INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPTS

SUBMISSION

Papers are considered on the understanding that their substance is not already published or being offered for publication elsewhere.

Manuscripts should be submitted to the Editor (to email: jmollstud@nhm.ac.uk), but subsequent correspondence may be with an Associate Editor. Receipt will be acknowledged. All manuscripts will be peer reviewed before publication.

Initial submission should be made by email. Please submit both a Word document (text material only) and a PDF file (including all text and figures). Disks should only be submitted following acceptance of the manuscript for publication.

Final submission (following acceptance) should consist of of a copy of the text in Microsoft Word and separate electronic figures (see below for format). Submission may be by email or on CD.

Contributors are asked to follow these instructions closely. Failure to comply will cause delay and may lead to the return of the manuscript.

GENERAL PRESENTATION

Papers should be written in clear, concise English. Sentences should not begin with abbreviations or numerals.

The first page of the manuscript should consist of: title (capitals); authors' names (capitals) and their full postal address(es) (italics); short running head (capitals); footnote with name and email address of corresponding author.

This should be followed by: Abstract (on separate page); main text; Acknowledgements; References; figure captions and tables (on separate pages). Each page should be numbered sequentially. Indicate the approximate position of each figure and table in the margin of the text.

Hierarchy of headings should not normally exceed two: main headings (centred, capitals) and subsidiary headings (on the left, in italics). Do not number headings; avoid footnotes.

The main text should normally consist of: Introduction; Material and Methods; Results (or Systemic Descriptions); Discussion.

In the Acknowledgements external sources of funding for the costs of research and publication should be listed. Where appropriate, authors may also wish to acknowledge intellectual input from others (including reviewers), collection permits, research permissions and other forms of assistance.

Tables should be presented on separate pages, numbered with Arabic numerals and with the title (in the format: 'Table 1. List of localities.') at the top of the page. They should be referred to as 'Table 1', etc in the text.

Abbreviations for statistical parameters include: P, n, SD, SE, df, ns.

SUPPLEMENTARY DATA

Supporting material that is not essential for inclusion in the full text of the manuscript, but would nevertheless benefit the reader, can be made available by the publisher as online-only content, linked to the online manuscript.

The material should not be essential to understanding the conclusions of the paper, but should contain data that are additional or complementary and directly relevant to the article content. Such information might include more detailed methods, extended data sets/data analysis, or additional figures (including colour, which is published online-only at no charge to the authors).

All text and figures must be provided in suitable electronic formats. All material to be considered as Supplementary Data must be submitted at the same time as the main manuscript for peer review. It cannot be altered or replaced after the paper has been accepted for publication. Please indicate clearly the material intended as Supplementary Data upon submission. Also ensure that the Supplementary Data are referred to in the main manuscript where necessary.

NOMENCLATURE AND SYSTEMATIC DESCRIPTIONS

Italicize the names of genera, subgenera and species, but not those of higher taxa. When first mentioned, specific names that are the subject of the research should include the authority and date. Descriptions of new taxa and taxonomic revisions must comply with the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature.

Headings for all taxonomic categories in taxonomic papers should be centred and in bold (including authorities and 'new species', etc).

Subsiduary headings for taxonomic descriptions should be to the left and in italics, with text continuing on same line [e.g. 'Anatomy (Figs 2, 3): . . .']. They should optimally include, in the following order: [Synonymy] this does not require a heading; Types; Etymology (for new taxa); Material examined; Diagnosis; Description (or separate headings for Shell, Radula, Anatomy, etc.); Distribution; Remarks.

Synonymies should be in 'condensed' format, i.e. each specific name followed through its various generic combinations in order of date of first usage, with subsequent references to the same genus + species following on chronologically, as in the example:

• Turbo tricarinatus Wood, 1928: 20; pl. 4, fig. 7 (Botany Bay, Australia; holotype AMS 12998). Jones, 1998: 45.
  
  Littorina tricarinata—Mørch, 1960: 99.
  
  Littorina bifasciata Adams, 1952: 67 (no locality; types lost; neotype here designated BMNH 2356). Reeve, 1990: 56 (in part).
  
  Littorina nigra—Peterson, 1964: 43; pl. 12, fig. 3 (not Sowerby, 1832).

Diagnoses and descriptions must be given in 'telegraphic' style, unless full sentences are required for detailed explanations.

The final entry is an example of a misidentification, not the introduction of an available name. Note that a long dash must separate taxon and author except in the case of reference to the original description. Full references to the authors cited in synonymies (not including authors of homonyms) must appear in the final reference list at the end of the paper.

REFERENCES

References in the text should take one of the following forms:

• 'Nisbet (1973) said ...'
• or '... (Nisbet, 1973) ...'
• or '... (Merdsoy & Farley, 1973; Nisbet, 1973; Anderson, 1980) ...

Do not use 'loc cit.'. The first time a paper with up to three authors is referred to, give all the authors' names; thereafter use the form X et al.; for papers with four or more authors use et al. throughout.

