| Instructions for authors |
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Download Veterinary Research Instructions for Authors in PDF format. Veterinary Research is a peer-reviewed journal that publishes original and review articles focusing on Animal Infection and Epidemiology. The areas of interest are bacteriology, parasitology, virology, immunology and epidemiology. Food animals, companion animals, equines, wild animals (if the infections are of zoonotic interest and/or in relation with domestic animals), laboratory animals and animal models of human infections are considered. Studies on zoonotic and emerging infections are highly appreciated. The journal publishes articles of high quality and novelty dealing with host-microbe interactions:
Specific aspects of treatment of diseases, clinical and pathological studies (including case reports), diagnosis tests and technical reports do not fall within the scope of the journal. Papers must make an original and significant contribution to the field and must be of interest to a global readership. Studies that are preliminary, of weak originality or merely descriptive, those that are technically competent but do not make a significant advance in the knowledge of animal infections as well as negative results are not appropriate to the journal. Papers providing information of geographically limited interest or which repeat what has been established elsewhere will not be accepted. Review articles are highly appreciated. They should focus either on a pathogen or on analyses of the mechanisms of host-microbe interactions including epidemiological studies. The articles should present comprehensive, critical summaries of current knowledge in the field and should not be limited to a discussion of the author's work. Thematic issues composed of solicited review articles are also published. The journal is aimed at scientists working in research institutes, universities, governmental institutions or non-governmental organisations, private firms and the pharmaceutical industry. Manuscripts should be written preferably in English. Authors whose native language is not English are strongly advised to have their manuscripts checked by an English-speaking colleague prior to submission. Original papers should report the results of original research. The material should not have been previously published or submitted for publication elsewhere. Short notes as such are not published, but there is no specific restriction of the minimum number of pages provided that papers are of an appropriate scientific standard. Short papers should be completely documented both by references to the literature and description of the experimental procedures employed. The same structure and presentation (including 2 separate sections for the Results and Discussion) are required for all papers. Review articles should cover subjects falling within the Aims and scope of the journal. Veterinary Research accepts only online submission. Manuscript should be in one single Word or RTF file (use Veterinary Research template). The manuscript must be accompanied with a cover letter containing the following items:
Before being sent to reviewers, manuscripts are pre-screened by the editorial office to check the main basic criteria that make the paper potentially suitable for Veterinary Research: accordance with the Aims and scope of the journal, nature of the study, originality of the results, quantity and quality of data, general conclusions, presentation of the work including the quality of the English language. If the paper does not fulfil these criteria, it may be rejected at this stage without review. Manuscripts that pass the pre-screening stage are normally sent to a minimum of two experts chosen by the Editors-in-chief. The identity of peer reviewers is kept confidential. Only papers of high quality and novelty and of general significance are published. Manuscripts that, in the reviewers' opinions, require major revisions may be rejected, in particular if they are poorly written (style or language). If minor revisions are recommended by the reviewers, authors are expected to make the appropriate revisions within one month. For manuscripts requiring major revisions, the revised version must be sent to the Editorial Office within 2 months (4 months if additional data are needed). Revised manuscripts may be reviewed a second time. Revised manuscripts that are received after the deadline will not be considered. The manuscript should be typed double-spaced (Times New Roman 12 pts) with margins of at least 3.5 cm at the top, bottom and sides, and sent in only one single RTF or Word file (use Veterinary Research template). Lines and pages should be numbered. Original articles should not exceed 30 double-spaced typed pages including figures, tables and references. Review articles should not exceed 50 pages. The manuscript should be presented as follows: title page, abstract and keywords, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, acknowledgments, references, figure legends, tables, figures. Section headings should be numbered following the international numbering system (1., 1.1., 1.1.1., etc.). Tables and figures, with their captions, should not appear in the text, but be placed together on separate sheets at the end of the manuscript. Punctuation characteristics of the English language should be used (semi-colons, colons, question marks and exclamation marks are never preceded by a space in English). Abbreviations