Instructions for Authors
North American Fungi is an on-line, peer-reviewed journal publishing articles on fungal natural history including taxonomy, nomenclature, ecology, and biogeography relevant to North America. Article categories are: Notes, Brief Reports, Full-Length Research Articles, and Reviews. Authors will find the following documents useful when preparing and submitting manuscripts to the journal:
Flowchart of manuscript review and publication process
Manuscripts submitted to North American Fungi should not previously have been published elsewhere (except as abstracts). The International Code of Botanical Nomenclature does not allow for electronic (on line) publication of new taxa or new combinations. As a service to authors wishing to publish papers that include new taxa or combinations the journal will arrange for printing and distribution of such articles to comply with the requirement for effective publication. There are no page charges for publishing papers in North American Fungi except that authors bear the cost of printing and distributing articles that include nomenclatural innovations.
Submission: All manuscripts submitted to North American Fungi should be emailed in the form of Microsoft Word document files to the Senior Editor. Corresponding authors who cannot transmit the manuscript via email may send a diskette, 100 MB zip disk or CD-R to
Dr. Josepth F. Ammirati, Senior Editor
North American Fungi
Department of Biology, Box 351330
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 91895
Once the Senior Editor determines that the manuscript conforms to the format specified below, he will forward it to an Associate Editor who will supervise its technical review. If the manuscript does not conform to the specified format, the corresponding author will be informed that no further action will be taken until a properly submitted manuscript is received.
Review: For notes and brief articles, the designated Associate Editor and one anonymous reviewer selected by the Associate Editor will function as reviewers; an additional peer or Associate Editor will be engaged as reviewer in the event of a split decision. For full-length research articles and reviews (including manuscripts compiling nomenclatural or biogeographic information) the Associate Editor will select two anonymous peers as reviewers, with the Associate Editor serving as an additional reviewer in the event there is a split review.
Reviewers will be expected to confirm that they will (i) review the manuscript within four weeks of receipt, (ii) use Microsoft Word ‘Track Changes' from the ‘Tool' menu to annotate the manuscript, and (iii) complete and return the ‘Reviewer's Checklist' (below). If the review is not returned within four weeks, the Associate Editor will notify both reviewer and corresponding author that an alternative reviewer will be assigned.
Reviewers are asked to judge the manuscript as i) acceptable, ii) acceptable with revision, or iii) not acceptable. Manuscripts and reviewer comments will be returned to the corresponding author electronically. When acceptance is contingent on revision, the corresponding author will be expected to return the revised manuscript to the Associate Editor within four weeks, responding in detail to points raised by reviewers. North American Fungi will not retain copies of rejected manuscripts, or copies of manuscripts for which the corresponding author fails to supply revisions in a timely manner. Corresponding authors may suggest the names of suitable reviewers whom the Associate Editor may approach should there be difficulty finding reviewer(s) with expertise in the appropriate subject area. The corresponding author also may specify individuals who should not function as reviewers for reasons of conflict of interest or absence of neutrality; editors of the journal are not required to follow such recommendations.
General Format, Illustrations and Tables: Please see the Instructions to Authors.
Research articles and reviews: Research article subdivisions include title, name(s) and affiliation(s) of author(s), abstract, key words, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, acknowledgements, literature cited (see example). Appendices are encouraged for lengthy DNA or RNA sequences or long lists of specimens examined in original research papers. Review subdivisions are title, name(s) and affiliation(s) of author(s), abstract, introduction and other subheadings as needed. There is no set limit on length of articles or reviews. The Editors, however, reserve the right to request authors to shorten portions of manuscripts when deemed appropriate.
Brief articles and notes: Brief articles are four or fewer pages in length, including one page of tables and illustrations. Brief article subdivisions include title, name(s) and affiliation(s) of author(s), abstract, key words, introduction, materials and methods, results & discussion, acknowledgements and literature cited. Notes are limited to a one-page maximum, including title, authors, authors' affiliations, key words, text, and literature cited, but with a second page permitted for tables, figures and figure legends.
Formats for cited literature, tables, figure legends and other aspects are supplied in the example. Note that names of periodicals and titles of books or proceedings are written in full. Taxonomic author citations should be given once, usually the first time a species (or, when appropriate, another taxon) is mentioned in the text, or in a summary table. Author citations may be written in full, or, if abbreviated, should follow either Farr et al. (1989, Fungi on Plants and Plant Products in the United States, APS Press) or Kirk (2003, Authors of Fungal Names. CABI Bioscience, www.indexfungorum.org). Names of herbaria may be written in full, or abbreviated according to Holmgren et al. (1990, Index Herbariorum, 8th ed., New York Botanical Garden; on-line at: www.nybg.org/bsci/ih/ih.html). Culture collection names may be written in full or abbreviated according to Jong et al. (1996, ATCC Filamentous Fungi, 19th ed.). Names of genera and species are in italics. Authors writing extensively regarding higher taxa may use italics for scientific names of all taxa up to and including order. Authors are encouraged to cite specimen numbers from herbaria or culture collections.
Voucher specimens and nucleic acid sequences must be deposited with a recognized depository (one or more herbaria listed in Index Herbariorum for specimens or an online database such as GenBank for nucleic acid sequences) before a manuscript can be accepted for publication.
Checklist for Reviewers (to be completed and returned to Associate Editor with the review):
1. Is manuscript content appropriate for Pacific Northwest Fungi?
2. Are title, abstract and key words concise, and suitably informative?
3. Is the text grammatically correct, informative, unambiguous, and concise?
4. Are tables and figures informative and referenced in the text?
5. Do all references in Literature Cited appear in the text? Do all text references appear in Literature Cited?
6. Are objectives and/or hypotheses clearly stated and tested by appropriate methods, including statistical?
7. Do results justify conclusions?
8. Is the manuscript i) acceptable, ii) acceptable with revision, or iii) unacceptable for publication in Pacific Northwest Fungi?
8. Additional comments by reviewer:
Questions: contact the Senior Editor at cort@u.washington.edu