European Journal of Taxonomy
Instructions for Reviewers
General information
Many thanks for accepting to review a manuscript which was submitted to the European Journal of
Taxonomy (EJT). The peer review system is an essential part of ensuring quality in scientific publishing,
and we highly appreciate the fact that you accepted this responsibility as a token of ‘mutual altruism’!
Indeed, as you are now devoting your time to help improving the work of a colleague, so your peers will
do the same for you when you submit a manuscript for publication. To help ensuring that publishing
scientists also act as referees, EJT considers it a gentlemen’s agreement that its authors, whose papers
were accepted, also act as referees for other manuscripts submitted to the journal.
Scope of the journal
EJT is an international, fully electronic, Open Access journal in descriptive taxonomy, covering subjects
in zoology, entomology, botany, and palaeontology. EJT-papers must be original and of high scientific
(content) and technical (language, art work...) standard. Manuscripts that are clearly substandard in
either of these categories will not be sent out for review. EJT is carried by a consortium of (European)
natural history institutes, but its scope is global. Both authorship and geographical region of study
need NOT be European. Authors are, however, invited to involve European natural history collections
by consulting extant material, or by depositing (type-) material related to the published paper in the
collection of a European Natural History Institute.
Editors will initially check if a manuscript fits the scope of the journal, but it is possible that your
in-depth analysis of the manuscript reveals that the promising title and abstract actually only cover a
technical note, or a limited faunistic/floristic survey, so that the manuscript in fact does fall out of the
scope of the journal. In that case, please alert the associate editor to this and recommend rejection.
Standards of the Journal
Both scientific and technical standards of EJT are high.
Scientific: please make sure that the Introduction soundly introduces the content of the paper and that
Material and Methods are complete and will allow repeatability. In Results, ensure that descriptions
are sound, complete and appropriate, that rules of the various International Codes of Nomenclature are
followed, that locations of type material (including coordinates) of new taxa are given, etc. All papers
should end with a discussion, even a short one, clearly outlining the (international) relevance of the work
presented.
The scope of EJT is global, so short faunistic/floristic notes, checklists of limited geographical areas
(e.g. a country) etc are not considered. Single species descriptions can only be accepted if the relevance
of the new taxon can be demonstrated (e.g. a description of single new species in a genus that already
contains many, will not be considered).
Describing new species on single specimen is strongly discouraged.
Technical: only papers in English are considered, and the English should not be substandard. Authors
can use their own style, as long as the manuscript in linguistically correct. American, UK or Australian
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European Journal of Taxonomy
styles of English are acceptable, as long as they are consistent within the entire manuscript. Illustrations
must be of high quality and very detailed.
Your recommendations to editors
We ask you to assess the manuscript in view of the scope of EJT, as well as of the journal’s technical and
scientific standards. The style and length of your assessment is completely open and free. After having
written your assessment, which will be forwarded to the authors, you can also enter blind comments
which will be read by topical and section editors, and editor in chief only. In addition, you can download
a word-file of the manuscript and annotate it. The Editorial Manager system will send only ‘sanitized’
version of the annotated manuscript to the authors, i.e. no names or initials of referees will appear in the
comments. If you wish to remain anonymous, please do not enter your name or initials in the file name.
Please recommend any of the following decisions:
Revise before review: if you think that the English is so substandard that it is impossible to
review this paper, or if quality of figures and tables makes them unreadable, or if for any other technical
reason you think it is impossible to review this paper in its present state, then please recommend this
option and explain the problem to the editor. If this is the case, then we apologize, as our initial editorial
screening should prevent such substandard papers to be sent out for review.
Accept: according to you, the paper is now ready to go into production as it is. No more minor
changes are needed, the language is acceptable.
Acceptable with minor revisions: the paper is technically and scientifically sound, only minor
corrections are needed, e.g. missing references, some weird sentences or title or abstract need to be
rephrased, some figures and/or tables are redundant or not clear,… Acceptance is guaranteed if these
problems are adequately addressed.
Revisions are needed: some more serious revision is needed. The introduction is incomplete;
Material and methods are unclear; illustrations and/or descriptions are substandard, etc. Acceptance is
not necessarily guaranteed.
Major revisions are needed: there are serious problems with the paper. The assumptions are
wrong, the introduction does not address the question at hand, the materials and methods might be
faulty, results are confused and complete analyses and illustrations are needed, discussion does not
address the results nor is the literature adequate, etc. Basically, the manuscript will need to be seriously
redone, but it will essentially remain the same story. Acceptance is NOT guaranteed, because replies to
questions as the above might reveal fundamental flaws, which will then lead to rejection.
