information for contributors to micropaleontology

Policy

micropaleontology publishes papers on all aspects of the science, including systematics, biology of living representatives, evolution, paleobiogeography, paleoecology, paleoceanography, and biostratigraphy, with regard to all microscopic fossil remains. There are no page or plate charges, and no fixed limits on number of pages or plates, but the editors reserve the right to request support as a condition of publishing papers that involve unusually high costs.

Papers presenting research of regional or international significance are accepted, after peer review, for articles in regular issues or as special issues of monographic quality and length. Short notes deal with preparation techniques, taxonomic notes and other professional information. In addition, the journal accepts book reviews and memorials, and we donate space for noncommercial announcements. Each author receives ten free offprints of his or her published work.

Terms and requirements

Manuscript must be in English, prepared as described below. Reviewers will be selected by the Editor. Authors must satisfy the Editor, not the reviewers, in preparing a final draft acceptable for publication. By the act of returning the final corrected page proof, as the final form of the manuscript, authors grant to The Micropaleontology Project, Inc., the rights to use their work in that form, including the right to grant reproduction in that form to third parties. All other rights are retained by authors.

There are no page or plate charges, and no fixed limits on length or number of illustrations. Colored illustrations, oversize graphics and other special effects are acceptable, consistent with the limitations of the printed edition. Authors should be aware, however, that manuscripts whose publication involves significant extra expense may be asked to provide appropriate support as a condition of acceptance.

Preparation and Submittal of Manuscript

All manuscript will be submitted in digital form, uploaded to Micro Man (Micropress Manuscript Manager). Authors should always keep the main points of Micropaleontology requirements in mind to avoid misunderstanding or delays. Detailed instructions and suggestions are found below.

Pre-review. Authors must obtain pre-reviews of their work from two colleagues of their choice. The identity of pre-reviewers must be included when the manuscript is submitted, with the understanding that the editors may contact the pre-reviewers if they so choose. The objective of pre-review is not to obtain an endorsement, but to improve the paper before submittal.

Text. Text documents (including captions and references) must be formatted double spaced with the same character size throughout (10 to 12-point size, in any font face). Note: submittals are manuscripts, not publications! Typographical refinements (other than italics and boldface), to imitate a published page, are not appropriate. In particular, the right margin of text should be left "ragged", not justified, and there should be no forced hyphens or other adjustments for appearance's sake. Complex mathematical statements and other expressions using special characters or diagrammatic notation may be submitted as graphic figures, for insertion in the text.

Illustrations. Photographic and other shaded images should be prepared in grey-scale TIF or JPG format at 300 to 360 dpi, at full published size. Line art (diagrams, tables, maps) should be in black and white TIF or JPG format at 1000 to 1200 dpi, at full size. NOTE: Graphic file formats from proprietary software (IMG, BMP, AI, PSD, etc.) will not be accepted.

Explanatory text should be confined to captions as far as possible, and should not be placed within a figure. Any "sideways" text on tables and diagrams should be placed to run upwards, with the left down, so that the words will not be upside down when the page is rotated clockwise.

We strongly recommend that all documents be given a characteristic name, i.e., "Jones.doc." and "Jones_fig_1.TIF", not just "Manuscript.doc" or "fig_1.TIF".

Final drafts and proofs. Final draft will be submitted in Micro Man, including any revised illustrations. If accepted, the author must approve final proofs as full-page mockups (not galley proofs), in which text, illustrations and all other material will be shown exactly as in the final printed page. The medium of return depends on the extent of corrections. (1) Complete proofs should be returned by expedited mail to the Editor, Micropaleontology Press, 256 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10001 (phone 212 481 2997). (2) Single pages can be sent by fax to USA-212-481-3268. (3) Minor word changes can be communicated by email to the editor.

Style

Title. Brief titles are preferable, with no need to give complete geographic location. For the benefit of bibliographic indexers, include as many keywords as possible, and in particular a name or adjective identifying the taxonomic group(s) under consideration.

Author name and address. Each author's name should be written out in full, in the form intended for publication. Chinese names may be written according to custom with given name second. The address of each author should not be more than is necessary for postal delivery. The full organizational address is not required.

