Instructions for Authors

Submissions

We welcome submissions to Ecological Restoration.

Material may be submitted for a number of categories in the journal including full length articles, shorter Restoration Notes, photo essays, and book reviews. Our Restoration Notes section is geared towards introducing innovative and cutting edge research methods, tools, technologies, programs, and ideas, as well as providing updates on ongoing research efforts.

Submissions should relate to the restoration of ecological communities or landscapes, including techniques and tools for planning, site preparation, species introduction, and pest species control. We understand ecological restoration to be a multi-disciplinary and diverse effort and welcome manuscripts considering adaptive restoration, cultural aspects of restoration, human impacts, political, economic, legal and regulatory issues, and other subjects related to scientific, practical, aesthetic and other aspects of restoration. We accept manuscripts dealing with plant and/or animal community composition or general ecology or general research only when they are related explicitly to ecological restoration practice and theory. Similarly, material dealing with reclamation or rehabilitation in a broader sense, or with restoration for economic purposes--economic forestry, range management, waste disposal -- must be related explicitly to ecological restoration. Our policy is that each submitted manuscript be reviewed by at least two people qualified to judge its merits.

The Editor welcomes articles and notes about ecological restoration, from any part of the world, in particular those dealing with:

1. New, ongoing, or completed restoration projects.
2. Applied research, including notices of new, ongoing projects, and completed research projects. All research papers must include a discussion of how the research results apply to real-world problems faced by ecological restoration practitioners.
3. Submissions on ecological restoration from researchers and practioners involved in education, social sciences, or the humanities.
4. Questions, problems, and suggestions related to any aspect of ecological restoration.
5. Publications (including books and journals), legislation, and other events related to ecological restoration.
6. Commentary on articles appearing in the journal or on other matters pertaining to ecological restoration generally.

Style and Format

Since this publication reaches readers with a wide variety of backgrounds and interests, contributors should use a plain, straightforward style, free of unnecessary technical terms and jargon. Authors should write in the active voice (for example, "We measured three trees." instead of "Three trees were measured."). Authors of research articles are asked to consider alternatives to the standard research publication format (literature review, methods, results, discussion). Alternative formats include case studies with well-developed discussions of lessons for the general ecological restoration community, or an article on a specific study, beginning with a brief overview of the problem or hypothesis tested and its relevance to a larger group of readers, followed by a description of the site, methods and results, and a discussion of the practical applications for ecological restorationists and their work.

Manuscript Specifications

Authors of first-draft manuscripts for full-length articles should send their manuscripts to mingram@wisc.edu, along with a cover letter stating that this material has not been submitted elsewhere for publication, and will not be until a decision has been reached by the Editor. Authors of Restoration Notes should submit their manuscripts to cmreyes@wisc.edu. If e-mail is unavailable, send a copy of the typed manuscript to Ecological Restoration, 1207 Seminole Hwy., Madison, WI 53711 USA.

All manuscripts should be written in English and double-spaced with 1-inch margins. Submissions should include a brief but descriptive title, followed by the author's or authors' name(s) and full contact information. Authors of full-length articles should include a 250-word abstract of the article plus a set of no more than five keywords, and are encouraged to keep manuscripts below 7,500 words. References should be in alphabetical order by author. If different works by the same author are referenced, references should be in chronological order. Please refer to issues of Ecological Restoration for reference formats. Authors of notes and book reviews should keep references to a few key citations. Avoid footnotes in both articles and notes. Ecological Restoration uses metric measurements unless English measurements are more appropriate. Give scientific names for all species and present them after the species' common name as follows: Culver's root (Veronicastrum virginicum). Use the taxonomic nomenclature of the USDA Plant Database whenever possible. Write out numbers ten and under, except when supplying measurements or percentage signs. Statistical terms and other measures should conform with the Council of Biology Editors Style Manual.

Tables and Illustrations

Graphics are a critical aspect of our journal and we encourage authors to take photographs and figures seriously. For all graphic material submitted electronically, please use a consistent file name beginning with the first authors name and then numbered sequentially as the graphics are referred to in the manuscript (e.g. Anderson Photo1.jpg; or Anderson Table 2.doc). All photographs and tables and figures should be sized at a minimum of 300 dpi, at a minimum of 3 by 5 inches, and accompanied by an explanatory caption. Tiff files or pdf files are preferred.

Photographs can be used to illustrate points made in the manuscript or to augment the article with additional information about people, plants, animals or technologies that were involved. Please identify each photograph by number and include a photo credit and a useful, detailed caption of 1 - 3 sentences. Photos should be tiff files of at least 300 dpi and a minimum of 3 by 5 inches.

For more information please refer to: http://www.wisc.edu/wisconsinpress/journals/preparing_illustrations.html.

If no electronic images are available photos must be no larger than 5 by 7 inches, and should be sharp, black-and-white glossy prints. They should be protected with cardboard and mailed flat. The author's and photographer's name(s) should be lightly penciled on the back of each photograph. If only color photographs or color slides are available, please scan them as color jpeg files at 300 dpi or greater, and 3 by 5 inches in size. If the author does not have the facilities to scan slides or color photographs, please mail them to the journal and we will scan them in-house.Computer-generated figures must be of camera-ready (laser printer) quality suitable for reproduction.

Please note: Unless the contributor requests their return upon submission of the manuscript, we will not return tables, photos, or other illustrations.

Please direct submissions to: Editor, Ecological Restoration, mingram@wisc.edu, 1207 Seminole Highway, Madison, WI 53711; phone 608/263-7889.