In case you recommend major revision, please indicate if you are willing to undertake a re-revision.
Rejected, without possibility to resubmit: the paper is either out of scope (see above),
or technical and/or scientific standards are below those of the journal, for example if fatal flaws in
methods, results and/ or discussions are detected. Examples of this can be the description of taxa clearly
synonymous with already existing ones, descriptions or illustrations that do not meet the standards in the
field, etc.
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Instructions for Reviewers
Questions
Suggested: below, we list some questions that we would like you to address in your referee report. Many
thanks in advance.
• Is the contribution new and original?
• Is it as concise as possible or could some parts of the text, figures and tables be moved to
Electronic Supplementary Material?
• Is the abstract as concise as possible? Does it contain all taxonomic alterations? Will it be useful
as such for systematic databases?
• Does the paper follow the IMRAD structure (Introduction, Material and Methods, Results,
General Discussion)?
• Is the taxonomic science up to standard:
→ Do the authors follow the appropriate nomenclatorial rules?
→ Do descriptions of new taxa address all relevant issues (etymology, deposition of type material,
localisation of type and other localities, measurements, differential diagnosis, description, …)?
→ Is the technical and scientific quality of the line drawings and/or illustrations acceptable?
• Does the manuscript require improvement of language?
• Is the list of references sufficiently comprehensive?
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European Journal of Taxonomy
Workflow
Our articles are published on following website:
www.europeanjournaloftaxonomy.eu
For the whole Review Process, from submission until acceptation or rejection of manuscripts, we are
currently working on Editorial Manager system:
http://www.editorialmanager.com/ejt/
Below your main menu when you are logged in:
1 - Here you can access your Main Menu
2 - If you want to update your information you can do it here. When an Editor registers you, he
generally writes your name and email adress only.
3 - By default all Reviewers are also registered as Authors. You can change your role here
and access the “Author Menu” if you want to submit a manuscript. Always check that you selected the
correct role.
4 - Here are the three folders you will have access to during the review.
1°) Assignment
If you never worked in Editorial Manager for EJT before, you have probably been be registered by one
of our Editors and have received an email with your username and password (both of which you will
be able to modify, if you want).
The invitation to review will be sent in another email with the review due date and the article’s title.
2°) Accept or Decline to Review
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Instructions for Reviewers
Once logged in, select the “Reviewer” role and go to the folder “New Reviewer Invitation”. For each
article you have the possibility to select different actions with the “Action Link” (see above). You can
see the title and abstract of the submission and you must then accept or decline to review.
•Action “Decline to review”
Then if possible explain why.
•Action “Agree to review”
3°) View the submission and the original files
If you agreed to review you have now access to the submission.
•Action “View Submission”
It allows you to upload a pdf file containing all the elements of the submission in one file: the manuscript,
the figures, the tables, etc. In the PDF document you can also download each of the original files by
clicking the included hyperlinks. This means for example you can download the MS Word, add your
comments in it and upload this annotated file when you send your recommendation to the Editor.
4°) Send the review and recommendation to Editor
•Action “Submit Recommendation”:
You need to select a recommendation (1)
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European Journal of Taxonomy
Then you also have the possibility to answer prepared questions (3) or to upload attachments (2) such as
a review letter, the submission with your comments, etc.
When you upload attachments be careful of the name of your file and of its description to respect
anonymity:
•Select file
•Click “Attach This File” and “Proceed with Recommendation”
At the bottom of the page appear two fields you can fill in if you want. Write in the first one all the
comments to the Author. He will be able to read them but your name will not appear. In the second one
you can write comments for the Editor(s).
You have the possibility (1) to save your review if you do not have enough time to finish it. Then you
will be able to find and submit it later.
Once your review is finished:
•Click “Proceed” (2) and then your review is displayed
•If your review is complete, select “Submit Review to Journal Office”
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Instructions for Reviewers
5°) After the review
Once the review is finished, you still can access it via the folder “Completed Assignments”. You will be
able to see the Reviewer’s Comments, the Author’s Answers if any, the Decision Letter to the Author.
Generally the Editor will cc you the Final Decision (Accept/Reject) to let you know if the article will be
published in EJT or not.
If any part of this workflow is unclear or if you encounter difficulties in the Editorial Manager System,
please do not hesitate to contact the Editorial Office: [email protected]
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