Volume 1, Issue 2 29 Fall 2006

INSTRUCTIONS FOR CONTRIBUTORS

 

SCOPE OF MATERIAL

 

The Bulletin of the Eastern Native Tree Society accepts solicited

and unsolicited submissions of many different types, from

quasi-technical field reports to poetry, from peer-reviewed

scientific papers to digital photographs of trees and forests.

This diverse set of offerings also necessitates that (1)

contributors specifically identify what type of submission they

are providing; (2) all submissions should follow the standards

and guidelines for publication in the Bulletin; and (3) the

submission must be new and original material or be

accompanied by all appropriate permissions by the copyright

holder. All authors also agree to bear the responsibility of

securing any required permissions, and further certify that

they have not engaged in any type of plagiarism or illegal

activity regarding the material they are submitting.

 

SUBMITTING A MANUSCRIPT

 

As indicated earlier, manuscripts must either be new and

original works, or be accompanied by specific written permission

of the copyright holder. This includes any figures,

tables, text, photographs, or other materials included within a

given manuscript, even if most of the material is new and

original.

 

Send all materials and related correspondence to:

 

Don C. Bragg

Editor-in-Chief, Bulletin of the ENTS

USDA Forest Service-SRS

P.O. Box 3516 UAM

Monticello, AR 71656

 

Depending on the nature of the submission, the material may

be delegated to an associate editor for further consideration.

The Editor-in-Chief reserves the right to accept or reject any

material, regardless of the reason. Submission of material is no

guarantee of publication.

All submissions must be made to the Editor-in-Chief in digital

format. Manuscripts should be written in Word (*.doc),

WordPerfect (*.wpd), rich-text format (*.rtf), or ASCII (*.txt)

format.

 

Images can be submitted in any common format like *.jpg,

*.bmp, *.tif, *.gif, or *.eps, but not PowerPoint (*.ppt). Images

must be of sufficient resolution to be clear and not pixilated if

somewhat reduced or enlarged. Make sure pictures are at least

300 dots per inch (dpi) resolution. Pictures can be color,

grayscale, or black and white. Photographs or original line

drawings must be accompanied by a credit line, and if

copyrighted, must also be accompanied by a letter with

express written permission to use the image. Likewise, graphs

or tables duplicated from published materials must also have

expressly written copyright holder permission.

 

PAPER CONTRIBUTIONS (ALL TYPES)

 

All manuscripts must follow editorial conventions and styling

when submitted. Given that the Bulletin is edited, assembled,

and distributed by volunteers, the less work needed to get the

final product delivered, the better the outcome. Therefore,

papers egregiously differing from these formats may be

returned for modification before they will be considered for

publication.

 

Title Page

 

Each manuscript needs a separate title page with the title,

author name(s), author affiliation(s), and corresponding

author’s postal address and e-mail address. Towards the

bottom of the page, please include the type of submission

(using the categories listed in the table of contents) and the

date (including year).

 

Body of Manuscript

 

Use papers previously published in the Bulletin of the Eastern

Native Tree Society as a guide to style formatting. The body of

the manuscript will be on a new page. Do not use headers or

footers for anything but the page number. Do not hyphenate

text or use a multi-column format (this will be done in the final

printing). Avoid using footnotes or endnotes in the text, and

do not use text boxes. Rather, insert text-box material as a

table.

All manuscript submissions should be double-spaced, leftjustified,

with one-inch margins, and with page and line

numbers turned on. Page numbers should be centered on the

bottom of each new page, and line numbers should be found in

the left margin.

Paragraph Styles. Do not indent new paragraphs. Rather, insert

a blank line and start the new paragraph. For feature articles

(including peer-reviewed science papers), a brief abstract (100

to 200 words long) must be included at the top of the page.

Section headings and subheadings can be used in any type of

written submission, and do not have to follow any particular

format, so long as they are relatively concise. The following

example shows the standard design:

 

FIRST ORDER HEADING

Second Order Heading

Third Order Heading.

 

 The next sentence begins here, and any

other levels should be folded into this format.

Science papers are an exception to this format, and must

include sections entitled “Introduction,” “Methods and

Materials,” “Results and Discussion,” “Conclusions,”

“Literature Cited,” and appendices (if needed) labeled

alphabetically. See the ENTS website for a sample layout of a

science paper.

 

Trip reports, descriptions of special big trees or forests, poetry,

musings, or other non-technical materials can follow less rigid

styling, but will be made by the production editor (if and when

accepted for publication) to conform to conventions.

Instructions for Contributors Bulletin of the Eastern Native Tree Society.

Table and figure formats. Tables can be difficult to insert into

journals, so use either the table feature in your word processor,

or use tab settings to align columns, but DO NOT use spaces.

Each column should have a clear heading, and provide

adequate spacing to clearly display information. Do not use

extensive formatting within tables, as they will be modified to

meet Bulletin standards and styles. All tables, figures, and

appendices must be referenced in the text.

 

Numerical and measurement conventions. You can use either

English (e.g., inches, feet, yards, acres, pounds) or metric units

(e.g., centimeters, meters, kilometers, hectares, kilograms), so

long as they are consistently applied throughout the paper.

Dates should be provided in month day, year format (June 1,

2006). Abbreviations for units can and should be used under

most circumstances.

 

For any report on sites, heights must be measured using the

methodology developed by ENTS (typically the sine method).

Tangent heights can be referenced, especially in terms of

historical reports of big trees, but these cannot represent new

information. Diameters or circumference should be measured

at breast height (4.5 ft above the ground), unless some bole

distortion (e.g., a burl, branch, fork, or buttress) interferes with

measurement. If this is the case, conventional approaches

should be used to ensure diameter is measured at a

representative location.

