Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (B)
Author Submission Guide (as of May 2007)
From http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/index.cfm?page=1085#
(note: information for Editors available at http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/index.cfm?page=1203)
Articles for Theme Issues should be submitted directly to the Guest Editor – in the present
case by e-mail to Katherine.Fletcher@dpag.ox.ac.uk. The Guest Editors will manage the
review process for these articles, check revisions, and coordinate final submission.
Style Guide
General
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B publishes invited Discussions, Themes and Reviews concerning any
aspect of the biological sciences. Readers are welcome to propose Themes and Reviews for
consideration by the Editorial Board of the journal. The journal is complementary to Proc. R.
Soc. B, which considers unsolicited papers in the same subject areas.
Articles must not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication
elsewhere. The main findings of the article should not have been reported in the mass media.
Like many journals Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B employs a strict embargo policy where the
reporting of a scientific article by the media is embargoed until a specific time. The Editor
has final authority in all matters relating to publication.
Structure
Each article should contain the following in order:
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Title
Authors' names and full addresses where their work was carried out. The
corresponding author must provide an email address.
Summary of no more than 200 words
Key index words or phrases (3–6 choices)
Main body of the work, divided into sections and described by short headings
Acknowledgements
Appendices (if necessary)
References (of all articles cited in the text)
Figure captions (numbered in sequence as they appear in the text)
Short title for page headings
The summary should be concise and informative. It should be complete by itself, and must
not contain references or unexplained abbreviations. It should not only indicate the general
scope of the article but also state the main results and conclusions. Please note that footnotes
are not used.
In addition to providing the addresses where the work was carried out, the current addresses,
where different, should be given.
Journal Policies
Articles should conform to recommendations for authorship provided by the International
Committee of Medical Journal Editors (the Vancouver Group). For further details, see the
following address: http://www.icmje.org/
Articles containing descriptions of experiments with vertebrate animals will be accepted only
if the procedures used are clearly described and conform to the British Home Office
regulations for avoiding unnecessary suffering to the animals. In addition, referees are
invited to express any ethical concerns regarding animal experimentation, human studies and
conservation issues. Articles will be accepted only if they are considered ethically sound.
As a condition of acceptance authors agree to honour any reasonable request by other
researchers for materials, methods, or data necessary to verify the conclusion of the article.
Supplementary data up to 10Mb is placed on the Society's website free of charge and is
publicly accessible. Large datasets must be deposited in a recognised public domain database
by the author prior to submission. The accession number should be provided for inclusion in
the published article. Where there is no recognised public domain database please contact the
Society's publishing team for guidance. See Electronic Supplementary Material section
below.
Spelling should conform to the preferred spelling of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.
Please check the document carefully before submitting, to ensure that it is the correct and full
version.
Figures must be prepared separately from the text, but wherever possible they should
inserted within the text for review (or their position clearly indicated; see below).
Length
The maximum length of papers submitted for this focused issue is 8000 words, including all
text (e.g. such as figure legends and references), plus up to 6 figures or tables.
Units and Abbreviations
As far as possible the recommendations based on the International System of Units (SI)
contained in Quantities, units and symbols (The Royal Society, 1975, price £3.50, available
from the Sales Office on +44 (0)20 7451 2645). Abbreviations should be given in full at the
first mention. In the list of references, widely recognized abbreviations for journals should be
used. If in doubt, give the full title of the journal.
If authors are unsure about suitable technical abbreviations or acronyms, please consult the
Guest Editor of the issue for guidance on consistency.
Electronic Figures and Labels
All Royal Society journals require figures in electronic format. To ensure high-quality
reproduction, and to prevent delays in publication, it is essential that figures be supplied in
the correct format. Hand-drawn illustrations are not acceptable.
Dimensions
Figures should be made as small as possible without affecting detail and should not exceed
135mm x 180mm. Artwork should be supplied at the size the author intends it to be
reproduced.
Multipart figures
Multipart figures should not be supplied as separate files, but should be laid out in one file by
the author.
Labelling
All labels should be lower-case 9pt Times. Descriptions should be placed, wherever possible,
in the legend. Keys are often best placed in the body of the figure. Figure parts should be
labelled (a), (b), (c), etc., and explained in the legend.
Figure format
The type of image(s) a figure contains determines which format it is best supplied in. Images
fall into one of two categories:
 Bitmap (rasterized) images: Composed of pixels (e.g. photographs, scans)
 Line (vector) art: Composed of lines, fills and text (e.g. histograms, line drawings)
Photographs and scans should be supplied as high-resolution (300–600ppi/120–
240ppc) bitmaps in one of the following formats:
 TIFF
 Adobe Photoshop
(jpeg images are only acceptable if taken with a digital camera) Also ‘upsampling’ of
images is not acceptable, i.e. once an image has been saved down to 72ppi the quality
will remain poor even if resaved at 300ppi.
