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Prepare your manuscript for African Journal of Herpetology.

Review the checklist, choose your article type, and turn your draft into a cleaner submission package.

Checked 2026-08-01
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Article types

Review
Editorial
Original Article
Commentary
Lectio
Letter

Readiness requirements

Review the key details below, or download the complete checklist with every stored source-backed requirement.

Abstract length

  • Provide an author-written abstract of no more than 200 words.
  • Abstract — a concise statement of the scope of the work, the principal findings and the conclusions and should not exceed 250 words.
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  • Short communications — are more concise reports (up to 2 500 words) that lack headings, but should include an abstract (up to 200 words), and if relevant, acknowledgements and references.
  • Original Article: An abstract is required for both original articles and short communications.
  • When possible, this information should appear in the title, abstract and introduction (at first mention only) so as to facilitate discovery, and the bibliographic details of the original published description included in the reference list.

Keywords

  • Provide 5-8 keywords chosen by the author.
  • Title page — required for all contributions and should include full title, author names and affiliations, 5-8 keywords and a suggested running head.

Reference style

  • Articlo formats your supplied references to the journal's stored style and checks that citations match the reference list; source validity is not verified.
  • Literature citations should be in chronological order: (Jacobs 1952, 1966; Edwards and Holmes 1965; Rosen et al. 1990).
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  • Original Article: For Original Articles, the manuscript should be arranged as follows: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, and References.
  • Appendices, Tables, Legends to Figures, must follow the References.
  • Discussion should deal with the interpretation of the results, pointing out their significance with reference to the reason for undertaking the research.
  • References should be listed in alphabetical order and should refer only to publications cited in the text.
  • Data and observations must be made available in a public data repository (e.g., GenBank, Dryad, iNaturalist, GBIF or other relevant repositories) and the accession numbers, dataset DOI, link or other unique identifier included in the manuscript.
  • It should not contain references.
  • If a paper has more than ten authors, only the first five should appear in the references followed by et al. Cite unpublished data as e.g. Alexander (in press), which then appears in the list of references, or as G.J.
  • The journal follows CSE name-date convention and references should be in the following format: Chapter in a collection: Bruford MW, Hanotte O, Brookweld JFY, Burke T.

Figure and table rules

  • Keep every figure and table numbered, captioned, and cited in the manuscript. Keep figures embedded; Articlo also extracts numbered source files for the package.
  • All figures should be prepared to fit 120 mm (column width) by up to 150 mm in length (full page).
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  • For digital photographs or scanned images the resolution should be at least 300 dpi for colour or greyscale artwork and a minimum of 600 dpi for black line drawings.
  • Tables and figures (graphs, photographs or scanned images) should not be part of the text but prepared as separate files.
  • Tables — should be in Arabic numerals, and on separate pages with a legend at the top.
  • Set up tables in MSWord (or Excel) and should be composed with the limitations of the journal page size in mind.
  • Figures — must be restricted to the minimum needed to clarify the text.
  • The same data should not be presented in both graph and table form.
  • All figures must be mentioned in the text and numbered consecutively (Arabic numerals).
  • Authors must ensure that their figures conform to the style of the journal.
  • All tables should be mentioned in the text.

Funding statement

  • Add or confirm the author-written Funding statement; Articlo flags it if author input is still needed.
  • You should declare only the acquired funds and grants that are directly relevant to the work reported in your article; for example, This work was supported by the [Funding Agency #1] under Grant [number xxxx]; [Funding Agency #2] under Grant [number xxxx]; and [Funding Agency #3] under Grant [number xxxx].
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  • All funding sources and affiliations must be stated or acknowledged.
  • Acknowledgements of individuals and organisations should be brief and recognise, inter alia, collecting permits, funding, etc. provided to individual authors.

Competing interests

  • Add or confirm the author-written Competing interests statement; Articlo flags it if author input is still needed.
  • The authors must declare any conflicts of interest such as competing interests that might have biased the content.

Ethics statement

  • Add or confirm the author-written Ethics statement; Articlo flags it if author input is still needed.
  • Research ethics practices must be adhered to, and where applicable the relevant ethics clearance certificate number(s) must be stated in the Acknowledgements.
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  • Several international ethics bodies have published their guidelines or regulations and authors should refer to these to ensure that best practices are followed.
  • Statement on ethics — Authors are required to adhere to the African Journal of Herpetology statement on ethics.

Blinded manuscript

  • Review: Remove author names, affiliations, acknowledgements, and other direct identifiers from the blinded manuscript file.
  • Review: Remove any information that can be used to identify authors to ensure the double-blind review is adhered to.

Cover letter

  • Include or confirm the cover letter required by the journal. Articlo checks this item and flags anything that still needs author input.

Author contributions

  • Submitting authors should be prepared to submit CRediT roles for themselves and their co-authors (where applicable) as part of the submission process.

