Submission Instructions
Call for Papers
We invite WII students and scholars to submit papers on a rolling basis. We edit and publish papers as they are received in order to release authors' publications as rapidly as possible. To enable authors to easily submit articles later to peer-review journals, we accept articles formatted according to the peer-review journal of your choice.
Please carefully read the Author Instructions for Publication to ensure that your paper will be accepted by BWII for review. A downloadable PDF of the Author Instructions is available here.
Please carefully read the Author Instructions for Publication to ensure that your paper will be accepted by BWII for review. A downloadable PDF of the Author Instructions is available here.
Author's Instructions for Publication
Aim and scope
The Bulletin of the Wildlife Institute of India (BWII) is an in-house bulletin that is written, edited, managed and led by WII students and scholars. BWII is first and foremost designed to serve as a platform to prepare students for subsequently submitting their manuscripts to formal peer-reviewed journals. BWII publishes original papers on all aspects of conservation.
Readership
The readership includes conservation professionals, students, academics and interested members of the public. All papers should be science-related, intelligible to this audience and published with an intention consistent with the BWII mission statement.
Formatting
For the ease of authors, BWII accepts articles in any format. Please select a journal format of your choice (ideally this should be the peer-review journal where you’ll later submit your article) and consistently follow the formatting requirements. To aid our editors, please send a copy of your preferred journal guidelines. Note that because many journals use varied formats, our editors will focus more on grammar and sentence structure rather than formatting specifications.
Manuscript length
Because the page lengths of peer-review journals differ, BWII does not specify page limitations. If you plan to later submit your article to a peer-review journal, we advise you to follow the page length requirements of that journal. Below we provide page limits below as general guidance but also please be concise and stick to your points while drafting a manuscript. BWII does not implement page charges.
Page limits below include all text from the Abstract through the Literature Cited but does not include tables, figure legends or supplementary materials. Abstracts should not exceed 350 words.
Research Articles (3,000 – 7,000 words) describe the results of original research of importance. Research Articles are invited on topics relevant to BWII’s focus including:
Data Papers (2,000 – 7,000 words) should emphasize the collection, organization, synthesis, and thorough documentation of data sets of ecological value. They should be used to present large or expansive data sets, accompanied by metadata that describes the content, context, quality and structure of the data. Please refer to the journal Ecological Research for more details about the contents of data papers.
Review Papers (up to 10,000 words and not exceeding 80 citations in the Literature Cited section) that provides comprehensive overviews of a particular conservation topic qualitatively or quantitatively. A review paper addresses a clearly formulated question and uses explicit, systematic methods to identify, select and critically appraise relevant research, and to collect, analyze and synthesize data from the studies that are included in the review. Statistical methods (meta-analysis) may or may not be used to analyze and summarize the results of the included studies.
Field Stories (2,000 – 5,000 words) are natural history observation-based writings about experiences during fieldwork.
Notes (<2,000 words) are short papers that present significant new observations and methodological advances. Notes may contain results that are not sufficiently elaborated or developed as to justify an Research Article, but which are still of considerable potential significance (such as new descriptions or species checklists).
Authors can simultaneously submit more than one article but in different categories.
Preparation of manuscripts for submission
To help authors prepare articles for submission to peer-reviewed journals, we accept articles formatted according to any journal format. Please include a copy of the journal formatting guidelines when you submit your article to BWII.
General specifications
Manuscripts must be in American or British English. Authors not conversant with writing in English may choose to have their manuscript professionally edited before submission to improve the English. The use of these services can greatly enhance one’s writing style to better convey your message and may be worthwhile as an investment towards publishing your manuscript in a high-impact factor journal. A list of independent suppliers of editing services is available here.
The written and tabular materials should be in Times New Roman font, 12 sized, double-spaced, left justified with 3-cm margins on A4-sized pages. Please number lines and pages consecutively throughout the manuscript.
