

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 higher taxa containing the taxa dealt with in the paper should be indicated in parentheses: e.g. A taxonomic revision of the family XYZ (Order: superfamily).

3) The name(s) of all authors of the paper must be given and should be typed in the upper case (e.g. ADAM SMITH, BRIAN SMITH & CAROL SMITH). The address of each author should be given in italics each starting a separate line. E-mail address(es) should be provided if available; orcid id must be provided (registering an orcid is free of charge from http://orcid.org).

4) The abstract should be concise and informative. Any new names or new combinations proposed in the paper should be mentioned. Abstracts in other languages may also be included in addition to English abstract. The abstract should be followed by a list of key words that are not present in the title (but may include higher taxon names for indexing purpose). Abstract and key words are not needed in short correspondence, editorials and errata.

5) The arrangement of the main text varies with different types of papers but should usually start with an Introduction and end with a list of References. Before the reference section, a section named “Author contributions” should be added if it is authored by more than one author; a section on Funding should be added if the work has received funding; a section “Acknowledgement” should be added if it has received other support. References should be cited in the text as Smith (1999), Smith & Smith (2000) or Smith et al. (2001) (3 or more authors), or alternatively in a parenthesis (Smith 1999; Smith & Smith 2000; Smith et al. 2001). All literature cited in the text must be listed in the references in the following format (see a sample page here in PDF).

A) Journal paper: 
Smith, A. (1999) Title of the paper. Title of the journal in full, volume number, issue number if possible & page range. 

B) Book chapter: 
Smith, A. & Smith, B. (2000) Title of the Chapter. In: Smith, A, Smith, B. & Smith, C. (Eds), Title of Book. Publisher name and location, pp. x–y. 

C) Book: 
Smith, A., Smith, B. & Smith, C. (2001) Title of Book. Publisher name and location, xyz pp.

D) Internet resources
Author (2002) Title of website, database or other resources, Publisher name and location (if indicated), number of pages (if known). Available from: http://xxx.xxx.xxx/ (Date of access).

Dissertations resulting from graduate studies and non-serial proceedings of conferences/symposia are to be treated as books and cited as such. Papers not cited must not be listed in the references.

Please note that: 

(1) journal titles must be written in full (not abbreviated) 

(2) journal titles and volume numbers are followed by a ","

(3) page ranges are connected by "n dash", not hyphen "-", which is used to connect two words. 

For websites, it is important to include the last date when you see that site, as it can be moved or deleted from that address in the future.

On the use of dashes: (1) Hyphens are used to link words such as personal names, some prefixes and compound adjectives (the last of which vary depending on the style manual in use). (2) En-dash or en-rule (the length of an ‘n’) is used to link spans. In the context of our journal that means numerals mainly, most frequently sizes, dates and page numbers (e.g. 1977–1981; figs 5–7) and also geographic or name associations (Murray–Darling River; a Federal–State agreement). (3) Em-dash or em-rule (the length of an ‘m’) are used far more infrequently and are used for breaks in the text or subject, often used much as we used parentheses. In contrast to parentheses an em-dash can be used alone; e.g. What could these results mean—that Niel had discovered the meaning of life? En-dashes and em-dashes should not be spaced. 

6) Legends of illustrations should be listed after the list of references. Small illustrations should be grouped into plates. When preparing illustrations, authors should bear in mind that the journal has a matter size of 25 cm by 17 cm and is printed on A4 paper. For species illustration, line drawings are preferred, although good quality B&W or colour photographs are also acceptable. See a guide here for detailed information on preparing plates for publication.

For review purpose, the initial manuscripts can have low-resolution images inserted in the manuscripts. When accepted, high resolution images file can be submitted for publication.

7) Tables, if any, should be given at the end of the manuscript. Please use the table function in your word processor 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 Tab key or space bar to type tables. 

8) Keys are not easy to typeset. In a typical dichotomous key, each lead of a couplet should be typed simply as a paragraph as in the box below:

1 Seven setae present on tarsus I ; four setae present on tibia I; leg I longer than the body; legs black in color ... Genus A
- Six setae present on tarsus I; three setae present on tibia I; leg I shorter than the body; legs brown in color ... 2
2 Leg II longer than leg I ... Genus B
- Leg II shorter than leg I ... Genus C

Our typesetters can easily convert this to a proper format as in this PDF file.

Deposition of specimens
Whenever possible, authors are advised to deposit type specimens in national or international public museums or collections. Authors are also advised to request registration numbers of deposited material in advance of the acceptance of papers to avoid unnecessary delay of publication. Some countries (e.g. Australia) require that primary type specimens be deposited in collections of the country of origin; authors are advised to take this into consideration.

Submission

Potential authors should contact the chief editor about intention to submit a manuscript. Please also provide name, address, email, orcid id and area of specialization.

For manuscripts with many illustrations, which might be saved as separate TIFF or JPG files, for the purpose of review, it will be easier and more efficient for the subject editors and reviewers to have the figures converted into one larger PDF (Portable Document Format) file (as a supplementary file), instead of requiring the subject editor to save many files, cutting and copying these into a string of messages/files to the reviewers. You should retain the original figures in a higher resolution format for the final production of the accepted paper. For the text, PDF file along with RTF (Rich Text format) files are preferred. The advantage of submitting a rtf file for the text part of the manuscript is that the reviewers can emend the manuscript electronically. If you cannot prepare PDF files, then submit text in RTF and the figures in TIFF (line drawing scanned at 600 dpi and half tone at 300 dpi; please use LZW compression, if you can, to reduce the size of e-files for easy transmission); if halftone TIFF files are too big (exceeding 2 MB), then submit them in jpeg. See here for detailed information on preparing plates for publication.

Vector files (charts, maps etc) are best submitted as EMF or copied into manuscripts.

Authors please be aware that line drawings must be scanned at 600 to 1200 dpi as line art (=1 bit); they must NOT be scanned as 8 bit or full colour images. Please read details here.

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

Review process
When a manuscript is received by the Chief editor via online submission system (https://www.mapress.com/j/mt), he will access it for suitability and then assign to one of our editors, who will have it reviewed by at least two peers qualified to evaluate the manuscript. He/she normally asks the reviewers to complete the review in three weeks. However, the reviewing process will normally take longer, depending on the length of the manuscript and reviewer's responses.

Publication
Once the manuscript is accepted by an editor, final files, produced according to our requirement will be forwarded by your subject editor to the chief editor within the online system. The production team will then link with the author on behalf of the chief editor to ensure that the paper is published without unnecessary delay. Normally the proof will be sent to the author for checking 1 to 3 weeks after the final files are accepted. The paper will usually be published with two weeks (for larger papers it will take longer) once the corrections to the proof are received.

Online archive. The online edition (converted to PDF/A version) is deposited in Biotaxa (https://biotaxa.org) on the same day it is published on this site. Biotaxa is a global repository for taxonomic journals.

Page charge and colour plates. Megataxa is a GOLD open access journal with free online access for all. Author contributions of publication processing fee (US$ 20 per printed page) are needed for publication, but discounts will be provided to authors in need and waiver granted for those without funds on a case-by-case basis.

All open access papers are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).

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

Reprints. Printed copies of each paper/monograph in the form of the regular reprint can also be produced by the Publisher for purchase by authors at cost to authors, with a discount based on the number of copies ordered. Please ask the production team for a quote.