Supplementary files

  • Lectio: Include every cited supplementary file and use matching labels in the manuscript.
  • Letter: Include every cited supplementary file and use matching labels in the manuscript.
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  • Review: Include every cited supplementary file and use matching labels in the manuscript.
  • Editorial: Include every cited supplementary file and use matching labels in the manuscript.
  • Commentary: Include every cited supplementary file and use matching labels in the manuscript.
  • Original Article: Include every cited supplementary file and use matching labels in the manuscript.
  • Embed or attach the author-supplied supplementary material so Articlo can extract and label it for the package.
  • Supplementary Electronic Material should be submitted as a separate file.
  • The availability of custom written code or modifications to available code that was central to data analyses must be acknowledged, provided as supplemental material, or deposited in a public database (e.g., Dryad, FigShare) and the relevant link included in the manuscript.

Title page and author information

  • Provide the author, affiliation, and correspondence details for the separate title page; Articlo creates the editable companion file.
  • The corresponding author is required to inform all authors of the content of the reviews and the revision process.
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  • In addition, the corresponding author must ensure that the manuscript and the co-authors comply with best practices.
  • Alexander’s name and institutional affiliation should appear under Acknowledgements.
  • To improve author transparency and unambiguous contributions, authors and co-authors are required to provide their Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier (ORCID) identification numbers when submitting to AJH.

Article structure and word limits

  • Integers less than 10 should be spelt, while those greater than 10 (including 10) should be given numerically.
  • The text should use 1.5 line spacing, with no extra line spacing, and should not include text columns, creative formatting or additional typefaces and fonts.
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  • Group integers of thousands together with a space and do not use a comma (e.g. 10 500 and 1 230).
  • Font size should be a minimum of 6 points and a maximum of 9 points.
  • Review: These instructions will ensure we have everything required so your paper can move through peer review, production and publication smoothly.
  • Manuscripts are all peer-reviewed by a minimum of two reviewers.
  • All listed authors must have reviewed the final manuscript and agreed to the content prior to submission.
  • Data and analyses presented should be transparent and reproducible.
  • Specimens and associated metadata, where applicable, must be made available in a public repository (e.g., museum) and the accession numbers provided.
  • Metadata for DNA samples must be included, and DNA sequences deposited in a data repository (e.g., GenBank, EMBL).
  • Your research funder or your institution may require you to publish your article open access.
  • Use our APC finder to view the APC for this journal.
  • Commentary: Reviews should be within the aims and scope of the journal and include original commentary and/or insight on a coherent topic.
  • Review: Authors wishing to submit a review should contact the editor prior to submission.
  • Any mention of authors should refer to them by initials only (e.g. GJA for Graham J).
  • The International System of Units (Systeme Internationale; SI) should be followed.
  • Measures should be in mm, m or km rather than cm or dm.
  • DNA Sequence Registration — Authors must deposit sequences referred to in African Journal of Herpetology in EMBL or GenBank Nucleotide Sequence Databases.
  • Sequence accession numbers should be included in submitted manuscripts.
  • Manuscripts must be submitted through ScholarOne: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ther.
  • Use decimal points rather than commas.
  • You will also need to register the individual new taxa.
  • MS Office files (Word, Powerpoint, Excel) are also acceptable but DO NOT EMBED Excel graphs or Powerpoint slides in a MSWord document, rather send the original Excel or Powerpoint files.

Artificial intelligence disclosure

  • Add or confirm the author-written Artificial intelligence statement; Articlo flags it if author input is still needed.
  • Large-Language Models (LLMs), generative AI, and chatbots (artificial intelligence tools) do not adhere to these authorship criteria, and therefore may not be used to prepare the manuscript text, nor included as authors.

Authorship and originality

  • The research must be original work and the authors must be accountable for the work presented.
  • Researchers who do not meet the authorship criteria should be listed in the acknowledgements.

Manuscript structure

  • The headings and text should be presented in 12-point Arial or Calibri font.
  • The use of any LLM as a methodological tool to produce code is allowed but must be fully disclosed in the Methods section of the manuscript.
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  • Headings should be sentence case and never numbered.
  • Materials and Methods should provide sufficient information to allow the study to be replicated.
  • Results should be presented with clarity and precision.
  • Review: The Introduction should be concise and provide the aims and context of the study in relation to other work done in the same field, but should not give an exhaustive review of the literature.

Article type and manuscript length

  • Main text — should be prepared in MSWord.

Language and text style

  • There should be no more than three heading levels: (1) bold, (2) bold italics, (3) italics.

Statistical reporting

  • All statistical symbols should be italicised.
Save journal and get updates Download complete checklist

What your package checks

Abstract: 200 words
Keywords: 5-8 keywords
Title page: separate file
Declarations: Funding, Competing interests, Ethics, Acknowledgements, Artificial intelligence

Source transparency

This preparation guide uses published journal-specific author requirements. Journal instructions can change, so authors should complete a final review before submission.

Open official guideline source