File type requirements
Authors should submit their manuscript files in Word 2007 or lower formats (use .doc, NOT .docx). Please do not submit materials in Office 2010 or higher formats, as not all reviewers/editors can process such files at this time. Please note that BWII does NOT accept a .pdf or .RTF format for reviewing.
Cover letter
A cover letter is mandatory for the submission of all types of papers. The cover letter should be submitted as a separate document from the main manuscript. You should supply an approximately one A-4 page cover letter addressing the Editorial Committee, BWII that:
Manuscript Organization
Because some peer-review journal formats differ in their sections, we realize content may differ between articles. Research articles, data papers, review papers and notes generally contain the following sections and be arranged in the following order: Title, Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, Acknowledgments, Literature Cited, Figure Legends and Figures and Tables with corresponding legends. In general, do not combine sections (e.g., Results and Discussion). In addition to embedding Figures and Tables at the end of your document, please send them as attachments to your submission email.
Title Page
The title page must include the title, along with the names and affiliations of all authors. Also give the full name, address, and e-mail address of the corresponding author who is to receive and approve page proofs. Other authors may also have their e-mail addresses included if they wish. The title page must also include information about the structure of the manuscript: word counts, the number of text pages, the number of figure(s)/table(s), and any other notes.
Authorship
Authors should meet the following conditions to be assigned credit for authorship:
For Notes, Introduction and Materials and Methods section should be merged (commonly labeled “Introduction”) and Results and Discussion sections should be merged (commonly labeled as “Results and Discussion”). There may or may not be any conclusion for Notes. If any, this section can be even merged with the Discussion. The instructions for other sections (e.g. title page, acknowledgements) are the same as other papers.
For Field Stories, there is no specific order for preparing a manuscript. However, the cover letter, title page (excluding running heads and keywords), and other format requirements are MUST. Authors should try to use simple and non-technical languages without jargons and verbosity, and to make the article engaging for a broad audience.
Literature Cited
References should follow the format of your preferred peer-review journal. We recommend the use of a tool such as EndNote or Reference Manager for reference management and formatting. EndNote reference styles can be searched for here. Reference Manager reference styles can be searched for here.
Figures and Tables
Tables and figures should be self-explanatory and should supplement rather than duplicate the text. Do not present large amounts of data in tables. A reader should be able to interpret tables and figures without referring to the text. Please follow the formatting requirements of your preferred peer-review journal, including requirements regarding resolution. Resolution should be high enough that figures are not blurry –files saved with 300 dpi as a .tif or PDF usually work well.
Supporting Information
Supporting Information will be displayed on the BWII website publication page for the article as a .pdf or links to download specific files. Supporting information may include:
General Writing Tips
Conventions
The Metric system must be used and SI units where appropriate. BWII follows the norms set by International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM, Bureau International des Poids et Mesures) and authors are advised to check this a-priori at http://www.bipm.org/en/home/.
Languages and grammar
Numbers and statistical materials and symbols
Scientific names
Submission Instructions
Currently BWII does not have an online uploading system. Manuscripts can be submitted by direct emailing your materials to bulletinwii@gmail.com. When submitting a manuscript, please include the following materials:
Our gmail account can accept files up to 25 MB in size. For zipped files exceeding 25 MB, make serial zipped files with numbers 1, 2, 3, etc. and email them separately with the SAME email subject content.
Make the subject of your email “Manuscript for consideration of publication in BWII”. Please ensure that the email comes from the corresponding author using the same email address as stated in the manuscript Title page.
The corresponding author will receive a submission confirmation email once the Executive Editors of BWII have reviewed the manuscript and judged its compatibility with the journal mandates and formats. If the Executive Editors consider the manuscript suitable for BWII, a confirmation email will be sent to the corresponding author and the manuscript would be forwarded to the editorial committee to begin the reviewing process. This pre-review may take 5-7 days depending upon the availabilities of the senior editors of the journal. Please be patient.
