Author Guidelines

PUBLICATION RULES OF THE BUTLLETÍ DE LA INSTITUCIÓ CATALANA D’HISTÒRIA NATURAL

Scope of the journal

The Butlletí de la Institució Catalana d’Història Natural mainly publishes unpublished articles and short notes on any field of natural history (reviews and descriptions relating to Gaia, flora and fauna, functional aspects of natural systems, works on natural heritage management, etc.), but also opinion articles and contributions about the work of naturalists, book reviews and commentaries on the works of leading scientists and naturalists.

Submission of manuscripts

Only papers or notes by authors who are members of the ICHN will be published.

The manuscripts must be sent by e-mail (butlleti.ichn@iec.cat) in RTF format, Word (doc, docx) or pdf to the Editor in Chief. If manuscripts are sent by other means, the Editorial Board is not responsible for any delays that might occur.

The articles should be written in Catalan, Spanish, English, French or any other language that employs a Latin alphabet to ensure wide diffusion. The rules concerning submissions are set forth below. The total number of pages (including tables and figures) should not be greater than 40 DIN-A4; if there are more pages, the editorial board reserves the right to decide whether to publish them or not.

The submission of a manuscript implies that the work is original and has not been submitted to any other journal. The journal will not accept any article that has already been published or is in press.

If this rule is not fulfilled, the manuscript will be returned to the author.

Organization of the work

The work should be organized as follows (except in special cases):

• Title
• Authors

Name(s) and surname(s) of author(s), professional address(es) and e-mail(s). If there are two or more authors, author references will be represented in superscript.

• Corresponding author (only one if there is more than one author)

Full name and e-mail

• Abstract

If the work is in Catalan or English, abstracts should be written in Catalan and in English (maximum 250 words). In other cases, there should also be an abstract in the original language of the work. The title of the manuscript in bold will be given as a headline to the abstract(s) that are not written in the language used in the manuscript.

• Key words (max. 12), below the abstract.
• Introduction
• Material and Methods
• Results and Discussion (separate or combined)
• Conclusions (optional)
• Acknowledgements (if necessary)
• Bibliography

Organized in alphabetical order. The names of journals should not be abbreviated. References to the names of the authors of scientific names are not necessary (see below how to cite them).

• Figures and figure captions, tables and table captions should be integrated into the text or placed after the bibliography on a separate page.

Notes should be organized as follows: 

• Title (The first title in the note language, the second in English. If English is the language of the note, the second title should be in Catalan) 
• Text (with no subsections) and figures (if any) incorporated into the text. 
• Acknowledgements (if necessary) 
• Bibliography (see the previous section) 
• Authors (see the previous section) 

Notes should never exceed 5 pages, including figures. 

Basic layout of manuscripts and notes: 

1) Written on A4 paper, with left- and right-hand margins to the text: 2.5 cm; top margin: 3.0 cm; bottom margin: 2.5 cm. 

2) Distance between lines: 1.5. 

3) The final text, prior to final acceptance of the manuscript, should be written preferably in RFT, although a Word format is also acceptable. 

4) Source title: Times New Roman or Times font size 14 pt., bold. 

5) Text Font: Times New Roman or Times font size 10pt. All headings and subheadings should be left aligned and in bold. 

6) The hyphenation text option should not be used. 

7) Paragraphs should be justified and indented by 0.8 cm. If indentation is used, do not use spaces or tabs. 

8) The scientific names of genera, sub-genera, species, subspecies, varieties and syntaxa (plant associations) should be written in italics. The names of higher taxa (family, order, etc. ...) should not be in italics and should have the first letter capitalized if the word is written in Latin. 

9) The names of the authors of the species mentioned must be written in the same text font (regular font), and not abbreviated. The descriptor of the species and the year should be given the first time the name of the taxon is cited. 

10) Use n. sp., n. gen., n. fam., etc., each time a new taxon is mentioned and n. comb. each time a new combination is cited. 

11) References cited in the text should be written in the same style as the text. Examples: Bunyol (2001), Bunyol (2001, 2002), (Bunyol, 2000; Torrat, 2002), (Bunyol & Torrat 2003, 2005), Bunyol (2001: 1; 2003: 4), Bunyol (2001: Fig. 2), Bunyol et al. (2003) (Bunyol et al., 2006). 

12) Pages should not be numbered. 

13) Figures (drawings and photographs) should be referenced in the text as «Fig. X» (if any) or «Figs X-XX» (if there is more than one) with a full-stop after the «g» or «s» (if the text is in English there is no need for a full-stop after the «g» or «s»). Tables should be mentioned as follows: «Table X» or «X-XX tables». 

14) Multiple images in a figure should be identified with lower-case letters (a, b, c, etc. ...) in the figure and referenced in the text as «Fig. 1a» or «Figs 1a-b», as appropriate.

Tables and figures 

Once the manuscript has been reviewed, the original artwork must be sent to the editor in separate text files along with the revised manuscript. 

- Drawings in shades of grey; figures and/or plans should have a resolution of 300 dpi and be in either JPEG or TIF high-quality format. Each figure may include a metric scale without a multiplier. 

Bibliography 

References will be indented 1 cm as per the French model (from the second line onwards).