The Condor is an international journal that publishes original research reports, review articles, and commentary pertaining to the biology of wild birds.
The Condor has online submission aimed at producing rapid decisions and rapid publication. Manuscript must be submitted online through ScholarOne Manuscripts (formerly Manuscript Central) at: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ucpress-cond. New authors will need to create an account on ScholarOne Manuscripts, after which the system will guide them through the manuscript-submission process. To set up an account, simply visit the website, enter your contact information, and choose a password. Once you are registered on the system, you can check the status of your submitted manuscript(s), make changes to your contact information, or make future submissions by logging on to your existing account. If you have difficulties or questions, please contact the editorial office at [email protected].
Types of Papers
Manuscripts are published as Research Papers, Review Papers, Commentaries, or Book Reviews. A forum or special section may be submitted only with prior approval of the Editor-in-Chief. Research Papers are manuscripts that summarize research with promise to have a broad influence on the ornithological community. Review Papers provide a comprehensive overview and summary of a particular topic that has not been previously reviewed or is in need of an update. Review topics should be discussed with the Editor-in-Chief before submission. Commentaries are brief papers that comment on articles published previously in the Condor. Ornithological books are reviewed in the Book Reviews section. Books for review should be sent to David L. Swanson, Biology Department, University of South Dakota, Vermillion, SD 57069. Interested book reviewers should contact Dr. Swanson directly (e-mail: [email protected]).
Format for Submitted Material
General Guidelines
Authors should read these instructions carefully before preparing a manuscript for submission. Papers that are not in Condor format may be returned without review.
Double-space and left-justify the entire manuscript, including the title page, text, literature cited, figure legends, and tables. Use the same size (at least 12 point) and type of font throughout the manuscript. Provide at least 3-cm margins on all sides, and use the American standard (8.5 × 11 inch) or A4 (21 × 30 cm) paper setting.
Make sure that all figures meet the specifications given under the “FIGURES” section (below).
Put the first author's name, and et al., if appropriate, in the upper right-hand corner of every page. Number text pages beginning with the Abstract through the list of references. Avoid footnotes in the text.
Write in the active voice and use American English and spelling throughout the manuscript, except for foreign literature citations.
Use real italics, not underlines, and real superscripts and subscripts, not raised or lowered characters.
Give the scientific name in parentheses at the first mention of a species, both in the abstract and in the article. Scientific and American English names of birds, and their order of presentation throughout the manuscript, including figures and tables, should follow:
North America: the American Ornithologists' Union's (AOU) Check-list of North American Birds (7th ed., 1998, as supplemented annually in July issues of the Auk and available on line at http://www.aou.org/checklist/north/);
South America: the AOU's on-line checklist for that continent (http://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.html);
Europe: the Association of European Rarities Committees (http://www.aerc.eu/General-Information.htm);
Africa: the African Bird Club (http://www.africanbirdclub.org/);
Australasia: Systematics and Taxonomy of Australian Birds, by Les Christidis and Walter Boles (2008)
Minimize use of nonstandard abbreviations or acronyms that readers must memorize in order to follow your paper.
Manuscript Order
Correct sequence for sections of a submitted Research Paper manuscript is Title page, Abstract, Key words, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgments, Literature Cited, Figure legends, Figures, and Tables. Indent each new paragraph (use 0.5-inch tabs), except the first paragraph that follows a heading. Each main heading is capitalized (INTRODUCTION, METHODS, RESULTS, DISCUSSION, ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, LITERATURE CITED). Second-order headings are also capitalized and appear on their own line. Third-order headings are italicized, followed by a period, and set in to the first line of the paragraph. Like other paragraphs, third-order headings are indented unless they follow a main or second-order heading (see examples in recent issues and these instructions). Do not use third-order headings unless the manuscript also has second-order headings.
Title page. Place the title (maximum length 200 characters), all authors' names with affiliations and addresses, and the e-mail address of the corresponding author on the title page. For Research Papers and Review Papers, provide an abridged title shorter than 60 characters in the upper portion of the same sheet. Current addresses not given above should be given as footnotes in the lower portion of the title page. Titles usually do not include scientific names of species unless the species lacks a well-established English name or has been little addressed in the scientific literature. Start the Abstract on the next page.