 

Taxonomic conventions. Since common names are not

necessarily universal, the use of scientific names is strongly

encouraged, and may be required by the editor in some

circumstances. For species with multiple common names, use

the most specific and conventional reference. For instance, call

Acer saccharum “sugar maple,” not “hard maple” or “rock

maple,” unless a specific reason can be given (e.g., its use in

historical context).

 

For science papers, scientific names MUST be provided at the

first text reference, or a list of scientific names corresponding to

the common names consistently used in the text can be

provided in a table or appendix. For example, red pine (Pinus

resinosa) is also known as Norway pine. Naming authorities

can also be included, but are not required. Be consistent!

Abbreviations. Use standard abbreviations (with no periods) for

units of measure throughout the manuscript. If there are

questions about which abbreviation is most appropriate, the

editor will determine the best one to use. Here are examples of

standardized abbreviations:

 

inch = in feet = ft

yard = yd acre = ac

pound = lb percent = %

centimeter = cm meter = m

kilometer = km hectare = ha

kilogram = kg day = d

 

Commonly recognized federal agencies like the USDA (United

States Department of Agriculture) can be abbreviated without

definition, but spell out state names unless used in mailing

address form. Otherwise, spell out the noun first, then provide

an abbreviation in parentheses. For example: The Levi

Wilcoxon Demonstration Forest (LWDF) is an old-growth

remnant in Ashley County, Arkansas.

 

Citation formats. Literature cited in the text must meet the

following conventions: do not use footnotes or endnotes.

When paraphrasing or referencing other works, use the

standard name date protocol in parentheses. For example, if

you cite this issue’s Founder’s Corner, it would be: “…and the

ENTS founder welcomed new members (Leverett 2006).” If

used specifically in a sentence, the style would be: “Leverett

(2006) welcomed new members…” Finally, if there is a direct

quotation, insert the page number into the citation: (Leverett

2006, p. 15) or Leverett (2006, p. 16-17). Longer quotations

(those more than three lines long) should be set aside as a

separate, double-indented paragraph. Papers by unknown

authors should be cited as Anonymous (1950), unless

attributable to a group (e.g., ENTS (2006)).

 

For citations with multiple authors, give both authors’ names

for two-author citations, and for citations with more than two,

use “et al.” after the first author’s name. An example of a twoauthor

citation would be “Kershner and Leverett (2004),” and

an example of a three- (or more) author citation would be

“Bragg et al. (2004).” Multiple citations of the same author and

year should use letters to distinguish the exact citation:

Leverett 2005a, Leverett 2005b, Leverett 2005c, Bragg et al.

2004a, Bragg et al. 2004b, etc.

 

Personal communication should be identified in the text, and

dated as specifically as possible (not in the Literature Cited

section). For example, “…the Great Smoky Mountains contain

most of the tallest hardwoods in the United States (W. Blozan,

personal communication, March 24, 2006).” Examples of

personal communications can include statements directly

quoted or paraphrased, e-mail content, or unpublished

writings not generally available. Personal communications are

not included in the Literature Cited section, but websites and

unpublished but accessible manuscripts can be.

 

Literature Cited. The references used in your work must be

included in a section titled “Literature Cited.” All citations

should be alphabetically organized by author and then sorted

by date. The following examples illustrate the most common

forms of citation expected in the Bulletin:

 

Journal:

Anonymous. 1950. Crossett names giant pine to honor L.L.

                Morris. Forest Echoes 10(5):2-5.

Bragg, D.C., M.G. Shelton, and B. Zeide. 2003. Impacts and

                management implications of ice storms on forests in

                the southern United States. Forest Ecology and

                Management 186:99-123.

Bragg, D.C. 2004a. Composition, structure, and dynamics of a

                pine-hardwood old-growth remnant in southern

                Arkansas. Journal of the Torrey Botanical Society

                131:320-336.

Instructions for Contributors Bulletin of the Eastern Native Tree Society.

Proceedings:

Leverett, R. 1996. Definitions and history. Pages 3-17 in

                Eastern old-growth forests: prospects for rediscovery

                and recovery, M.B. Davis, editor. Island Press,

                Washington, DC.

 

Book:

Kershner, B. and R.T. Leverett. 2004. The Sierra Club guide to

                the ancient forests of the Northeast. University of

                California Press, Berkeley, CA. 276 p.

 

Website:

Blozan, W. 2002. Clingman’s Dome, May 14, 2002. ENTS website

                http://www.uark.edu/misc/ents/fieldtrips/

                gsmnp/clingmans_dome.htm. Accessed June 13,

                2006.

 

Use the hanging indent feature of your word processor (with a

0.5-in indent). Do not abbreviate any journal titles, book

names, or publishers. Use standard abbreviations for states,

countries, or federal agencies (e.g., USDA, USDI).

 

ACCEPTED SUBMISSIONS

 

Those who have had their submission accepted for publication

with the Bulletin of the Eastern Native Tree Society will be mailed

separate instructions to finalize the publication of their work.

For those that have submitted papers, revisions must be

addressed to the satisfaction of the editor. The editor reserves

the right to accept or reject any paper for any reason deemed

appropriate.

 

Accepted materials will also need to be accompanied by an

author contract granting first serial publication rights to the

Bulletin of the Eastern Native Tree Society and the Eastern Native

Tree Society. In addition, if the submission contains copyrighted

material, express written permission from the

copyright holder must be provided to the editor before

publication can proceed. Any delays in receiving these

materials (especially the author contract) will delay publication.

Failure to resubmit accepted materials with any and

all appropriate accompanying permissions and/or forms in a

timely fashion may result in the submission being rejected.