should be punctuated. There is no space between opening and closing brackets and the following and preceding words. Uppercase letters should be accented; small capitals should not be used. The publication of the text and black and white figures is free of charge. The title page should include the following: the title of the article, which should be concise but explicit, the surname and forenames (in full) of each author, the department and institution where the study was carried out, e-mail address of the corresponding author (this author being identified by an asterisk), a short title (running head) of no more than 45 characters, including spaces. The abstract (less than 250 words) should be in a form suitable for abstracting services. It should contain no paragraphs, footnotes, references, cross-references to figures and tables or undefined abbreviations. Up to five keywords should be supplied, to assist the reader and facilitate information retrieval. Keywords may be taken from the title, abstract or text. The plural form and uppercase letters should be avoided. Keywords should be written in bold lowercase letters, separated by slashes. In the reference list, the references should appear in alphabetical order, preceded by an Arabic numeral enclosed in square brackets. The authors' names are listed in alphabetical order and in chronological order for each author. The references are cited in the text by the corresponding number enclosed in square brackets. All entries in the reference list must correspond to references in the text and vice versa. The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the rules of Biosciences Information Service (Biosis) or those of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Words for which no abbreviation is given should be written in full. Style file that conform to Veterinary Research is available for EndNote. The reference list must include articles published in print or online-only journals (as well as in press articles), books and book chapters. Examples are given below of the layout and punctuation to be used in the references.
Proceedings of meetings, abstracts, articles submitted for publication, unpublished data, personal communications, theses, letters, electronic material and websites should not appear in the reference list but should be cited in the text as footnotes as follows. However these reports must not appear in the Materials and methods section of an original article.
5.5. Illustrations (tables and figures) Illustrations should be numbered in Arabic numerals for figures and Roman numerals for tables, and should be referred to in the text by their number: Figure 1, Table I. Lettering (symbols, numbers, etc.) should not differ from figure to figure and should be of sufficient size to remain legible after reduction (letters 1–2 mm high after reduction to either one or two column format). Figures should be original (i.e. not already reproduced). Photographs should be presented in the form of plates to be reproduced without reduction (maximum size 12.5 × 19 cm). The figure captions should be explicit so that the illustrations are comprehensible without reference to the text. In the paper version of the journal, figures are in black and white (for colour, authors should make a contribution, prices on request), but they appear in colour in the electronic version. Tables should not exceed 84 characters per line (140 if in landscape format). The title of each table should be written above the corresponding table. Figures and tables published elsewhere cannot be accepted without the prior consent of the publisher and the author(s). Electronic-only material is designed to provide supplementary information that is either too voluminous for printing or that is designed specifically for the Web. Electronic-only material may include but is not restricted to the following: (Large) tables; Appendices; Programmes; Images; Videos; … For more information on the submission of this material (file requirements, etc.), please contact the Editorial Office. To favour a broad and easy access to all published scientific information, Veterinary Research is now offering the possibility for the authors to make their papers freely available to all interested readers (subscribers or non subscribers) as soon as the articles are published online (authors should make a contribution). All studies involving animals must have been performed in compliance with guidelines outlined in the International Guiding Principles for Biomedical Research Involving Animals as issued by the Council for the International Organizations of Medical Sciences. Papers may be rejected on ethical grounds if standards of care or procedures performed on animals are not met.
Proofs will be sent by electronic mail to the corresponding author indicated on the title page. They should be carefully corrected and returned to the publisher within 48 hours of reception. If this period is exceeded, the galleys will be proofed only by the editorial staff and printed without the authors' corrections. The PDF file of the article will be provided free of charge to the corresponding author. An order form for reprints – and, if required, for the publication of colour figures – will accompany the proofs. As soon as the article has been published, the author is considered to have transferred his rights to the publisher. Requests for reproduction should be sent to the publisher.
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