Please contact the Executive Editors at bulletinwii@gmail.com with questions regarding the preparation of your manuscript. We are here to help authors become more familiar with the formatting and editing process. Best wishes for your submission in the Bulletin of the Wildlife Institute of India!
Last updated February 2014
The Bulletin of the Wildlife Institute of India (BWII) is an in-house bulletin that is written, edited, managed and led by WII students and scholars. BWII is first and foremost designed to serve as a platform to prepare students for subsequently submitting their manuscripts to formal peer-reviewed journals. BWII publishes original papers on all aspects of conservation.
Readership
The readership includes conservation professionals, students, academics and interested members of the public. All papers should be science-related, intelligible to this audience and published with an intention consistent with the BWII mission statement.
Formatting
For the ease of authors, BWII accepts articles in any format. Please select a journal format of your choice (ideally this should be the peer-review journal where you’ll later submit your article) and consistently follow the formatting requirements. To aid our editors, please send a copy of your preferred journal guidelines. Note that because many journals use varied formats, our editors will focus more on grammar and sentence structure rather than formatting specifications.
Manuscript length
Because the page lengths of peer-review journals differ, BWII does not specify page limitations. If you plan to later submit your article to a peer-review journal, we advise you to follow the page length requirements of that journal. Below we provide page limits below as general guidance but also please be concise and stick to your points while drafting a manuscript. BWII does not implement page charges.
Page limits below include all text from the Abstract through the Literature Cited but does not include tables, figure legends or supplementary materials. Abstracts should not exceed 350 words.
Research Articles (3,000 – 7,000 words) describe the results of original research of importance. Research Articles are invited on topics relevant to BWII’s focus including:
- Field research on status of species or habitats, especially those with of threatened status
- Planning for biodiversity conservation and livelihood issues
- The nature and results of conservation initiatives, including case studies
- Research on climate change and ecosystem services
- Research on sustainable use of wild species
- The history of conservation, including the role of key people, organizations and initiatives.
Data Papers (2,000 – 7,000 words) should emphasize the collection, organization, synthesis, and thorough documentation of data sets of ecological value. They should be used to present large or expansive data sets, accompanied by metadata that describes the content, context, quality and structure of the data. Please refer to the journal Ecological Research for more details about the contents of data papers.
Review Papers (up to 10,000 words and not exceeding 80 citations in the Literature Cited section) that provides comprehensive overviews of a particular conservation topic qualitatively or quantitatively. A review paper addresses a clearly formulated question and uses explicit, systematic methods to identify, select and critically appraise relevant research, and to collect, analyze and synthesize data from the studies that are included in the review. Statistical methods (meta-analysis) may or may not be used to analyze and summarize the results of the included studies.
Field Stories (2,000 – 5,000 words) are natural history observation-based writings about experiences during fieldwork.
Notes (<2,000 words) are short papers that present significant new observations and methodological advances. Notes may contain results that are not sufficiently elaborated or developed as to justify an Research Article, but which are still of considerable potential significance (such as new descriptions or species checklists).
Authors can simultaneously submit more than one article but in different categories.
Preparation of manuscripts for submission
To help authors prepare articles for submission to peer-reviewed journals, we accept articles formatted according to any journal format. Please include a copy of the journal formatting guidelines when you submit your article to BWII.
General specifications
Manuscripts must be in American or British English. Authors not conversant with writing in English may choose to have their manuscript professionally edited before submission to improve the English. The use of these services can greatly enhance one’s writing style to better convey your message and may be worthwhile as an investment towards publishing your manuscript in a high-impact factor journal. A list of independent suppliers of editing services is available here.
The written and tabular materials should be in Times New Roman font, 12 sized, double-spaced, left justified with 3-cm margins on A4-sized pages. Please number lines and pages consecutively throughout the manuscript.
File type requirements
Authors should submit their manuscript files in Word 2007 or lower formats (use .doc, NOT .docx). Please do not submit materials in Office 2010 or higher formats, as not all reviewers/editors can process such files at this time. Please note that BWII does NOT accept a .pdf or .RTF format for reviewing.