English correction. Authors whose English is not completely fluent are strongly advised to ask for assistance in composing the manuscript, to make it easier for reviewers to understand. As far as possible, the quality of English will not be considered in judging a paper, and English correction for accepted papers will be provided at no cost.

Review. Reviewers are anonymous, unless they wish otherwise. The author(s) should inform the Editor of particularly appropriate and/or potentially hostile reviewers in the cover letter, although the Editor is in no way bound to act according to this information. Reviewers who identify themselves to authors should be acknowledged in the final draft.

Authors should respond to reviewers as they see fit, and are free to decide what should go into the final draft, but the Editor's judgment on the adequacy of response to the reviews is final.

There is no time limit for returning a final draft. Authors should not introduce significant new data, or substantially change the scope or purpose of the work, without consulting with the Editor. In such cases a second round of review may be called for.

House style for text. Authors should consult recent issues of the journal for examples of our house style. Points to keep in mind are as follows:

-Abstract. The abstract must summarize the problem and conclusions. A mere description of the contents is not acceptable.

-Taxonomic citation. All taxonomic names, on first citation in the body of the text, must be given in full, with author and date. (Names used solely as descriptors, as in biozones or biofacies, are exempt). In papers that do not have a systematics section or list, it is desirable that this first citation should include the original combination for a reassigned taxon, as follows: Aus Cus (Jones) (=Aus Bus, 1900).

-Reference citation. Citations in the text refer to author and date of the reference in question, with page or plate number added as necessary. Author names are NOT capitalized in the text, and only the author's last name is used. The date is always in parentheses, and name and date are never separated by a comma. Examples: Author (1999), or (Author 1999). The term "et al." should be used only in place of three or more (not two or more) co-author names. Papers may be cited together only where all author names are the same, including the ones hidden in "et al."

-Footnotes are not permitted. Formatted characters such as superscript, italics and bold face should be executed, not merely indicated.

-Abbreviations. The abbreviations of units of measurement are considered to be symbols, not words, and thus do not use periods (km, cm, mm, µm, nm, mi, ft, in, kg, g, lb, oz, myr, kyr, yr, mo, hr, sec). These symbols are not separated by a space from the numerical values (e.g., 753km; 25µm). Periods are omitted as well from abbreviations of the more common titles (Dr, Mr, Mrs, Ms, Sr, Jr, PhD) and the letters in acronyms. All acronyms except the most common (USA, UK, USGS, NY, MA, CA, DSDP, RAM, DOS) should be followed by an explanation in parenthesis when introduced, e.g., UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles). The geochronometric expressions Ma (mega-annum before present) and Ka (kilo-annum before present) are treated as words that stand for phrases. They are not interchangeable with the symbols representing simple quantities of time (myr, my, kyr, and so on). The commonly abbreviated latinisms (etc., et al., viz., e.g., s.s.) use periods, but are not italicized. The exceptions are "ex" and "et", which are not abbreviations, and vs, which by convention is italicized without a period.

-Synonymies. These do not need to be complete histories of a combination, but ideally should cover the significant citations. The example below is adapted from W. Kiessling's (1999) Late Jurassic radiolarians from the Antarctic Peninsula, Micropaleontology, v. 45, supplement 1, p. 46. Citations should be included in the list of rereferences. The taxon under discussion is shown in boldface.

Genus Perispyridium Dumitrica 1978
Type species: Trilonche ordinaria Pessagno 1977a.

Range and occurrence: Middle Jurassic to late Jurassic, early late Tithonian. Worldwide in all known provinces.

Perispyridium ordinarium (Pessagno)
Plate 10, figs. 9. 10.

Trilonche ordinaria (?) PESSAGNO 1977a, p. 79, pl. 6, fig. 14
Triloche ordinaria Pessagno - WAKITA 1982, pl. 6, fig. 9
Perispyridium ordinarium (Pessagno) group - BAUMGARTNER et al., 1995a, p. 418, pl. 3100, figs. 1-6 (with complete synonymy).

