Instructions to Authors
Scientific and Technical Review

Aims and scope of the Review

The Review is the principal scientific and technical publication of the OIE, fulfilling two of the statutory functions of the Organisation, namely:

•  to promote and coordinate experimental or other research work concerning contagious diseases of livestock for which international collaboration is deemed desirable;
•  to publish facts and documents likely to be of interest to Veterinary Services worldwide.

The Review presents information on veterinary activities, notably those that involve international cooperation in the fields of both animal and public health.

Another objective of the Review is to inform readers of the activities of OIE Member Countries and of the Organisation, in both of the above-mentioned fields.

The Review is indexed in numerous databases, including Medline, CABI databases, and ISI Thompson Web of Knowledge.

Content

Two of the three issues published in each volume are devoted to a specific theme. For these two special issues, an internationally renowned expert is invited to act as editor, and specialists in the field are asked to contribute papers, thereby providing readers with a comprehensive overview of the topic under discussion.

Issues of the Review which are not devoted to a central theme are generally presented in four sections. A significant part of each of these plurithematic issues is devoted to comprehensive reviews and original articles. The various sections may be outlined as follows:

Reviews

Reviews offer detailed studies on a specific and topical subject, such as the epizootiology, diagnosis, treatment and control of those animal diseases and zoonoses of greatest importance to the international community. Other subjects which may be covered include: the administration of Veterinary Services, legislation, information systems, animal health and economics.

Original articles

These may be papers on research or on the diagnosis, control and treatment of animal diseases, and they should be of interest internationally. Original articles may also cover other issues relating to international cooperation between Veterinary Services.

Communications

The subject matter in this section is identical to that of original articles, but communications are shorter in length or discuss a more limited aspect or area. Furthermore, the content need not be original but may review published work.

Reports

These summarise the proceedings of scientific and technical meetings held by the OIE or other organisations.

Conditions for accepting manuscripts

Contributors to the Review undertake to submit articles which have not been published elsewhere, either in part or in full, and which do not require prior authorisation for publication by the OIE. In submitting a manuscript, the authors agree for the copyright of their article to be transferred to the OIE if and when the article is accepted for publication (the Editorial Board will, however, consider all requests made by authors for permission to reproduce articles). Authors must complete a form indicating that they agree to these conditions and this form must be submitted with their manuscript. The agreement is available to download here.

Manuscripts may be submitted in any one of the three official languages of the OIE: English, French or Spanish. Authors not writing in their primary language are encouraged to seek professional editorial assistance prior to submitting their manuscript.

The first (or corresponding) author receives immediate notification of receipt of the article which is then submitted for appraisal to the Scientific Advisory Board. The author is subsequently advised of the decision of the Board.

The first author is informed of any stylistic changes made to bring a manuscript into conformity with the standards of the Review. Manuscripts are returned to this person for approval of these changes. A response from authors within a week is essential at this stage.

It is the responsibility of the first author to ensure that all co-authors concur with changes made prior to publication.

The Editorial Board reserves the right to publish certain articles accepted for publication in all three of the official languages of the OIE.

Presentation of manuscripts

Authors should send their manuscript by email to: publications.dept@oie.int

All pages should be numbered and the various sections should be arranged in the following order:

Guidelines are given below for the preparation of manuscripts. For concrete examples, authors are invited to consult a recent issue of the Review.

1. Title, names and addresses of authors

The title should be concise (no more than 70 characters) and should not contain abbreviations. Standard terminology should be used in the title to facilitate information retrieval and indexing; for example, ‘Epidemiological survey of blackleg in cattle in France' (topic, disease, species, country).

The family names of authors should be preceded by their initials and followed by a superscript bracketed Arabic number. The corresponding author should be identified with an asterisk and an email address supplied. The full address of each author should be given below the list of names, as follows:

H. Jones ⁽¹⁾, M.L. Smith ⁽²⁾ & M. Webber <sup>(2)*

(1) Department of Animal Studies, Centre for Environmental Research, 12 Wellbeck Street, London WI SO4, United Kingdom
(2) Institute of Veterinary Research, 4 Portsmouth Road, Southampton SO4 6NW, United Kingdom
* Corresponding author: m.webber@ivr.org</sup>

2. Summary and keywords

Summaries should provide an outline of the entire text, including the principal findings and conclusions. It should be written in the original language and not exceed 250 words. The OIE will have the summaries translated into the other two official languages of the Organisation. Eight to ten keywords should be provided after the summary.

3. Text

Manuscripts should not exceed 4,000 words (14 to 16 typed pages). When an author wishes to submit a paper of greater length, agreement should first be sought from the Editor. Unnecessarily long paragraphs should be avoided. In general, paragraphs should not be longer than 200 words (or 20 lines).