Abstract. Research Papers, Review Papers, and Commentaries should have an abstract that informs readers of essential points in the text. The abstract should be concise, informative, and intelligible without reference to the article itself. Avoid including statistical information. Abstracts are to be shorter than 250 words for Research Papers and Review papers and shorter than 150 words for Commentaries. Indent and italicize the word Abstract; the first sentence of the Abstract follows immediately. Authors are encouraged to provide a technically competent Spanish translation of the title and abstract if possible. This abstract is in addition to the English version and does not substitute for it.
Key words. The term Key words: is indented and in italics, followed by up to seven key words in alphabetical order. The key words are also in italics, except for genus and species, which are in roman (normal) type.
Introduction. The Introduction begins on a new page; it should provide the aims and significance of the research and place it within the framework of existing work. Limit the use of citations; in general there are few points that cannot be supported by three or fewer references. Long lists of citations are seldom required and detract from the readability of the manuscript. Avoid parenthetical phrases and “i.e.,” “e.g.,” “cf.,” and “see. . . .”
Methods. This section should provide enough information for the reader to be able to replicate and critically evaluate the research. The Methods should contain a subsection (STATISTICAL ANALYSES) describing the statistical tests and procedures used. Cite statistical software and any other analysis programs (e.g., Avisoft, DISTANCE, PAUP*). End this subsection with a statement to the effect that the values reported in the Results section are means ± SE (or SD). Then, in the Results section, simply present the values. Indicate the significance level of statistical tests. If reporting the results of analyses using the information-theoretic method, describe and justify the a priori hypotheses and models in the candidate set, identify exploratory analyses, and state the criterion used to evaluate models, e.g., 2nd-order AIC corrected for small sample sizes (AICC), AIC differences (Δi), and Akaike weights (Wi). In general, follow the suggestions of Anderson et al. (2001), Suggestions for presenting the results of data analyses, Journal of Wildlife Management 65:373–378.
Results. The Results section should include only results pertinent to the hypotheses or questions raised in the Introduction and treated in the Discussion. Use the same number of decimal places for means and SE or SD (e.g., 38.9 ± 1.2, not 38.9 ± 1.23); usually only one or two decimal places are necessary. Round off percentages to whole numbers. The text should not duplicate material presented in tables or figures. The text should make clear the relevant sample sizes, degrees of freedom, values of statistical tests, and P-values. Test statistics should be rounded to one (t-test, χ2, F, etc.) or two (r, r2, etc.) decimal places. When reporting the results of AIC analyses, please follow the advice of Anderson et al. (2001; as above), except omit the column of AIC values and report only the lowest value of AIC (or AICC, QAICC) in a footnote to the table—see recent issues for examples.
Discussion. It is useful to start the Discussion with a statement that summarizes the main results. The Discussion should develop the significance and importance of the results and set them into a framework of previous research. The discussion should follow logically from the results. Additional statistical tests and results are usually inappropriate here and should be treated in the Results section, except in unusual cases. In general, do not parenthetically cite in the Discussion figures or tables that have already been cited elsewhere in the paper.
Literature Cited. Cite references in the text as, for example, Darwin and Huxley (1993), or in parentheses as (Darwin and Huxley 1993). Do not use commas between author and year; however, use a comma between different citations by the same or different authors. List multiple citations in chronological order and use lowercase letters to indicate separate papers by the same author in the same year, e.g., (Zar 1973, Giles 1994a, 1994b). For citations with three or more authors, give the first author's surname followed by “et al.” and then the date, e.g., (Ricklefs et al. 1999).
Cite references in the Literature Cited section in alphabetical order according to the authors' surnames. Do not abbreviate names of publications, although eliminate a leading “The” from journal titles. Type references in upper and lower case (including all authors' names) in the following form:
Ankney, C. D., and R. T. Alisauskas. 1991. The use of nutrients by breeding waterfowl. Proceedings of the International Ornithological Congress 20:2170–2176.
Fraga, R. M. 1986. The Bay-winged Cowbird (Molothrus badius) and its brood parasites: interactions, coevolution, and comparative efficiency. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA.