Line art (or images containing both line art and bitmap images) should be supplied in
one of the following formats:
 Postscript (PS, EPS or PDF)
 Adobe Illustrator
Microsoft PowerPoint, Excel and Word formats are only acceptable if the figure was
created in one of these packages.
Do not supply images embedded in Microsoft documents.
Postscript images should be saved in such a way that objects (lines and text) can be selected
and edited. If possible, avoid converting text to outline; use the latest version of your
software when saving. Postscript files can usually be created using either the “Save as”
command or the “Export” command. These can usually be found under the File menu.
Alternatively, if you have a postscript printer driver you can select Print from the file menu
and then select “Print to file”. This will create a postscript file (.PS or .PM), which can then
be converted to EPS or PDF. File compression should not be used. TeX/LaTeX-coded
figures should be converted to postscript format (PS, EPS or PDF).
Colour figures
Colour figures should be supplied in CMYK mode. Converting RGB images to CMYK can
affect the appearance of images, which is why we prefer the author to do this before
submitting.
If you are unsure about how to convert files, please email figures@rsjournals.com with an
explanation of how they were created (including the software used) and we will advise.
Colour
All Royal Society journals require figures in electronic format. To ensure high-quality
reproduction, and to prevent delays in publication, it is essential that figures be supplied in
the correct format. Hand-drawn illustrations are not acceptable.
Note that there is a charge for colour figures in the printed version of the journal (free on-line)
Dimensions
Figures should be made as small as possible without affecting detail and should not exceed
135mm x 180mm. Artwork should be supplied at the size the author intends it to be
reproduced.
Multipart figures
Multipart figures should not be supplied as separate files, but should be laid out in one file by
the author.
Labelling
All labels should be lower-case 9pt Times. Descriptions should be placed, wherever possible,
in the legend. Keys are often best placed in the body of the figure. Figure parts should be
labelled (a), (b), (c), etc., and explained in the legend.
Figure format
The type of image(s) a figure contains determines which format it is best supplied in. Images
fall into one of two categories:


Bitmap (rasterized) images: Composed of pixels (e.g. photographs, scans)
Line (vector) art: Composed of lines, fills and text (e.g. histograms, line drawings)
Photographs and scans should be supplied as high-resolution (300–600ppi/120–240ppc)
bitmaps in one of the following formats:


TIFF
Adobe Photoshop
(jpeg images are only acceptable if taken with a digital camera) Also ‘upsampling’ of images
is not acceptable, i.e. once an image has been saved down to 72ppi the quality will remain
poor even if resaved at 300ppi.
Line art (or images containing both line art and bitmap images) should be supplied in one of
the following formats:


Postscript (PS, EPS or PDF)
Adobe Illustrator
Microsoft PowerPoint, Excel and Word formats are only acceptable if the figure was created
in one of these packages.
Postscript images should be saved in such a way that objects (lines and text) can be selected
and edited. If possible, avoid converting text to outline; use the latest version of your
software when saving. Postscript files can usually be created using either the “Save as”
command or the “Export” command. These can usually be found under the File menu.
Alternatively, if you have a postscript printer driver you can select Print from the file menu
and then select “Print to file”. This will create a postscript file (.PS or .PM), which can then
be converted to EPS or PDF.
File compression should not be used.
TeX/LaTeX-coded figures should be converted to postscript format (PS, EPS or PDF).
Colour figures
Owing to the high cost of colour reproduction, authors are asked to contribute a portion of
the extra cost. For the present focused issue, this charge will be £100 per figure.
Colour figures should be supplied in CMYK mode. Converting RGB images to CMYK can
affect the appearance of images, which is why we prefer the author to do this before
submitting.
If you are unsure about how to convert files, please email figures@rsjournals.com with an
explanation of how they were created (including the software used) and we will advise.
Tables
Tables, however small, should be numbered and referred to in the text by their numbers.
Table captions should be brief, with descriptions of experimental detail given directly
beneath, in parentheses. Column headings should, wherever possible, be in lower-case type,
and the units of measurement and any numerical factors should be placed at the head of each
column. Units should be contained within parentheses, eg distance (cm).
Electronic Supplementary Material
We can place Electronic Supplementary Material (ESM) (created by the authors themselves)
onto our web site. However, the main report, published in the printed journal, should stand
on its own merit. Electronic Supplementary Material (ESM) can be considered in the
following file formats: *.TXT, *.DOC, *.ZIP, *.RM, *.PDF, *.MOV, *.MPEG, *.MPG,
*.JPG, *.JPEG, *.XLS, *.VRML, *.GIF, *.WAV, *.AIFF, *.CIF, *.PDB, *.AVI. Authors
should submit ESM as supporting files with their submission, and also provide as a separate
supporting text file (*.doc, *.txt, *.tex) a list of all ESM. This should contain a filename, title
and description of each. There is a size limit of 10MB for ESM, which is a limit for the total
material, not per file.
