Ethnobiology Letters Style Guide

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STYLE GUIDE

Contents

Journal Description

Ethnobiology Letters invites manuscripts concerning ethnobiology, the study of the relationships between humans and environments in diverse spatial and temporal contexts.  Article types are:

  • Research communications: short case studies that include description of methods, results, and brief discussion of the implications of results (Suggested length: 2000-3500 words. Word limit: 5000 words, 30 cited references, two figures, one data table, and one video)
  • Perspectives: essays about informed opinions, scholarly memoirs, and instructive stories relevant to Ethnobiology (Suggested length: 2000-3500 words. Word limit: 5000 words, 30 cited references, two figures, one data table, and one video)
  • Book reviews: evaluations of texts and assess their value within ethnobiology and related disciplines (Word limit: 1000)
  • Data, Methods & Taxonomies: innovative approaches and/or communicate ethnobiological data, such as plant taxa and linguistic notes (Suggested length: 2000-3500 words. Word limit: 5000 words, 30 cited references, two figures, one data table, and one video)
  • Interviews: short interviews with leading scholars or recently published authors in any field of ethnobiology (Word limit: 3500 words, 10 cited references, two figures, and one video)
  • Mini-reviews: brief critical reviews of the most relevant new literature on a narrow topic of particular interest in ethnobiology (Suggested Length: 700-900 words. Word limit: 1000 words, 5-10 cited references, 1 figure).

Submission Process

  1. Send all manuscripts to editors@ethnobiologyletters.org.
  2. Complete and send the Ethics Declaration form with your initial submission.
  3. After approval, complete and send the Copyright Release form with your revised manuscript.

Format

  1. Manuscripts must be in one of the following formats: .doc, .docx, .rtf.
  2. Use Times New Roman font, 12 pt.
  3. Double space text, tables, figure captions, and references cited.
  4. Most papers should minimally include the following sections: Title, Author information (names, affiliations, corresponding author e-mail), References cited, Notes, Biosketch, Figure and table captions.
  5. Use numerals to indicate numbers 1-10 and words for eleven and higher. Any number that appears at the beginning of a sentence should be written as a word rather than a numeral.
  6. Indent extended quotations from research subjects or from written sources by 0.5” on both the left and right margins and do not use quotation marks.
  7. For initial submissions, figures may be embedded within the manuscript but should be sent as separate high-resolution files at final submission (see below). 

Examples of References Cited in Text

Books

Schulenberg, T. S., D. F. Stotz, D. L. Lane, J. P. O’Neill and T. A. Parker. 2007. Birds of Peru. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.

Edited Books

Wilson, D. E. and D. M. Reeder, eds. 2005. Mammal Species of the World. A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference, 3rd edition. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD.

Chapter in Edited Books

Au, T. K., and L. Romo. 1999. Mechanical Causality in Children’s Folkbiology. In Folkbiology, edited by D. C. Medin and S. Atran, pp. 355-402. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

Journal Articles

Boster, J. S. and J. C. Johnson. 1989. Form of Function: A Comparison of Expert and Novice Judgments of Similarity among Fish. American Anthropologist 91:866-889.

Electronic Only Journal Articles

Angelsen, A., ed. 2008. Moving Ahead with REDD: Issues, Options, and Complications. Bogor, Indonesia: CIFOR.  Available at: http://www.cifor.cgiar.org/publications/pdf_files/Books/BAngelsen0801.pdf. Accessed on August 30, 2010.

Journal Articles with a DOI

Setalaphruk, C. and L. L. Price. 2007. Children’s Traditional Ecological Knowledge of Wild Food Resources: A Case Study in a Rural Village in Northeast Thailand. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 3:33. Doi:10.1186/1746-4269-3-33.

Master’s Thesis

Karst, A. 2005. The Ethnoecology and Reproductive Ecology of Bakeapple (Rubus chamaemorus Rosaceae L.) in Southern Labrador. Unpublished Master’s Thesis, Department of Biology, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.

Doctoral Dissertations

Wolverton, S. 2001. Environmental Implications of Zooarchaeological Measures of Resource Depression. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO.

Multiple References by Same Author

Driver, J. C. 1985a. Prehistoric Hunting Strategies in the Crowsnest Pass, Alberta. Canadian Journal of Archaeology 9:109-129.

Driver, J. C. 1985b. Zooarchaeology of Six Prehistoric Sites in the Sierra Blanca Region, New Mexico. Museum of Anthropology University of Michigan Technical Report 17.

Driver, J. C. 1992. Identification, Classification and Zooarchaeology. Circaea 9:35-47.

Electronic Audio Files/Podcast

Pyne, S. 2011. Fire and Life. Interview by Dr. Biology. Ask a Biologist Podcast. Available at: http://askabiologist.asu.edu/podcasts/fire-and-life.  Accessed on August 12, 2011.

Conference Presentations

Hovsepyan, R. 2010. Preliminary Data on the Prehistoric Agriculture of the Southern Caucasus (The Main Phases of Development). Paper Presented at the 15th Conference of the International Work Group for Palaeoethnobotany. Wilhelmshaven, Germany (www.nihk.de).

