Submissions
Submission Preparation Checklist
As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.
- Text of the manuscript
- Figures (pdf or tif) and tables (word document) as separate files
- Cover letter
Author Guidelines
The interest of the journal is field (terrestrial and aquatic) and experimental botany including plant viruses, bacteria, archaea, algae and fungi, from subcellular level to the ecosystem level with a geographic focus on karstic areas of the southern Europe and the Adriatic Sea (Mediterranean).
The journal welcomes manuscripts for publication in the following categories: original research papers, short communications, book reviews, social news and announcements.
Article submission and publishing are free of charge.
Manuscripts should be submitted using On-line Manuscript Submission at http://www.abc.botanic.hr. Registration and login are required to submit items on-line and to check the status of current submissions. For submission, after LOGIN find USER HOME then AUTHOR and go to NEW SUBMISSION.
Under SUBMISSION METADATA, fill in the names and e-mail addresses of all authors. Criteria for authorship are as set out by the ICMJE and as recommended by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Cover letter
In the cover letter addressed to Editor-in-Chief, the authors should explain how the manuscript meets the scope of the journal and indicate why it will be of interest to the general readership of Acta Botanica Croatica. Authors should propose the names and e-mail addresses of at least two potential reviewers. In the cover letter, confirm that the manuscript has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere and that all authors have read the manuscript and approved it for submission. Include also Founding statement in which any sources of financial support should be specified and Author contribution statement in which the contributions of all authors should be described.
Type of contribution
ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER
An original research paper is a fully documented report of original research. The manuscript should be divided into Introduction, Material and methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgements, Founding, Author contribution statment, References (maximum 40), Table and figure captions, Tables, Figures. There may be up to 12 single-spaced typewritten pages, excluding figures and tables. There may be up to 8 tables and/or figures in total per manuscript. Additional figures and/or tables can be published online as supplementary materials. All tables and figures should be cited in the text properly (Fig. 1, 2, …, On-line Suppl. Tab. or Fig.).
SHORT COMMUNICATIONS
Short communications should consist of no more than 3 single-spaced typewritten pages and a maximum of two tables and/or figures. The text should be divided into Abstract (containing no more than 100 words), Keywords (up to five; listed in alphabetical order), Introduction, Material and methods, Results and discussion, Acknowledgements, Founding, Author contribution statment, References (maximum 10), Table and figure captions, Tables and/or Figures.
REVIEW ARTICLE
Review and mini-review articles are usually accepted for the reviewing process if invited by editor. Authors who wish to contribute a manuscript to this category are encouraged to contact the Editor-in-Chief. The manuscript should be organized according to Acta Botanica Croatica guidelines and there are no limitations on the number of references.
SOCIAL NEWS AND BOOK REVIEWS
We also welcome popular news describing interesting events, anniversaries, as well as short and concise reviews of newly published books in the field of plant sciences.
MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION
The manuscript should be submitted as a Word document. The writing needs to be clear, concise and in correct English. Unfortunately, we do not offer a language editing service as part of the submission process, so it is up to authors to ensure the highest quality of writing in their manuscript. If the language is deemed too inadequate for easy understanding, the manuscript will be returned to authors without review.
The text should be single-spaced and left-adjusted, using Times New Roman and 12 point letter size. The layout of the document should be A4 (21 × 29.5 cm). Adjust indentation to 1 cm (i.e., the first line of all paragraphs and hanging paragraphs of References). Input your text continuously, i.e. insert hard returns exclusively at the ends of paragraphs, headings etc. Do not use the space bar to create indents; the indent command should be used for this purpose. Leave a space between mathematical symbols and numbers (e.g. 2 + 3, 3 < 9). Always leave a space between a number and a Celsius degree symbol (e.g. 12 °C). Do not leave a space when using the multiplication and percentage symbols (e.g. 6×12%). Each page should be numbered.
The metric system should be used throughout the manuscript. If required, equivalent values in other systems may be placed in parentheses immediately after the metric value.
Italicize only the names of genes (e.g. Arpl gene), genera, species, subspecies and lower taxonomic units. Genetic information, such as DNA, RNA, or protein sequences, should be submitted to public data bases (GenBank, EMBL, etc.), and accession numbers should be available in Material and methods. Voucher specimens must be made and deposited in a public herbarium. For endemic and protected taxa, permission has to be obtained from the competent authority. The nomenclature of taxa and syntaxa has to be in strict accordance with international rules (codes).
Title page:
TITLE, should not exceed 120 characters (without spaces).
NAMES OF ALL AUTHORS (name and surname in full), their mailing and e-mail addresses, and institutional affiliations should be given. Include the corresponding author’s e-mail address and telephone number.
RUNNING TITLE, should not exceed 50 characters (without spaces).
ABSTRACT of up to 250 words that highlights the objective, results, and conclusion of the paper.
KEY WORDS (up to eight, in alphabetical order), to identify the subjects under which the article may be indexed.
Content of manuscript:
Keep the Introduction brief, stating clearly the purpose of the article and its relation to other papers on the same subject. Do not give an extensive review of literature. Provide enough information in the Material and methods section to enable other investigators to repeat the experiments. Report Results clearly. In the Discussion interpret the results, state their meaning and draw conclusions. Do not simply repeat the results. Proceed with Acknowledgments where any individuals who were of direct help to the authors should be acknowledged. Under Founding specify any sources of financial support. Decribe the contribution of all authors in author contribution statement.