References are listed alphabetically; the styles of entry to be used are:

• ANSELL, A.D. & TREVAILLION, A. 1970. Brood protection in the stenoglossan gastropod Bullia melanoides (Deshayes). Journal of Natural History, 4: 369-374.
• DUNCAN, C.J. 1975. Reproduction. In: Pulmonates, Vol. 1 (V. Fretter & J.F. Peake, eds), pp. 309-365. Academic Press, London.
• ELLIS, A.E. 1926. British snails. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
• NISBET, R.H. 1973. The role of the buccal mass in the trochid. Proceedings of the Malacological Society of London, 40: 435-468.
• RUNNEGAR, B. & POJETA, J. 1985. Origin and diversification of the Mollusca. In: The Mollusca, Vol. 10: Evolution (E.R. Trueman & M.R. Clarke, eds), pp. 1-57. Academic Press, London.
• THORSON, G. 1958. Parallel level bottom communities, their temperature adaptation, and their "balance" between predators and food animals. In: Perspectives in marine biology (A.A. Buzzati-Traverso, ed.), pp. 67-86. University of California Press, Berkeley.

Journal titles are printed in italics and cited in full with the volume number in bold.

If you use EndNote and/or Reference Manager to facilitate referencing citations (not required for submission), this journal's style is available for use.

RESEARCH NOTES

Short manuscripts (no longer than six double-spaced pages of text) that require rapid publication can be submitted as Research Notes. They are normally methodological notes or on subjects of exceptional interest.

There should be no headings and no abstract; acknowledgements should be brief. The title should be in bold lower-case type, the authors' names in upper-case and their addresses in italics.

References should be cited as in full papers.

ILLUSTRATIONS

All illustrations should be referred to in the text as 'Figures' (or, if in parentheses, as 'Fig.' or 'Figs') and numbered in a single series with Arabic numerals. (Note that figures in another work are referred to as 'fig.' or 'figs'.)

Colour figures can be published if necessary for the subject. Otherwise colour figures will be published at the authors' expense at a cost of £250 per colour figure.
Electronic images can be accepted in Adobe Photoshop compatible formats. Images should be saved in TIFF, as JPEG or in LZW compression format, with a resolution (at final size) of 600 dpi for halftones and 800 dpi for line drawings. Colour figures must be saved as CMYK colour not RGB. Graphics, such as line figures with text, can be accepted as TIFF or EPS files.

The text page size available is 235 x 175 mm with the text set in two columns each 85 mm wide. Illustrations should be prepared so that they fit into a single column, or across the breadth of the page, or occupy a full page. In all cases sufficient allowance must be made for the figure caption to appear beneath a figure. All figures must be prepared to a standard ready for publication.

Illustrations must each carry a scale bar and not magnifications in the figure captions.

Lettering should be in a sans-serif font (e.g. Helvetica or Arial), with final printing size no more than 3 mm. Each component of a composite figure should be given a capital letter; labels and abbreviations should be in lower-case letters.

Captions for figures should be grouped together in sequence and placed at the end of the paper. The caption format for composite figures should be, for example:

• Figure 1. Littorina littorea. A. Pallial oviduct. B. Penis. Abbreviations: a, albumen gland; b, bursa; sg, sperm groove. Scale bars: A = 2.0 mm; B = 1.0 mm.

PROOFS, OFFPRINTS AND COPYRIGHT

One set of proofs will be sent (by email) to the corresponding author only; it is assumed that only printer's errors and factual mistakes will be corrected. More extensive alterations will be charged to the author.

The corresponding author will receive a free-access URL to the online article once it is published in Advance Access. In addition the corresponding author is able to receive 25 free offprints (note: to claim 25 free offprints the offprint order form must be completed and returned by fax to the number on the form: if the offprint form is not received by Oxford Journals free offprints will not be supplied). Additional copies may be purchased. If purchasing offpints orders from the UK will be subject to a 17.5% VAT charge. For orders from elsewhere in the EU you or your institution should account for VAT by way of a reverse charge. Please provide us with your or your institution’s VAT number. Please download the form at http://www.oxfordjournals.org/mollus/for_authors/offprint.pdf and complete the form to place an order

It is a condition of publication in the Journal that authors grant an exclusive licence to the Journal of Molluscan Studies. This ensures that requests from third parties to reproduce articles are handled efficiently and consistently and will allow the article to be as widely disseminated as possible. As part of the licence agreement, authors may use their own material in other publications provided that the Journal is acknowledged as the original place of publication. Please download the form at http://www.oxfordjournals.org/mollus/for_authors/licence.pdf and follow the instructions on the form.

LANGUAGE EDITING

If English is not your first language, before submitting your manuscript you may wish to have it edited for language. This is by no means a mandatory step, but may help to ensure that the academic content of your paper is more fully understood by journal editors and reviewers. Language editing does not prejudice the decision concerning acceptance or rejection of your manuscript. If you would like information about one such service please click here. There are other specialist language editing companies that offer similar services and you can also use any of these. Authors bear any and all costs associated with such services.