Cover letter
A cover letter is mandatory for the submission of all types of papers. The cover letter should be submitted as a separate document from the main manuscript. You should supply an approximately one A-4 page cover letter addressing the Editorial Committee, BWII that:
- Concisely summarizes the contribution of your paper
- Briefly relates your study to previously published work
- Specifies the type of article you are submitting (for example, research articles, data papers etc.)
- Guidance for writing cover letters can be found on many journal websites, including BioScience.
Manuscript Organization
Because some peer-review journal formats differ in their sections, we realize content may differ between articles. Research articles, data papers, review papers and notes generally contain the following sections and be arranged in the following order: Title, Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, Acknowledgments, Literature Cited, Figure Legends and Figures and Tables with corresponding legends. In general, do not combine sections (e.g., Results and Discussion). In addition to embedding Figures and Tables at the end of your document, please send them as attachments to your submission email.
Title Page
The title page must include the title, along with the names and affiliations of all authors. Also give the full name, address, and e-mail address of the corresponding author who is to receive and approve page proofs. Other authors may also have their e-mail addresses included if they wish. The title page must also include information about the structure of the manuscript: word counts, the number of text pages, the number of figure(s)/table(s), and any other notes.
Authorship
Authors should meet the following conditions to be assigned credit for authorship:
- Substantial contributions to the manuscripts either through conception and design of the work, acquisition of data, analysis or interpretation of data.
- Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content.
- Funding or facilitating a study does not necessarily ensure an authorship in BWII unless there is a substantial contribution to the manuscript in either of the above ways (1 and 2). Authors are encouraged to include such names in the Acknowledgements.
- Authors are encouraged to see Hunt, R. 1991. Trying an authorship index. Nature 352: 187 for more details on indexing an authorship.
For Notes, Introduction and Materials and Methods section should be merged (commonly labeled “Introduction”) and Results and Discussion sections should be merged (commonly labeled as “Results and Discussion”). There may or may not be any conclusion for Notes. If any, this section can be even merged with the Discussion. The instructions for other sections (e.g. title page, acknowledgements) are the same as other papers.
For Field Stories, there is no specific order for preparing a manuscript. However, the cover letter, title page (excluding running heads and keywords), and other format requirements are MUST. Authors should try to use simple and non-technical languages without jargons and verbosity, and to make the article engaging for a broad audience.
Literature Cited
References should follow the format of your preferred peer-review journal. We recommend the use of a tool such as EndNote or Reference Manager for reference management and formatting. EndNote reference styles can be searched for here. Reference Manager reference styles can be searched for here.
Figures and Tables
Tables and figures should be self-explanatory and should supplement rather than duplicate the text. Do not present large amounts of data in tables. A reader should be able to interpret tables and figures without referring to the text. Please follow the formatting requirements of your preferred peer-review journal, including requirements regarding resolution. Resolution should be high enough that figures are not blurry –files saved with 300 dpi as a .tif or PDF usually work well.
Supporting Information
Supporting Information will be displayed on the BWII website publication page for the article as a .pdf or links to download specific files. Supporting information may include:
- Information that cannot be printed, such as animations, video clips, sound recordings (use QuickTime, .avi, .mpeg, animated .gif, or any other common file format), sequences or spectral data
- Large quantities of original data that relate to the paper, such as additional tables or large numbers of illustrations.
- Legends must be brief (preferably within 25 words), self-sufficient explanations of the Supporting Information and should be placed after the Tables in the main manuscript file. Supporting Information is to be numbered and referred parenthetically to as S1, S2, etc. within the text. Save the files as S1, S2, etc. only without adding any further details in the file names.
General Writing Tips
Conventions
The Metric system must be used and SI units where appropriate. BWII follows the norms set by International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM, Bureau International des Poids et Mesures) and authors are advised to check this a-priori at http://www.bipm.org/en/home/.