Any ESM will be refereed together with the main body of the paper. It is the responsibility of
the author to check for spelling, grammar, and presentation. Please submit your ESM (for
online use) via e-Pubs as 'supporting file(s)'.
Please note that an electronic appendix is not copyedited or reset; however, an electronic
coversheet (including article citation information) is added.
References
 All references to the literature cited must be given in alphabetical order at the end of
the King 1974).
Authors article, and each reference should contain some or all of the following elements:
 Author surnames with initials
 Year of publication
 Title of paper (roman) or book (italic)
 Journal name (italic), using standard abbreviation
 Volume number (bold)
 First and last page numbers
Note that for a book, the edition, the chapter(s) and its/ their page range(s), the editor(s), the
place of publication (if it is not obvious) and the name of the publisher should be given, for
instance:
 Falconer, D. S. 1981 Introduction to quantitative genetics, 2nd edn. London:
Longman.
 Falkenmark, M. 1993 Landscape as life support provider: water-related limitations.
In Population—the complex reality (ed. F. Graham-Smith), pp. 103–116. London:
The Royal Society.
 Nilsson, L. A. 1988 The evolution of flowers with deep corolla tubes. Nature 334,
147–149.
References in the text are listed according to the Harvard style (not by number), i.e. by
giving the names of authors and the date of publication, for instance:
This action has been described frequently elsewhere (Brown 1974; Clarke 1974; Clarke &
are encouraged to quote digital object identifiers (DOIs) – standardized article reference
codes – where known, in addition to providing full citations, for instance:
 Gilks, C. 2001 Man, monkeys and malaria. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 356, 921–922.
(DOI 10.1098/rstb.2001.0880.)
The DOI is a unique electronic tag applied by certain publishers (and online databases, such
as CrossRef) to each of their published papers. DOI hotlinks take a reader directly from the
paper they are reading to the abstract of the paper they have selected.
Page Proofs
Authors who may be absent from their normal email address must either inform the Editorial
Office of their intended whereabouts or make alternative arrangements for their proofs to be
checked quickly. Authors should avoid making significant, and costly, alterations to their
proofs.
You are entitled to receive a PDF file of your final article for your own personal use only.
License to Publish and Figure Permissions
Our policy is that the author retains copyright, but must provide us with a ‘Licence to
publish’. This agreement allows the authors to post their own postprint of the accepted article
on an institutional or subject-based repository 12 months after publication. Authors
participating in EXiS Open Choice will be able to post the final published version on
repositories as soon as the article is published.
We cannot finalise your article without a completed 'Licence to publish'. Please print off,
sign and return to the Royal Society either by post, scanned email or fax on +44 20 7976
1837. This form can be downloaded here (or manually at
http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/media/licence.pdf)
All authors must ensure that all necessary permissions have been obtained for reproducing
any other copyright material, including permission to reproduce and publish electronically
anywhere in the world.
Figures reproduced under copyright restrictions from another publication should carry a line
of acknowledgement, as specified by the copyright holder.
Production Process
Only a few days may be available for checking proofs. Authors who may be absent from
their normal address should either inform the Editorial Office of their intended whereabouts
or make alternative arrangements for their proofs to be checked quickly. Significant
alterations to proofs should be avoided.
One set of page proofs is sent to the corresponding author, showing the final layout of
the article as it will appear in the printed journal. Proofs should be read carefully for
typesetter's errors and the accuracy of tables, references, mathematical expressions, etc.
Publication of a paper will be delayed if proofs are not returned within 72 hours.
PDF of the Finished Article
The corresponding author is entitled to receive a PDF file of their final article for personal
use only and a copy of the issue in which their article appears. These will be sent when the
printed issue is published.
Additional copies of the printed issue can be purchased on request. For further details contact
our Sales Department at sales@royalsoc.ac.uk
Offprint Information
We provide a final web-article PDF to the corresponding author only at their email address
unless otherwise instructed (see copyright sssignment Form for conditions of use). In
addition, and only if ordered at the time of proof corrections, authors can pay for the
production/despatch of paper offprints and journal issues, on condition of receipt of payment
or at least notification of an authority to whom an invoice can be sent. Referee Vouchers are
also accepted. To order, please complete the online
offprint order form.
Alternatively a hard copy form can be printed off from here and returned by mail. Please
include your article reference code.
Non-EU authors: please note that couriered offprints cannot be delivered to private bag or
PO Box addresses; please provide an alternative delivery address in this case. We cannot
accept print orders after the issue has gone to press. All paper offprints are supplied on the
strict condition that none be resold.