Search site

All articles on the back issues of P-SMBL can be freely downloaded;

Go to the web-page for free down load -->

Photo 座安佑奈

Photo Mariko Kawamura

Home > Instructions

Instructions to Authors

SCOPE AND AIM

P-SMBL aims to contribute to the progress of marine biology and other related sciences by publishing the scientific papers regarding organisms of mainly Indo-Pacific waters. Papers of scientific fields of the natural history, such as taxonomy, morphology, and evolutionary biology, are the most suitable.

PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPT

Authors are requested to read the following instruction carefully and prepare their manuscript properly. Poor attention to the instruction may cause unnecessary delay of the processing of papers.

Manuscripts should be prepared in English as concisely as possible. Those authors whose native language are not English should ask a native English speaker to improve language usage before submitting the manuscript.

Text: The text should be printed in double spaced manner on one side of A4 size paper leaving margins of more than 2 cm in width all around. All sheets should be numbered consecutively, and the name of the senior author should be given on the upper right corner. The first page of the text should include the title of the paper, information of author(s) (name, affiliation, and corresponding address inclusive of e-mail address of all authors and telephone and fax numbers of the representative author), the running title (not more than 50 characters), and key words (not more than 10 items).

The second page should include only the abstract of the paper (less than 300 words), expressing concisely the hypothesis, the approach the author (s) adopted, the results, and the conclusion.

The main body of the text consisting of introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, acknowledgments, reference and so on, should be prepared from page 3.

The papers listed in the reference section should be referred as Tokioka (1960, 1961a) or (Harada, 1995; Harada et al., 1992; Harada and Fuse, 1994).

References: The reference should list all the papers mentioned in the text alphabetically in the following manner.

Referring papers published in journals:

Shirayama, Y. 1984a. The abundance of deep-sea meiobenthos in the Western Pacific in relation to environmental factors. Oceanologica Acta, 7, 113-121.

Shirayama, Y. 1984b. Vertical distribution of meiobenthos in the sediment profile in bathyal, abyssal and hadal deep-sea systems of the Western Pacific. Oceanologica Acta, 7, 123-129.

Shirayama, Y. and Horikoshi, M. 1989. Comparison of the benthic size structure between sublittoral, upper slope and deep seas of the Western Pacific. Internationale Revue der gesamten Hydrobiologie, 74, 1-13.

(It should be noticed that the title of journals should not be abbreviated.)

Referring papers published in books:

Shirayama, Y. 1995. Current status of deep-sea biology in relation to the CO2 disposal. In, Handa, N. and Ohsumi, T. (eds.) Direct Ocean Disposal of Carbon Dioxide, Terra Scientific Publishing Company, Tokyo, pp. 253-264.

Referring a book as a whole:

Gage, J. D. and Tyler, P. A. 1991. Deep-Sea Biology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 504 pp.

Tables: The tables should be provided in the shape ready to reproduce. Each table should be printed on a separate sheet of paper using a font "Times new roman" or related one. The large table that can not be printed in 2 pages is not acceptable.

Figures: Illustrations should be prepared in a size of not smaller than B5 and not larger than A3. They should fit to the shape of the page, that is 14 cm wide by 20 cm height at maximum. Authors are requested to pay the most careful attention to the thickness of lines, the size of letters and the spacing of drawings. Photographs should be printed in a high contrast tone. Manuscripts inclusive of figures will not be returned to the authors unless they requested. The cost for printing the color plates must be covered by the author.

Proofs: The first galley proof will be sent to the senior author. The author should return it to the editor within 3 days after the receipt. Only corrections of typographic errors are allowed at this stage.

Reprints: P-SMBL provide 50 reprints to the senior author free of charge. The author can order additional reprints when the author returns the galley proof to the editor.

Page charge: P-SMBL do not set the maximal length of each article, and will not bill the page charge for the regular black-ink printing. However, the cost for printing color plates should be covered by the author (s).