RULES FOR SUBMISSION OF ARTICLES BY AUTHORS TO TREBALLS DE LA SOCIETAT CATALANA DE BIOLOGIA
Scope
The journal Treballs de la Societat Catalana de Biologia (Treb. Soc. Cat. Biol.), published by the Societat Catalana de Biologia (SCB), a subsidiary of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans (IEC), releases articles in the field of life sciences in the Catalan language (and occasionally in other languages). The journal comprises two sections:
— “Destacats de recerca”: articles in the field of research or a monographic review of a topic in a specific scientific field. A coordinator expert in the field commissions the articles to a team of authors and supervises the drafting process. If you would like to take part as a coordinator for a topic of your interest for the “Destacats de recerca” section you can contact the SCB secretary at scb@iec.cat.
— “Destacats de ciència”: articles about popular science, current affairs and scientific opinion on a range of topics. If you would like to propose an article for the “Destacats de ciència” section you can contact the SCB secretary at scb@iec.cat. Authors who are also SCB members have preference in the article admission process.
Publishing process
Upon receipt, articles undergo a peer review of form and content. Once this process is complete, the articles may: i) be accepted without changes; ii) be rejected; or, iii) be accepted, albeit with the author being advised to make amendments. In the latter case, authors must agree to make the changes proposed in order for the articles to be published.
Authors will be given galley proofs in order to review them. At this stage of the process they will only be able to make technical or linguistic amendments and not changes related to content. In specific circumstances, the SCB may ask authors to carry out additional reviews.
Authors will receive a copy of the journal free of charge once it has been published.
General criteria for submitting articles
Material submitted must be original and cannot have been published elsewhere previously. Articles must be of the required length (see sections below – character counts must include spaces) and the number of tables and figures should be kept to a minimum in order to simplify understanding of the text. If the length is unsuitable for the specified criteria or if there are too many tables or figures, the SCB may propose changes concerning these areas before accepting the article.
Articles must be submitted in Microsoft Office or OpenDocument format. The file should contain text only (the main article, references, tables, figure captions, etc.). Figures must be sent in separate files and if they incorporate text (aside from captions) the file format must allow for them to be edited. If a table or figure is copyrighted, this circumstance must be specified.
References must be set out as shown below, although the editors may subsequently adapt them according to the definitive publishing style:
Codina, C. [et al.] (1989). “Potencial biotecnològic del cultiu de cè?lules vegetals per a l’obtenció de productes farmacèutics”. Treb. Soc. Cat. Biol., 40: 47-70.
Mellado, R. P. (1987). “Vectores utilizados para la manipulación y expresión de genes”. In: Vicente, M.; Renart, J. (ed.). Ingeniería genética. Madrid: CSIC, 21-30.
Wolffe, A. (1995). Chromatin structure and function. London: Academic Press.
Full bibliographic references must be set out in alphabetical order at the end of articles and, if they contain more than two authors, only the first author should be specified followed by the indication et al. in square brackets. References to the bibliography within the text must follow the author-year system rather than being in numerical order of appearance and, if they contain more than two authors, only the first author should be specified followed by the indication et al. without square brackets.
Specific criteria for articles in the “Destacats de recerca” section
Articles in the “Destacats de recerca” section should be between 20,000 and 30,000 characters long and include the following information: title; authors’ names and surname; personal particulars of all authors; contact author (email, address and telephone number required); abstract in Catalan (1,000 characters maximum); keywords in Catalan (maximum of 5); title, abstract and keywords in English (which must be true to the Catalan versions in terms of length and content); main text of the article (with two sections of levels at the most); references; tables and figure captions.
Specific criteria for articles in the “Destacats de ciència” section
Articles in the “Destacats de ciència” section must include the following information: title (non-academic), subtitle (optional and may be more academic), authors’ names and surname and personal particulars of all authors. In addition, if applicable, references, tables and figure captions. Articles in this section can be either of the following:
— Long articles (6,000-8,000 characters; including an introduction of about 500-700 characters and a biographical note of about 500-600 characters). The latter may be of the following types: “Exposició” (broad development in a field of science) and “Jove investigador” (written by the SCB student prize winner).
— Short articles (4,000 characters). Types: “Flaix” (broad development in a field of science); “Carrera” (description of the career of a non-research biologist); “Fòrum” (description of a research centre); “Ciència en societat” (description of knowledge transfer activities); “Del laboratori a l’aula” (SCB education section proposals); “Racons” (proposals preferably made by the cross-disciplinary sections for students and biology and industry); “Lectura” (science book published in Catalan) or “Un lloc per visitar” (proposal about scientific tourism).
The intellectual property of the articles belongs to the respective authors.
At the time of submitting the articles to Treballs de la Societat Catalana de Biologia, authors accept the following terms:
— Authors assign to the SCB (a subsidiary of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans) the rights of reproduction, public communication (including communication through social networks) and distribution of the articles submitted for publication to Treballs de la Societat Catalana de Biologia, in any form and medium, including digital platforms. The Publications Committee reserves the right to accept or refuse submitted articles and the right to make any editorial changes it deems appropriate. If the suggested changes are accepted by authors, they should re-submit the article with such changes.
— Authors answer to the SCB for the authorship and originality of submitted articles. In other words, authors assure that submitted articles do not contain fragments of works by other authors or fragments of their own previously published works; that the content of articles is original, and that the copyright of third parties is not infringed upon. Authors accept this responsibility and undertake to hold harmless the SCB for any loss or damage resulting from non-compliance with this obligation. Furthermore, they should include a statement in articles submitted to the journal regarding their responsibility for the content of the articles.
— Authors are responsible for obtaining permission for the reproduction of all graphic material included in articles, and they should moreover ensure that images, videos, etc., have been created with the consent of the individuals appearing in them, and that material belonging to third parties is clearly identified and acknowledged as such within the text. Likewise, authors should provide the respective consents and authorisations to the SCB when submitting articles.
— The SCB is exempt from any liability arising from the possible infringement of intellectual property rights by authors. In all cases, it undertakes to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies, if necessary.
— Unless otherwise stated in the text or in the graphic material, the contents published in the journal are subject to an Attribution - NonCommercial - NoDerivs 3.0 Spain (by-nc-nd) license from Creative Commons, the full text of which may be consulted at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/es/deed.en. Therefore, the general public is authorised to reproduce, distribute and communicate articles as long as their authorship and publishing entity are acknowledged, and no commercial use is made of them nor derivative work produced from them.
— The journal is not responsible for the ideas and opinions expressed by the authors of published articles.