Nolan, V. Jr. 1978. The ecology and behavior of the Prairie Warbler Dendroica discolor. Ornithological Monographs 26.
Ralph, C. J., G. L. Hunt Jr., M. G. Raphael, and J. F. Piatt [eds.]. 1995. Ecology and conservation of the Marbled Murrelet. USDA Forest Service General Technical Report PSW-GTR-152.
Rappole, J., and D. Warner. 1980. Ecological aspects of migrant bird behavior in Veracruz, Mexico, p. 353–393. In A. Keast and E. S. Morton [eds.], Migrant birds in the neotropics: ecology, behavior, distribution, and conservation. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC.
SAS Institute. 1990. SAS/STAT user's guide. Version 6, 4th ed. SAS Institute, Inc., Cary, NC.
Shipman, J. W. [online]. 2000. The Christmas Bird Count database project. <http://www.nmt.edu/~shipman/z/cbc/homepage.html> (15 March 2004).
Tables
Keep tables as simple as possible. Make them long and narrow rather than short and wide. They should be intelligible without reference to the manuscript and should not restate results given in the text. Each table should begin on a separate, unnumbered page and should be numbered with an arabic numeral in the same order as it appears in the text (i.e., TABLE 1, TABLE 2, etc.). Do not use vertical lines in the table; use horizontal lines for the main heading and the end of the table but not in the body of the table. The table must be typed in 12-point font and double-spaced throughout, including caption and footnotes (if necessary, use more than one sheet of paper for a table). Do not use boldface type in tables. Do not include extensive raw tabular material either as tables or appendices. Such data can be made available to interested readers by request from the author or posted on the author's web site. If birds are listed in several tables included with the manuscript, scientific names should be given only in the table with the comprehensive species list.
Figures
Figures should be simple and easily comprehended without reference to the manuscript. All figures should use the same style of lettering (in a sans serif font, preferably Arial) and presentation, with details and text made large enough to allow for reduction; figures are generally reduced to fit one column (8.5 cm wide) of the journal. For review, figures ought to be legible, but they need not be of high resolution. Once a paper is accepted for publication, the managing editor will contact you for the figures as individual files, which MUST be of high resolution and meet the following specifications:
1. In general, images need to have a resolution of 600 pixels per inch (dpi). Note that nearly all images that are in JPG or GIF format will be 72 dpi and not acceptable for the printing process.
2. If possible, figures should be submitted in TIF (if halftone) or EPS (if line art) format. Otherwise, Adobe Photoshop (.psd) or Adobe Acrobat (.pdf—use the Press setting under Job Option) is acceptable. The successful reproduction of files in PowerPoint (.ppt), or Word (.doc) format can not be guaranteed.
Figures must be monochrome unless the author has funds to support color printing. Do not use three-dimensional graphs or odd fills. Preferred shadings are white and crosshatching. Preferred point symbols are circles, squares, and triangles. Give keys and other explanations either in the figure legend or on the figure itself; however, symbols themselves should not appear in the legend. Do not describe unfilled symbols as “open.” Follow Condor format for axis labels (including capitalization) by examining figures in any recent issue of the Condor.
Legends for all figures should be typed on a separate sheet labeled “Figure Legends.” Number the figures in the order they appear in the text (e.g., FIGURE 1, FIGURE 2, etc.). Figure legends should not repeat information already mentioned in the text or in tables.
Illustrations should be submitted as digital images and must meet the specifications outlined above. For sound spectrograms (sonograms), use the actual tracing if it is sharp, clear, and relatively short. If intensity differences are not important, then submit a high-contrast digital image that meets the above specifications. Make sure all axes are labeled.
Statistics
Follow Condor format for statistical indices, including capitalization, italics, superscripts, and subscripts. The following are in italics:
The following statistical information is set in normal font, not italics:
Note that all variables are italicized, unless they are denoted by a Greek letter, in which case they are not italicized.
Time and Date
Use the 24-hr clock and retain the colon (18:30, 07:00). Times should be reported as local time together with appropriate time zone. Give dates as day month year (20 September 1968) and year ranges as 1989–1991, not 1989–91. Abbreviate seconds (sec), minutes (min), and hours (hr), but not day, week, month, or year. Names of months may be abbreviated in figures or long tables.
