Guidelines for contributors

SCOPE

We welcome submissions from authors of all backgrounds, including (but not limited to) academics, conservation practitioners, ringing groups and other amateurs. We particularly encourage contributions from students and people at an early stage of their careers.

GUIDELINES

Contributions must be in English. However, authors whose first language is not English and who would like their paper checked by someone with experience of writing manuscripts in English before formal submission can submit it to our Manuscript Submission Support Service team (see below for details). Similarly, authors with little experience of writing a formal paper can make use of the team. Submissions must be made via email, as a Microsoft Word file, and authors should suggest 2-4 potential reviewer names if possible.

Manuscript format

• Use continuous line numbers throughout the manuscript
• The title should be short and concise, and a proposal for a 'running head' is welcomed.
• Authors' names should be given below the title of the paper, with addresses (including the email address of the correspondence author, who should be indicated with an asterisk). Where possible, please provide ORCiDs for all authors.

• The Abstract (not exceeding 250 words) should reflect both content and emphasis of the paper. It must be easy to read, emphasising biologically relevant findings, while touching only slightly on methods.
• The Introduction should be restricted to the context, scope, purpose, and the rationale of the study.
• The Methods should be limited to the information on what is essential to judge whether the findings are valid.
• The Results should be used to convey the key findings of your study, using tables, graphs and be supported by appropriate statistical tests.
• The Discussion should be limited to the main contributions of the study in relation to the findings of previous workers. Restrict speculation to what can be supported with reasonable evidence; assertions made in the paper that are not supported by your data must be justified by appropriate references.
• Acknowledge those who contributed substantially to the paper, or to data collection, as well as relevant funders. Please also list licenses and site permissions in this section.
• Avoid repetition and verbosity; while individual manuscripts will vary in length, standard manuscript submissions should not exceed 5,000-6,000 words. Authors are encouraged to contact the Editorial team regarding longer review/overview submissions (8,000-9,000 words). We can host Supplementary Materials on our website.

References

• Cited literature should be restricted to significant, published papers, or publicly available reports; avoid over-referencing. Check your citations carefully against the reference list and vice versa.
• Use the author-date format to cite in the text, e.g. (O'Connor 1984), (Baudinette & Schmidt-Nielsen 1974) or, in case of more than two authors (Pettifor et al. 1988).
• References in the text should be in order of year of publication, and then by alphabetical order of the author, e.g. (Brown 1974; Anthony et al. 1981; Harris 1981).
• In the reference list the literature cited should be in alphabetical order. Titles should be given in the original language, and journal titles cited in full.
• Please check the precise wording of title and journal. Please give page numbers for book chapters or species accounts.
• The publisher and location should be indicated for books and reports.

Examples:

Text style

All text should be in upper and lower case, with 1.5 line spacing. Use single spaces between sentences. On first mention, a species should be referred to by its common name, followed by its systematic binomial name in italics. Capitals should be used for the initial letters of all single words and hyphenated vernacular names of species (e.g. Great Black-backed Gull, White-bellied Storm-petrel) but not for group names (e.g. grebes, gulls, corvids).

Figures and legends

Figures/Tables/photographs and their associated legends should be positioned within the text to indicate preferred position for final layout. Please bear in mind the needs of people with colour vision deficiencies when preparing Figures (for further information, please see Pollet & Bond 2020). Tables should be concise and self-explanatory. Photographs should be supplied in their most original form i.e. the original, un-cropped, unaltered files where possible. Location, date and photographer should be indicated. All figure/table/photograph legends should be able to be interpreted on their own, without reference to the full text.

Statistical information

Details of statistical analysis, which should always be included, are type of test, the value of the relevant test statistic, the sample size and/or degrees of freedom and the probability level. Commonplace statistical abbreviations such as ANOVA, SD, SE, CI, df, t-test, X², F, P, n, r, should be used. A post-fix to the test statistic symbol can be used to present the degrees of freedom, e.g. F_12,34. and where appropriate, include a reference for the statistic used. Variables and mathematical formulas should be in italics.

Research involving animals or humans

Manuscripts reporting research on live vertebrates and/or higher invertebrates and/or human research participants should seek appropriate ethics approvals and provide details of the ethics approval committee in submitted manuscripts.

MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION SUPPORT SERVICE

Authors can request that their manuscript is checked and assistance provided for English and scientific style, where necessary. Please contact journal@seabirdgroup.org.uk to make use of this service.