-Curatorial information. The field location of type material, and preferably that of all described specimens, must be given as exactly as possible. A good rule of thumb is to describe a locality well enough for later workers to be able to duplicate the sample. Wherever possible, specimens should be tied to individual sample localities on a map, or to individual sample levels in sections and cores. The depository and catalogue identification of all described material is required.

-Taxonomic rules. ICZN is used for heterotropic protozoans such as foraminifera, radiolaria, and tintinnids. ICBN applies to the "algal" (i.e. chloroplast-bearing) protists including diatoms, coccoliths, silicoflagellates, ebridians, prasinophytes, acritarchs, and dinoflagellates. Botanical rules of taxonomy also apply to Bacteria.

-References. Cited works are listed alphabetically by author name (in CAPITALS) and then chronologically. Note that "Mc" comes in order, and not before "Ma". Honorifics are detached (for example, write ORBIGNY, A. D', and GÜMBEL, C. W. VON). Serial and book titles are italicized and spelled out in full. Abbreviations for serial vol., no., pp., and so on are omitted. All words in serial titles are capitalized but only proper nouns in book titles. Genus and species level names in article and book titles may be italicized.

AUTHOR, A. A. and AUTHOR, B. B., 1999. Article title. Serial Name Spelled Out in Full, 1:23-45, pls. 6, 7.

_____________, 1999. Chapter title. In: Editor, C. C., Ed. Book title spelled out in full. Series or sponsor. City, Publisher: 12-34, pls. 5, 6.

AUTHOR, A. A. and COAUTHOR, C. C., 1990. Book title spelled out in full. City, Publisher, 1234 pp., 56 pls.

Note that only author names that are exactly repeated in successive references are replaced by a dash.

A work in preparation, as well as unpublished reports, correspondence, internal documents, e-mail, and Internet postings (except for formal electronic publications) should be cited "Author (written communication, Date)". These are not listed in References. Only dissertations that are reproduced for distribution are published books.

A work may be listed in the references if it is actually "in press", i.e., formally accepted for publication. Due to the uncertainties of publishing, however, no year or volume number should be indicated.

-Plate captions. Captions to illustrations individual specimens must give full taxonomic title, followed by other defining characters such as its gender, orientation, condition, and so on. The size of the specimen, the size of the relevant scale bar on the plate, or the magnification of the view at published size (NOT the original ocular or instrument magnification) must be indicated, either in the individual description, or in the caption heading if it applies to all specimens. The repository and catalogue number of each specimen is required, unless a covering statement is included in the text.

-Figure and table captions. These should begin with a brief descriptive phrase, e.g., "Index map of sample sites." The abbreviations and graphic symbols used in the figure or table should be explained. When the same symbols are used in a series of figures, it is only necessary to explain them completely in the first caption. A long caption, bringing out the point of the figure or table, is preferable to a cursory statement that merely identifies the content, even if the caption repeats discussion that is also found in the text.

-Grammatical usage. This is left, as far as possible, to the taste of the author(s). We do not dictate planktic vs planktonic, benthic vs benthonic, stratigraphic vs stratigraphical, or other choices in controversies where both sides can quote ample precedent, The author's usage should, however, be consistent. The use of conjunctions (and, but, then, however, therefore, nonetheless) to begin sentences is deplorable. Periods and commas must not be placed inside a quotation or parenthesis, if they are not an original part of the phrase. Fowler's English Usage is a good general source for word usage, punctuation and other such matters. For scientific writing questions, we recommend Suggestions to authors of the United States Geological Survey.

-Size estimation. A full page of text in Micropaleontology will contain approximately 1,000 words, or 5,200 characters including spaces; this is approximately four typescript pages. The captions to plates and figures take up more area, equivalent to 600 words per full page. Full-page plates and figures should be prepared with an aspect ratio of 0.74 width to height, for a final size to fit inside an area of 7 x 9.5 in (177 x 235 mm). Half-column graphics will fit a width of 3.25 in (85 mm).

Figure numbers and superimposed arrows, labels, and other emphasis should be inserted on plates and figures by the author, no smaller than 8 point at published scale. No caption should appear on the plate.