Author Guidelines

 

This page explains how to prepare your manuscript for submission to Snow Leopard NEWS, a journal published by the Snow Leopard Network. Before submitting, please make sure that your article fits with the journal’s Aims and Scope.Snow Leopard NEWS publishes original contributions, observations and news related to the ecology and conservation of snow leopards and co-occurring species across the snow leopard range. Publication in Snow Leopard NEWS is free of charge.

Submission Categories 

Articles published in Snow Leopard NEWS fall into the following categories:

Field Notes (500-1,000 words main text) present novel natural history or field observations within snow leopard landscapes. Field notes must tell a compelling story that can help generate a novel hypothesis or that can be placed in a larger context of snow leopard and co-occurring species’ ecology, biology and evolution. These are typically expected (although not required) to be accompanied by photos that help to document the observations. 

Research Notes (500-1,500 words main text) present new findings, approaches, or concepts relevant to snow leopard and co-occurring species’ conservation. This is the most data-oriented section of Snow Leopard NEWS, typically outlining an introduction, methods, results and their concise discussion. Short review papers on a specific topic are welcome as well. We encourage the inclusion of photos, diagrams and maps.

Notes from the Conservation Frontline (500-1,000 words main text) emphasises issues that practitioners face at the frontline of conservation across snow leopard landscapes. The Notes should be concise and capture its relevance within the wider conservation literature. The structure is open to allow practitioners’ perspectives to be shared in a conducive form and should be written in a light way with a minimum of technical language. Any figures, plates or tables should be included only if essential for understanding the material.

Word Counts excludes the title page, abstract (up to 150 words), table content, tables and figure captions and references. 

Formatting your manuscript

Submissions must be in a Word Document format. Text should be in Times New Roman, size 12, double spaced with pages and lines numbered.

Title page

In the title page, include the title, author list with affiliations and corresponding author indicated, and Word count (main text).

• • • Title: The title should be concise and informative. If possible, include the main results in the title, eg. Bharal is the main prey of snow leopards in Bhutan.
    • Author list and affiliation: Enter author names in the following order: first name, middle name, last name (surname, family name). Include affiliations and indicate with superscript numbers which author they belong to, add a symbol to indicate who is the corresponding author and include contact information, e.g

Main text

The main text should start with an Abstract (if required by submission category). The abstract should summarise the main results of the work. It should contain no more than 150 words and should not contain references or unexplained abbreviations or acronyms.Use headings and subheadings to split the main text in sections (usually Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Literature Cited but other headings can be used if they suit your submission). Abbreviations should be written out in full at first mention. Do not use footnotes. 

 

Figures and photos

Pictures of species, habitat, landscape or other graphic material may illustrate articles. Diagrams, drawings and captions should be legible after reduction. Maps should always indicate the scale in metric unit and the North. All figures, photos and tables should be numbered and referred to in the main text. Figure and photo captions should be included in the end of the manuscript, after Literature cited. Any relevant copyright information must be included.

 

Literature Cited

• • References to publications in the text should be made by name of author and year of publication. 
  • The list of references, alphabetically ordered should appear at the end of the text as a Bibliography: Name(s) of author(s) should be followed by the year of publication, the complete title of the work, the name of the journal (in italics), volume and page numbers. For example: Johansson Ö., McCarthy T., Samelius G., Andrén H., Tumursukh L., Mishra C., 2015. Snow leopard predation on a livestock dominated landscape in Mongolia. Biological Conservation 184: pp 251–258. 
  • If, in the references, there are two or more books or papers with the same author and the same year of publication, a lower-case a, b, etc., should be added to the year of publication both in the reference list and in the text. For example: Sharma 2018a, Sharma 2018b. 

Submission Process

• • The call for Snow Leopard NEWS first issue submissions is open from June 1st to December 1st 2021.
  • Kindly submit your Notes to the following email address news@snowleopardnetwork.org following the above Submission formatting guideline. 
    • Please include the name and email address of three suggested reviewers (or any name where a reviewer conflict of interest may be of concern). 
  • The Associate Editors will conduct an initial review and communicate any decision including whether the piece will be peer reviewed. Some Notes however may be considered suitable for publication without peer review. If not suitable for the journal the author will be advised accordingly. In general, an initial response will be provided within 2-3 weeks of submission receipt. 
  • If accepted for review the submission will be sent to independent reviewers. The editors will decide whether the Note is accepted or rejected with or without revision taking into account the evaluation of the reviewers.
  • All newsletter issues will be open access and available to the public for consultation.
  • Snow Leopard NEWS is published online annually; the first issue is expected in the first half of 2022.

Download Guidelines to authors as a PDF

NEWS Team

Associate Editors: The Editorial team is made up of SLN Steering Committee members and invited SLN members.

The Editor in Chief is Dr. Orjan Johansson.

The editorial team is also made up of three Associate Editors (Dr. Lingyun Xiao, Dr. Justine Shanti Alexander and Munib Khanyari) that support the Editor in Chief. Dr. Sandro Lovari, SLN’s Steering Committee Chair, acts as Honorary Editor.

Editorial Board: An Editorial Board has been established consisting of the SLN Steering Committee and wider participation. It’s primary responsibility is providing overall guidance and support to the review process. The Board also aims to attract contributions from all snow leopard range countries. Members of the Editorial Board includes: Dr. David Borchers, Emma Nygren, Dr. Gustaf Samelius, Dr. Juan Li, Dr. Koustubh Sharma, Dr. Lu Zhi, Dr. Madhu Chetri, Dr. Matthew Low, Purevjav Lkhagvajav, Dr. Ranjini Murali, Dr. Rodney Jackson, Dr. Tom McCarthy and Dr. Yash Veer Bhatnagar.

Artists & Photographers: Artists and photographers from the snow leopard range are kindly contributing their work to the newsletter. 

Volunteers: Snow leopard NEWS also has the benefit of individual volunteers from across the world supporting translations, graphic design and editing. Our current volunteer team includes Lu Yao. 

General Announcements

• • Snow Leopard NEWS (first launch edition) is accepting submissions  
  • Snow Leopard NEWS is seeking english language editors for final editing of the notes or articles to be published. These positions are volunteers (and not remunerated at this time). If you have skills in this area and wish to contribute please contact us at news@snowleopardnetwork.org indicating your availability and sharing your CV.
  • Snow Leopard NEWS announced in Mandarin

Watch the Launch of SnowLeopard NEWS (Oct 21st 2021)!