Submission of manuscripts
Electronic versions of papers may be submitted via http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/bci
Submission of a paper is taken to imply that it is unpublished and is not being considered for publication elsewhere.
Papers should be concise and factual, taking proper account of previous relevant literature; opinions expressed should be based on adequate evidence. Whilst there is no formal restriction on length, authors planning to submit a paper which is likely to exceed 7,000 words (the word count is inclusive of all parts of the manuscript, including the title page, abstract, references, table and figure legends, but excluding files uploaded as Supplementary Materials) should discuss the work with the Editor at an early stage in its preparation.
BCI supports on-line supplementary materials on the journal webpages. Wherever possible lengthy appendices and graphics, and other supplementary materials such as detailed methods, calculations, site-by-site bird lists, sound files and photographs should make use of this facility.
Titles of papers must be accurate and concise, and (for the benefit of abstraction services) include any relevant scientific (taxonomic) name; a running head is needed (the editors will provide this if authors do not). A full-length paper must include a proper summary. We welcome word-for-word translations of summaries where appropriate.
Papers should be double-spaced throughout, with positions of figures and tables indicated in the margin. We prefer MicrosoftWord or a compatible format. If in doubt please supply your paper in rich text format. and give details of the word processing software used. Line numbering is required for all manuscripts.
Guidelines for submitting figures can be found by accessing the Cambridge Core Artwork Guide here.
ORCID
We require all corresponding authors to identify themselves using ORCID when submitting a manuscript to this journal. ORCID provides a unique identifier for researchers and, through integration with key research workflows such as manuscript submission and grant applications, provides the following benefits:
- Discoverability: ORCID increases the discoverability of your publications, by enabling smarter publisher systems and by helping readers to reliably find work that you have authored.
- Convenience: As more organisations use ORCID, providing your iD or using it to register for services will automatically link activities to your ORCID record, and will enable you to share this information with other systems and platforms you use, saving you re-keying information multiple times.
- Keeping track: Your ORCID record is a neat place to store and (if you choose) share validated information about your research activities and affiliations.
See our ORCID FAQs for more information.
If you don’t already have an iD, you will need to create one if you decide to submit a manuscript to this journal. You can register for one directly from your user account on ScholarOne, or alternatively via https://ORCID.org/register.
If you already have an iD, please use this when submitting your manuscript, either by linking it to your ScholarOne account, or by supplying it during submission using the "Associate your existing ORCID iD" button.
ORCIDs can also be used if authors wish to communicate to readers up-to-date information about how they wish to be addressed or referred to (for example, they wish to include pronouns, additional titles, honorifics, name variations, etc.) alongside their published articles. We encourage authors to make use of the ORCID profile’s “Published Name” field for this purpose. This is entirely optional for authors who wish to communicate such information in connection with their article. Please note that this method is not currently recommended for author name changes: see Cambridge’s author name change policy if you want to change your name on an already published article. See our ORCID FAQs for more information.
Licence to publish
Before Cambridge can publish your manuscript, we need a signed licence to publish agreement. Under the agreement, certain rights are granted to the journal owner which allow publication of the article. The original ownership of the copyright in the article remains unchanged. For full details see the publishing agreement page.