Preparation of Manuscripts

The authors are obliged to follow the rules outlined in the Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statements section.

Once the submission materials have been prepared in accordance with the Instructions to Authors, manuscripts must be submitted online at the Folia Malacologica website (www.foliamalacologica.com) and must follow the instructions of the website. Exceptionally they may be sent directly to editors. Double-blind review is used, which means that both the reviewer and the author identities are kept secret from each other, throughout the review process. To facilitate this, authors need to prepare blinded manuscript with no author details under the title within the manuscript. Make also sure that figures do not contain any affiliation-related identifier.

Folia Malacologica applies plagiarism detection software provided by Crossref and powered by iThenticate—Similarity Check to submitted manuscripts and reserves the right to decline submissions suspected of plagiarism at any point during the assessment process. Submission of manuscript means that authors accept that it will be screened for plagiarism against previously published papers.

The submission of manuscripts created by artificial intelligence, language models, machine learning, or similar technologies is discouraged. Authors should report any use of natural language processing tools (NLP), or similar technologies to assist with writing or generating ideas in the paper. The name of the model or tool, version and extension numbers, and manufacture should be disclosed. Additionally, authors should specify who used the system, the time and date of the use and the prompts used to generate the text and figures. Authors must take responsibility for the integrity of the content generated by AI tools.

When submitting a paper, the following data should be sent only to the editor: author’s full name(s), institutions, address (including ORCID, telephone number and e-mail address, as applicable). When submitting a paper with multiple authors, one author must accept the responsibility for all correspondence (as corresponding author).

General remarks
Manuscripts should be typewritten (Times New Roman font, size 12), double-spaced with margins of 2.5 cm in PC-compatible format. Please submit your manuscript with tables, figure captions and figures. The final version (revised after the review process) accompanied by original illustrations must be submitted also electronically. While preparing the final copy, use the following conventions: use tab commands, not spaces for paragraph indents. All character attributes in the text should appear in the file just as they will in the final printed paper (consult recent issue for internal style conventions), i.e. items to be set in Small Capitals, bold, italic (use italic font instead of underline), _subscript and ^superscript should be formatted as such. All these attributes should be done using standard word processor's commands, avoiding procedures that are not convertible. The entire text file with references should be justified to the left, including headings, subtitles etc.

Manuscripts must conform to the following rules:

1. Title page
This should include title, abstract, key words and running head. The title should be concise but informative and, where appropriate, should include the names of families and/or higher taxa covered in the paper.

2. Abstract
The abstract should be informative, concise, and in a form that is fully intelligible in conjunction with the title. It should not exceed 300 words and should not include citation of references or reference to figures and tables in the text. Names of new taxa and indication of taxonomic acts (synonymies, new combinations, lectotype designations etc.) should be included.

3. Table of contents
For larger papers (over 100 manuscript pages) authors are requested to submit a "Table of Contents".

4. The standard arrangement
The standard arrangement for the research papers is as follows: Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgements, References. In justified cases authors may depart from the above scheme. Subheadings may be used. Material and Methods section should report study design allowing for reproducibility of results. Papers submitted as short communications should contain Abstract, Acknowledgements, References only, without division of their main text into Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, Discussion.

Authors are encouraged to consider publishing additional data as supplementary material. Information about them must be included in the typescript, which at the end must contain a list of files included in the supporting material. Supplementary figures and tables should be numbered ‘Figure S1’, ‘Table S1’, etc. Supporting information will be available online only.

If nucleotide sequences are analysed they should be deposited in official resource like GenBank of the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI).

5. Generic and specific names
Only genus- and species-level names should be italicized. The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature must be strictly followed.

Papers with description of new taxa at species or higher level must include bibliographic data for all used names. Papers including new taxonomic decisions on previously described taxa (synonymies, new combinations, lectotype designations etc.) must include bibliographic data of the original description of the taxon (including page number). Use SI units and appropriate symbols.

6. Units
Use SI units and appropriate symbols.

7. Footnotes and cross references
They should be kept to a minimum.

8. References
References in the text should be cited in small capitals: Snailstone (1999); (Snailstone 1999) or Snailstone & Slugwater (1999: 303); for references with more than two authors use the form: Clamshell et al. Multiple references of various authors and references of the same author should be arranged in chronological order: (Snailstone 1802, Clamshell 1841, 1853, 1857, Veligersson 1919, 1922, Abalone 1999).

