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Instructions for Target Article Authors

Please read and follow the NEW SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS carefully.
This can save much time during the submission and refereeing procedure. Also, please note that even if you have already read instructions similar to these in older BBS issues, the instructions may well have changed since then.

Author's Guide to BBS Submission

Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS) is a unique scientific communication medium, providing the service of Open Peer Commentary for reports of significant current work in psychology, neuroscience, behavioral biology or cognitive science. If a manuscript is judged by BBS referees and editors to be appropriate for Commentary (see Criteria below), it is circulated electronically to a large number of commentators selected (with the aid of systematic bibliographic searches and email Calls for Commentators) from the BBS Associateship and the worldwide biobehavioral science community, including individuals recommended by the author. If you are not a BBS Associate and wish to enquire about joining, please see the instructions for associate membership. Once the Commentary stage of the process has begun, the author can no longer alter the article, but can respond formally to all commentaries accepted for publication. The target article, commentaries, and authors' responses then co-appear in BBS. NOTE: BBS no longer publishes Continuing Commentaries. And although we might move toward online CCs in the future, we have no plans to do so at this time.

Criteria for Acceptance

To be eligible for publication, a paper should not only meet the standards of a journal such as Psychological Review or the International Review of Neurobiology in terms of conceptual rigor, empirical grounding, and clarity of style, but should also offer an explicit rationale for soliciting Commentary. That rationale (c. 500 words) should be provided in the body of the author's email or as an MSWord file (or RTF, HTML, PDF) cover letter with their submission, together with a list of suggested commentators (complete with email addresses).

A BBS target article can be:

1. the report and discussion of empirical research that the author judges to have broader scope and implications than might be more appropriately reported in a specialty journal;
2. an unusually significant theoretical article that formally models or systematizes a body of research;
3. a novel interpretation, synthesis, or critique of existing experimental or theoretical work.

Occasionally, articles dealing with social or philosophical aspects of the behavioral and brain sciences will be considered.

The service of Open Peer Commentary will be primarily devoted to original unpublished manuscripts written specifically for BBS treatment. However, a recently published book whose contents meet the standards outlined above spontaneously and multiply nominated by the BBS Associateship may also be eligible for Commentary. In such a BBS Multiple Book Review, a comprehensive, article length précis by the author is published together with the commentaries and the author's response. In special cases, Commentary will also be extended to a position paper or an already published article that deals with particularly influential or controversial research or that has itself proven to be especially important or controversial.

In normal cases however, BBS submissions may not be already published (either in part or whole) or be under consideration for publication elsewhere and submission of an article is considered expressly to imply this.

Multiple book reviews and previously published articles appear by invitation only. Self nominations cannot be considered, neither can non-spontaneous (i.e. author-elicited) nominations.
However, the BBS Associateship and professional readership of BBS are encouraged to nominate current topics, books and authors for Commentary.

In all the categories described, the decisive consideration for eligibility will be the desirability of Commentary for the submitted material.

Controversiality simpliciter is not a sufficient criterion for soliciting Commentary: a paper may be controversial simply because it is wrong or weak. Nor is the mere presence of interdisciplinary aspects sufficient: general cybernetic and "organismic" disquisitions are not appropriate for BBS.

Some appropriate rationales for seeking Open Peer Commentary would be that:

• the material bears in a significant way on some current controversial issues in behavioral and brain sciences;
• its findings substantively contradict some well-established aspects of current research and theory;
• it criticizes the findings, practices, or principles of an accepted or influential line of work;
• it unifies a substantial amount of disparate research;
• it has important cross-disciplinary ramifications;
• it introduces an innovative methodology or formalism for broader consideration;
• it meaningfully integrates a body of brain and behavioral data;
• it places a hitherto dissociated area of research into an evolutionary or ecological perspective;

In order to assure communication with potential commentators (and readers) from other BBS specialty areas, all technical terminology must be clearly defined or simplified, and specialized concepts must be fully described.

In case of doubt as to appropriateness for BBS commentary, authors should email bbs@bbsonline.org detailing their proposal for the submission before submitting the entire electronic paper.