Languages and grammar
- Clarity in language and syntax is important. Please avoid colloquialisms and jargons.
- Do not begin a sentence with an abbreviation. Define all abbreviations, initializations and acronyms at first use.
- Avoid passive sentences; instead of ‘households were sampled’ use ‘we sampled households’.
- Do not use subjective adjectives (“good result” “bad result” “clearly demonstrates” “extremely obvious” etc.). Let the reader judge!
- Use past tense in the Methods (describing what you did), Results (describing what your results were), and in the Discussion (referring to your results). Use present tense when you refer to published results.
- Try to eliminate ‘waste words’, ‘redundant words’ and replace phrases with one word. Authors may consult http://www.paperrater.com/free_paper_grader for more details.
Numbers and statistical materials and symbols
- Percentages and degrees: use symbols (25%, not 25 percent).
- Decimal point: insert 0 before a decimal point (0.3, not .3).
- Insert a space between numbers and the unit of measure (5 m, 0.4 mL).
- Define all variables used in an equation.
- All details of statistical outcomes reported should be provided, and degrees of freedom must be reported as subscripts of test statistics. For example, for an ANOVA, F with degrees of freedom (as subscripts of F) and the P value should be reported, not just the P value or F and P value. For example: F3,112=9.456, p=0.031).
- Use the following abbreviations: p, probability; df, degrees of freedom; χ2, chi-square; F (F test, variance ratio); FST (genetic variance contained in a subpopulation relative to the total genetic variance); CI, confidence interval or credible interval; SE, standard error; SD, standard deviation, e.g., mean (SD) = 44% (3) or mean of 44% (SD 3). Do not use ± and italicized symbols.
Scientific names
- The correct names of organisms conforming to the international rules of nomenclature must be used. Common names of taxonomic groups should be in lower case (wolf, tiger).
- Scientific names: In the abstract and at first mention in the text, follow the common name by the scientific name (genus and species) in parentheses: Asiatic lion (Panthera leo persica), Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii).
- Do not italicize scientific names in the Literature cited.
Submission Instructions
Currently BWII does not have an online uploading system. Manuscripts can be submitted by direct emailing your materials to bulletinwii@gmail.com. When submitting a manuscript, please include the following materials:
- Formatting guidelines from the peer-review journal of your choice that you used for formatting your article (PDF or .doc file)
- Completed Consent To Publish form (available at http://bulletinwii.weebly.com/submissions)
- Cover letter with title following the format “Cover letter Author lastname, Author firstname” (one A4 page saved as .doc)
- Manuscript file with title following the format “Research article Author lastname, Author firstname” (.doc)
- Figures arranged serially with titles following the format “Figure 1 Author lastname, Author firstname” (.tif, .eps, .jpg, .bmp, .gif or .png formats)
- Supporting information files arranged serially with titles following the format “S1 Author lastname, Author firstname”
Our gmail account can accept files up to 25 MB in size. For zipped files exceeding 25 MB, make serial zipped files with numbers 1, 2, 3, etc. and email them separately with the SAME email subject content.
Make the subject of your email “Manuscript for consideration of publication in BWII”. Please ensure that the email comes from the corresponding author using the same email address as stated in the manuscript Title page.
The corresponding author will receive a submission confirmation email once the Executive Editors of BWII have reviewed the manuscript and judged its compatibility with the journal mandates and formats. If the Executive Editors consider the manuscript suitable for BWII, a confirmation email will be sent to the corresponding author and the manuscript would be forwarded to the editorial committee to begin the reviewing process. This pre-review may take 5-7 days depending upon the availabilities of the senior editors of the journal. Please be patient.
Please contact the Executive Editors at bulletinwii@gmail.com with questions regarding the preparation of your manuscript. We are here to help authors become more familiar with the formatting and editing process. Best wishes for your submission in the Bulletin of the Wildlife Institute of India!
Last updated February 2014