Authors should make every effort to write clearly and concisely. Experimental work and epidemiological studies should be presented using the following standard lay-out: introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, conclusions and references.

Units of measurement should be expressed using the metric system and, where appropriate, SI units. New diagnostic methods should be described in sufficient detail (e.g. reference standard, nature of the antiserum or antigen, specificity, sensitivity, etc.). Well-known methods, or those already described in an international journal or review, should be mentioned and referenced.

Veterinary drugs, reagents and laboratory materials should be referred to in the text by the generic name (and, only if necessary, the commercial name).

Abbreviations and acronyms should be defined the first time they are used. Footnotes cannot be used; all details should be incorporated in the main text.

Tables and figures should be mentioned in the text at the place where the author wishes them to be incorporated.

Authors are asked to refer to the most recent international nomenclature published by recognised international scientific societies. The names of all species referred to in the text must be followed by their Latin name in brackets and in italics.

Useful reference works include:

4. Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements may be made to persons who have contributed substantially to the article. Authors are responsible for obtaining permission from the persons acknowledged by name.

5. References

All published documents that are referred to in the text must be included in the reference list. The numbered references should be listed in order of citation. In the text, references to the literature should be made by number and enclosed in brackets. For an article on research, it is recommended that the number of references be limited to fifty. For review articles this number may be doubled.

Before submission of the paper, authors are requested to verify the accuracy of all references and to check that all of these have been cited in the text. The names of journals and reviews should be abbreviated unambiguously. If in doubt, the full title should be given. For examples of title abbreviations and the bibliographical format used in the Review, authors are advised to consult the reference sections of recent issues.

Unpublished data and personal communications should be referred to in the body of the text and not in the list of references. Authors are required to obtain approval from sources quoted as unpublished data and personal communications before submission of the paper for publication.

References to OIE standards (e.g. the Terrestrial Animal Health Code) should be listed under ‘W’ for World Organisation for Animal Health (if you are submitting your paper in French or Spanish, OIE references should be listed under ‘O’ for Organisation/Organización). For example:

Each reference should list the names – followed by the initials – of all authors, the year of publication, full title, journal, volume, issue and page numbers, as shown in the examples below.

•  Article from a journal or review:

•  Article in press:

•  Chapter of a book or conference report (for conference reports please include the name and location of the publisher as well as the dates and location of the Conference):

•  When citing documents which were obtained from the Internet, authors are requested to indicate the date on which they consulted these documents. Website addresses, without reference to a specific document or piece of information, cannot be included in the reference section. References to web pages must include a publishing date:

•  References to electronic versions of paper publications should, where possible, be treated as any other paper publication and include the usual publishing details. In these cases the web address is helpful additional information:

6. Tables

Tables should be given titles and assigned Roman numerals. Each table should be presented on a separate page at the end of the text. All columns should be headed, with individual values replaced, as far as possible, by mean values and standard deviations. Notes, comments or explanations relating to numerical values should be indicated using superscript letters (e.g. ^(a), ^(b), ^(c), ^(d)) and table footnotes. Abbreviations which are not widely used should be explained. Tables should illustrate not duplicate, information in the text.

7. Figures

The use of figures is strongly encouraged if they provide additional information not already contained in the text. Photographs (digital or traditional), graphs, diagrams, drawings and maps are all considered as figures. They should be numbered using Arabic numerals in the order in which they are cited in the text.

Digital photographs should be sent in one of the following formats: .jpg, .tiff or .eps. They should be between 455 and 2,055 pixels wide (8.35 cm – 17.4 cm) and have a resolution of no less than 250 pixels per inch (dpi). Traditional photographs, including photographs of original documents, can also be accepted, but should be no bigger than 8 cm × 10 cm (the number of the figure and the name of the first author should be written in pencil on the back of each photograph, with an arrow indicating the top). Graphs can only be accepted if submitted as an Excel^® or PowerPoint^® document (giving the data used to create the figures as well as the figure itself). Diagrams, drawings and maps should ideally be submitted in a format which allows for the figures to be edited, i.e. .eps, .ai (Illustrator^®) or .fr (Freehand^®). Figures that cannot be edited can still be accepted, but only if the resolution is the same quality as that of a digital photograph, i.e. 250 dpi.

Each figure should be sent in a separate file and the corresponding title should be presented on a separate page at the end of the manuscript. Titles should be self-explanatory and legends must fully explain the figure, so that the need to refer back to the text is minimised. The subject, site and date should be given, where possible. This information can be completed by providing units, sources and explanatory notes. Maps should include the scale.

Reprints

Twenty reprints are sent, free of charge, to the first author of the paper. Orders for additional reprints should be addressed to the Editor once the article has been accepted for publication.

The first and last authors and, where relevant, the second and third co-authors, will receive a complimentary copy of the issue in which their paper is published.

Contact: publications.dept@oie.int