In the reference list references should be listed alphabetically with book and journal titles given in full. It is desirable to add a DOI (digital object identifier) number. Internet resources could be cited with exact URL link and date of accession. Each two references in the list should be separated by a blank line.

References should be presented in their original wording if the original titles were written in Latin letters. In the case of other lettering, it is recommended to translate the title into English with information about the language of the original publication included in square brackets at the end.

Abalone B. B. 1999. Love story of an octopus. Annales Zoologici 917: 223–228.

Musselsky K., Achatinoff I. I. 2023. Hepatopancreas rediscovered. Proceedings of the Malacological Society of London 115: 71–93. [in Russian]

Oysterfriend O. D. 1967. Gastropod secret life. Jamieson & Son, London.

Snailstone J. M., Veligersson C. D., Slugwater A. W. 1962. Why are slugs slow? In: Oysterfriend O. D. (ed.). Physiology of Mollusca. Vol. 35. Clarendon Press, New York, pp. 1125–1300.

Gastropodlover B. C., Monachafan D. U. 2051. Proposal for changes in gastropod systematics. In: Snailstone J. M., Musselsky K. (eds). Intergalactic Congress on Malacology Future, 1–10 July, 2051, Warsaw, Book of Abstracts: 25–30.

Fauna Europaea 2018. Oxychilus (Longiphallus) superfluus (L. Pfeiffer, 1849). Available online at https://fauna-eu.org/cdm_dataportal/taxon/ 7d456997-1d96-4cf5-bde1-5ad78cacaf47 (accessed 28 September 2018).

9. Authors of scientific names
Author of any generic and specific name appearing in non-taxonomic papers should be cited when the name first appears in the text. The references in which the name was first published are not needed in the reference list. In taxonomic papers, authors, dates of taxonomic names and references should be cited as appropriate. Authors of taxonomic names must not be set in small capitals. Names with one author are cited: Corpus delicti Snailstone, 1856 or Lyropupa protostrator (Slugdom, 2002), names with two authors are cited: Corpus odoratum Hennessy et Glenlivet, 1815 or Lyropupa sapiens (Glamour et Squalor, 2015).

10. Tables
Tables should be kept as simple as possible with few horizontal and, preferably, no vertical rules. Each table complete with title and footnotes should be prepared on separate pages, numbered consecutively and be self-explanatory.

11. Illustrations
All illustrations are referred to as "Fig., Figs" in the text (not as plates or photos). Figure captions should be typed on a separate sheet, numbered consecutively. Submitted illustrations should be in *.pdf or *.jpg format. Illustrations may be mounted in plates in the arrangement desired in the printed work. If plates are prepared, particular figures should be numbered consecutively as e.g. Figs 1-3, not as Fig. 1A-C, etc.

After acceptance, the authors will be asked to provide the figures prepared in a format suitable for printing:

• Figures prepared in MS Excel, MS Word and CorelDraw should be submitted in the original format of the given programme. Figures prepared in CorelDraw should not be saved as *.tif or *.jpg.
• Figures prepared in Adobe Illustrator should be submitted in any of the three formats: *.ai, *.eps and *.pdf.
• Figures prepared in other programmes should be exported, preferably to one of the formats *.wmf. *.emf *.pdf or *.eps; if this is impossible, then to *.tif or *.jpg (if it is *.jpg, then choose the lowest compression and highest quality possible) at a minimum resolution of 300 dpi given the width of published text of 170 mm (two columns) or 82.5 mm (one column).
• Scanned figures should be saved in *.tif or *.jpg formats. Rules on *.jpg files, size and resolution mentioned above should be applied.
• If the authors would like to publish illustrations prepared in the form of short video recordings as *.mp4 or *.mov files, they should contact the editorial office.
• Digital photographs should be submitted with no changes to the original size and resolution.

12. Page proofs
Only one set of page proofs will be sent, and authors are charged for any major author-generated alterations.

Manuscript submission process scheme may be found here.