Citation of References In Text

Instructions: Do not use a comma after the last name before the date (1). Quotations use a colon after the date with no space between the colon and the page number (2) except in Book Reviews where the Reviewer quotes the Book being reviewed in which case the page number only appears in parentheses after the quotation (3). Two author citations are separated with “and” (4). Texts with three or more authors use “et al.” not followed by a comma, not italicized (5). Citations are listed in alphabetical order. Citations by different authors are separated by semi-colons (5, 6). Citations within parenthetical statements are bracketed (7). Multiple citations by the same author are separated with a comma. Citations by the same author and from the same year are distinguished by lower case letters (8).

  1. This information is considered important for the management and conservation of marine habitats (Drews 2005).
  2. In one of the best descriptions of the protocol I have found, paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson (1942:144) noted that one first assumes “that the bones of different [taxa] have characteristic forms, more or less constant for any one [taxon].”
  3. For those limited models that are discussed, readers are told: “Within evolutionary theory, optimization models appear to be the best, if not the only, current way to explore the interaction between people and their environment” (p.15).
  4. Compact bone is most often used as an ivory substitute (Espinoza and Mann 2000).
  5. Regional approaches comparing faunas from multiple sites analyzed by diverse research teams are becoming more common today (Barberena et al. 2009; Martinez and Gutiérrez 2004; Otaola 2010; Santiago and Vázquez 2011).
  6. In the early history of zooarchaeology, it was paleontologists and zoologists who identified archaeo-logically recovered faunal remains to taxon (e.g., Gilmore 1949; Merriam 1928; White 1953). 
  7. Paleontology has had, virtually since it became a distinct science (roughly 200 years ago at the hands of Georges Cuvier [Rudwick 1976]), a standard protocol for reporting identifications.
  8. My PhD had taken a regional approach to a valley in the northern Rocky Mountains (Driver 1981, 1985a, b; Lyman 1986).

For authors who use Endnote to format the bibliography, a beta Endnote style may be downloaded here EBL Endnote Style. Instructions for how to save this style within Endnote may be found at http://endnote.com/downloads/styles. Please note, because this is a beta version, you must verify that the result is consistent with this guide. Please suggest change suggestions to: editors@ethnobiologyletters.org. Please stay tuned for a Citation Style Language (CSL) template that may be used with such citation software as Zotero, Mendeley, and Papers.

Endnotes

Footnotes use Arabic numbers, sequentially ordered. Format endnotes using superscript and place outside punctuation. The text accompanying endnotes appears in a “Notes” section which follows the References Cited section.

Figures: Charts and Images

Charts and images for final submission should be sent separately as 600 dpi .tiff or low-compression .jpg files

Biosketches

All submissions should include a brief biosketch for each author (Limit: 20 words). Articles with more than three authors should include biosketches for the first, second, and last authors only.

Identification of Living Organisms

Authors should identify a living organism by its full scientific name the first time it is mentioned in the article. Full scientific names include genus, species, author, and family. Some fields of biology, such as entomology, also call for the order. The usual format is: Genus species Authority Family or Genus species Authority Order: Family. As an example, upon the first mention of bobcat in an article, the author ought to write: Lynx rufus Schreber Felidae. For the common house fly, the reference would be: Musca domestica Linnaeus Diptera: Muscidae. Alternatively, one may place the scientific name after the common or vernacular non-English name, as follows: bobcat (Lynx rufus Schreber Felidae) or house fly (Musca domestica Linnaeus Diptera: Muscidae).

After first mention, a living organism should usually be identified by the first initial of the genus and the full species term only or by the common English name. For example, after mentioning it once, the Madagascar girdled lizard should be identified as: Madagascar girdled lizard or Z. madagascariensis. Exceptions include lists of species in the same genus and multiple genus names starting with the same letter. In the latter case, genus names should be abbreviated with the minimum number of letters necessary to distinguish them. For example, in subsequent references, the neotropical ants Acromyrmex coronatus and Atta sexdens should be written as Ac. coronatus and At. sexdens, unless they appear at the beginning of a sentence.

Common English names for living organisms should not be italicized. Non-English vernacular names for living organisms ought to appear in italics with no initial capital (unless at the beginning of a sentence). For example, to cite the indigenous name in the Xavante language of the red brocket deer, write: pône.

Use of Non-English Terms or Phrases

Terms or phrases in any language other than English should be written in italics.

Location of Voucher Specimens

The locations where voucher specimens have been deposited for curation should be put in a note or in the acknowledgements.

Contacts

Editorial e-mail: editors@ethnobiologyletters.org.

Journal Homepage: http://ethnobiology.org/publications/ethnobiology-letters

Editors

Steve Wolverton – University of North Texas

Cissy Fowler – Wofford College

James R. Welch – Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro

Editorial Board

Amber VanDerwarker – University of California, Santa Barbara

James Veteto – University of North Texas

Valentina Savo – Roma Tre University

Nicholas Hellmuth – Foundation for Latin American Anthropological Research

Editorial Assistants

Amy Pittsenbarger – Wofford College

Jonathan Dombrosky – University of North Texas