Numerals
Spell out numbers less than 10, except for measurements, such as 5 km (but nine blackbirds). Hours, min, and sec are units of measurement. Use metric measurements throughout. There is neither a comma nor a space in numbers less than 10 000 (e.g., 1232 larks). In numbers greater than 9999, separate the hundreds and thousands places with a space, e.g., 22 432 murres. Precede decimal fractions by a zero, (0.97, not .97). Round percentages to the nearest whole number (57%, not 57.3%; <1%, not 0.3 or 0.8%), unless there is some compelling reason not to do so. Do not use slant lines in expressions of units; instead, use the exponential form or the word per throughout text, tables, and figures (e.g., use kJ day-1, not kJ/day).
Manuscript Submission
All manuscripts are to be submitted through ScholarOne Manuscripts (formerly Manuscript Central) at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ucpress-cond. The original submission should have all text, figures, and tables included within one electronic file (.wpd, .doc, or .pdf file), loaded as the “main document” file. After loading your file, it will be converted to a .pdf version. Check the .pdf of your manuscript to ensure that all text, symbols, figures, etc. have properly converted. Manuscripts submitted with conversion errors ormultiple versions of the manuscript, figures, or tables, etc., will be returned to the author without review.
You will receive an automatic e-mail confirmation if the manuscript was submitted properly. If this e-mail is not received, then return to ScholarOne Manuscripts to ensure that you completed the submission process, including clicking on the “submit” icon at the final submission stage. If you experience any problems with your submission, contact the Editorial Assistant at [email protected].
A corresponding author can check the status of a submitted manuscript at any time by logging into his or her account. Manuscripts rejected without review typically will be returned within ten days after submission. For manuscripts considered for publication, our goal is that the decision time be short, but the time to first decision can be a couple of months. Please do not contact the editorial office about a manuscript's status until two to three months have elapsed. You will be informed about the decision on publication via e-mail directly from the Editor-in-Chief. If you are asked to submit a revision, you have six months for resubmission; if you miss that deadline, your manuscript will be withdrawn and any resubmission will be treated as a new manuscript, requiring full review from scratch. Instructions for resubmission will be provided in your decision e-mail.
Accepted manuscripts are typeset directly from an electronic version. We will provide instructions for preparation of the electronic version once a manuscript is accepted. We will also ask for high-resolution figures (EPS for line art, TIF for photos), one figure per file, at this time. You, as corresponding author, will receive a copy-edited version of your manuscript from the Managing Editor. Once you have reviewed the copy editing, your manuscript will be typeset. You will then receive the typeset version, known as proofs or galleys, for your approval. Only minor changes to the paper may be made at the proof stage. The cost of any major changes due to an author's mistake will be the responsibility of the author. Accepted manuscripts will be published online as soon as the copy editing is approved, figures of adequate resolution are received, and the publication agreement required by University of California Press is signed. Then they may be cited as online early with the DOI number. You will be told the issue in which your paper will appear in as soon as the editorial office has decided it.
Authors of accepted manuscripts are invited to submit high-quality digital images (in TIF or Adobe Photoshop format) for use as cover illustrations for the Condor.
Proofs, Copyright, and Reprints
Proofs and reprint order forms ordinarily will be sent electronically to the designated corresponding author. Please inform the editorial office well in advance of any change in address or alternate system for handling proofs.
Papers accepted for publication in the Condor will be published electronically through UC Press's online-early system (membership in the Cooper Ornithological Society provides access) as soon as the copy editing is approved, figures of adequate resolution are received, and the publication agreement required by University of California Press is signed. Then they may be cited as online early with the DOI number, generally well ahead of the quarterly print publication. A free .pdf reprint of the final published version will be provided electronically to the corresponding author. Corresponding authors will be sent the publication agreement necessary for publication along with the copy-edited manuscript. Ir must be properly filled out and signed before publication of the article.
Page Charges
Upon final acceptance of the manuscript, payment of page charges ($100 per printed page) is requested if funds are available for this purpose. Pages with color figures are charged an additional $350 per page.