References:
Cite references in the text by name and year in parentheses. Some examples: Wrischer (1998), … Jones and Smith (1987), … (Jones 1987a, b), … Jones et al. (1986), … (Facca et al. 2002, 2003, Socal et al. 2006).
Arrange names of authors chronologically in text, e.g: (Jones 1986, Allen 1987). The list of references should be typed in alphabetical order. The articles in English, Spanish, French, German and Italian are accepted in the Reference list. Unpublished materials should be cited in the text as personal observations or unpublished data. Identify authors of unpublished work. Check the text citations against the Reference list to make sure there are no gaps or inconsistencies. Names of journals should be given in full, followed by volume number (do not include issue no.), and pages.
Use the following formats for Reference list style:
Journal article: Colangelo, E.P., Guerinot, M.L., 2006: Put the metal to the petal: metal uptake and transport throughout plants. Current Opinion in Plant Biology 9, 322–330.
Books: Horvat, I., Glavaš, V., Ellenberg, H., 1974: Vegetation Sudosteuropas. Geobotanica selecta 4. Gustav Fischer Verlag, Stuttgart.
Chapter in a book: Broadwater, S.T., Scott, J., 1994: Ultrastructure of unicellular red algae. In: Seckbach, J. (ed.), Evolutionary path- ways and enigmatic algae: Cyanidium caldarium (Rhodophyta) and related cells, 215–230. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Amsterdam.
Tables and figures:
Table and figure legends should be added following references, on the next page.
Tables should be on separate pages. Tables should be prepared in Microsoft Office Word or Excel. Vertical lines should not be visible in tables. The maximum width of a printed table should be 150 characters in broadside. The preferred table organization format can be seen in articles published in previous issues of Acta Botanica Croatica, which are freely available on-line. Large tables and primary data can be published as supplementary materials on-line, but not in the printed version. All tables should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals. They should be cited in the text properly (Tab. 1, On-line Suppl. Tab. 1, etc.). Table title should be above the table, on the same page as the table to which it corresponds. The tables need to be self-explanatory: the authors should provide enough information in captions (explain all abbreviations, write full Latin names etc.) so that each table is understandable without reference to the text.
Figures should be submitted in appropriate electronic formats as separate files as well as embedded within the manuscript after the tables. Every figure must be referenced in the text. Figures should be numbered in Arabic numerals (below the figure). Figures may be arranged in panels, in which individual images should be divided by white lines no more than 2 mm wide. Line art-works and half-tones or photographic images should be saved as Tagged Image Format (tif) with a resolution of at least 600 dpi or in pdf. The size of tif files can be decreased using Lossless Compression (LZW). Vector graphics (xls, cmx, eps, wmf) should be saved in pdf. All lettering on figures should be in Arial and legible after reduction. Y- and X-axis need to be black, tick marks on axes should be oriented inwards. Graph lines should be thicker than axes lines. Each figure and figure caption should contain all the information necessary for it to be self-explanatory (explain all abbreviations, write full Latin names etc.) so that each figure is understandable without reference to the text. Colour figures are acceptable only if necessary (photographs, not plots and curves) and they are free of charge.
Additional guidelines:
All on-line supplementary materials have to be uploaded as a separate Word document and supplementary figures should be submitted in appropriate electronic formats (tif or pdf) as separate files.
Appendices (optional): Each appendix must be numbered as Appendices 1., 2. etc and must have a title.
Footnotes should not be used; information should be integrated into the text.
REVIEW PROCESS
Acta Botanica Croatica is committed to peer-review integrity and upholding the highest standards of review. Once your paper has been assessed for suitability by the Editor-in-Chief and Section Editor, it will then be single blind peer reviewed by independent, anonymous expert referees.
Manuscripts that meet the scientific and journal technical criteria will be sent to the review process. Please note that the journal uses software to screen for plagiarism. Acta Botanica Croatica participates in an initiative by CrossRef (http:// www.crossref.org) to prevent scholarly and professional plagiarism in scientific publications. This initiative is known as Crossref Similarity Check and provides its members a service to screen received content for originality against a vast database of relevant published material.
AHEAD OF PRINT
The accepted article including supplementary files citable with the DOI number will be posted on-line as “Ahead of print” at https://hrcak.srce.hr/acta-botanica-croatica without professional English checking. Professional language editing and reference check are the next step before proofing stage.
PROOFS
The proof is sent to the corresponding author for a final check and approval. Corrected proofs must be returned within 72 hours to the Technical Editor-in-Chief. PDF of corrected proofs will be posted on-line and after release of the printed version (1st April, 1st October), the paper can also be cited by issue and page numbers.
Free unlimited electronic reprints (in pdf) are available from http://hrcak.srce.hr/acta-botanica-croatica.
A printed copy of the journal volume is available for subscribed readers who have paid the annual fee.
Copyright Notice
Acta Botanica Croatica is an Open Access journal with minimal restrictions regarding content reuse. Immediately after publishing, all content becomes freely available to anyone for non-commercial use and distribution, under the sole condition that the author(s) and the original source are properly attributed according to the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
CC BY 4.0 represents the highest level of Open Access, which maximizes dissemination of scholarly work and protects the rights of its authors. In Acta Botanica Croatica, authors hold the copyright of their work and retain unrestricted publishing rights.