Editing

The publishers reserve the right to edit and proof all articles and commentaries accepted for publication. Authors of target articles will be given the opportunity to review the copy-edited manuscript and page proofs. Commentators will be asked to review copy-editing only when changes have been substantial; commentators will not see proofs. Both authors and commentators should notify the editorial office of all corrections within 48 hours or approval will be assumed.

A Note on Commentaries

The purpose of the Open Peer Commentary service is to provide a concentrated constructive interaction between author and commentators on a topic judged to be of broad significance to the biobehavioral science community. Commentators should provide substantive criticism, interpretation, and elaboration as well as any pertinent complementary or supplementary material, such as illustrations; all original data will be refereed in order to assure the archival validity of BBS commentaries. Commentaries and articles should be free of hyperbole and remarks ad hominem. Please refer to and follow exactly the BBS Instructions for Commentators before submitting a commentary.

Style and Format for Target Articles

• SUBMISSIONS FORMAT POLICY

1. We prefer that target articles be submitted in MSWord format placed as an email attachment to bbs@bbsonline.org.
   (BBS may also accept RTF, HTML or Word Perfect files.)

2. Figures may be in JPEG, GIF, TIFF or EPS format. However, if your article is eventually accepted for publication, TIFF or EPS format may be required.

3. All figures, tables and equations must be placed where you would like them to appear in print, at the proper location in the document with the corresponding figure captions below (or above the tables).

• Target Articles must not exceed 14,000 words (and should ordinarily be considerably shorter); commentaries should not exceed 1000 words, excluding references. Spelling, capitalization, and punctuation should be consistent within each article and commentary and should follow the style recommended in the latest edition of A Manual of Style, The University of Chicago Press. It is advisable to examine a recent issue of BBS as a model.

We prefer that you email your submission to us at bbs@bbsonline.org


BBS saves the files in both MSWord and PDF format and temporarily archives the manuscript submitted for refereeing to a (nonpublic) Web Site accessible in both MSWord and PDF format to the selected referees only. This is to accelerate and facilitate the refereeing process; after refereeing is completed, your manuscript will be removed; once accepted, the final draft will then be archived publicly for potential commentators.

• In addition, please make sure your target article has ALL of the following in this order:

1. THE NAME OF THE AUTHOR(S) OF THE TARGET ARTICLE
2. FOUR SEPARATE WORD COUNTS;
ABSTRACT
MAIN TEXT
REFERENCES
ENTIRE TEXT (TOTAL + ADDRESSES etc.)
3. AN INDEXABLE TITLE

For all authors of the Target Article:

4. FULL NAME(S)
5. INSTITUTIONAL ADDRESS(S)
6. ONE EMAIL ADDRESS EACH
7. ONE HOME PAGE URL EACH (where available)
8. 100 word SHORT ABSTRACT

This will appear by way of an advertisement, one issue in advance of the publication issue.

9. 250 word LONG ABSTRACT

   This will be circulated to referees and then potential commentators should the paper be accepted, and will appear with the printed article.

10. 5-10 KEYWORDS in alphabetical order

11. approx. 12,000 word MAIN TEXT

(with paragraphs separated by full blank lines, NOT tab indents)


Target article authors must also provide numbered headings and subheadings to facilitate cross-reference by commentators.
Tables and figures (i.e., photographs, graphs, charts, or other artwork) should be numbered consecutively.
Every table should have a title; every figure, a caption. At least one reference in the text must indicate the appropriate location.

12. ALPHABETICAL REFERENCE LIST

(to APA STANDARD - we will convert it to BBS Standard in house)

Bibliographic citations in the text must include the author's last name and the date of publication and may include page references. Complete bibliographic information for each citation should be included in the list of references. Please also include and link to the WWW URL for any paper for which it exists. Examples of correct style are: Brown(1973); (Brown 1973); Brown 1973; 1978); (Brown 1973; Jones 1976); (Brown & Jones 1978); (Brown et al. 1978). References should be in alphabetical order in the style of the following examples. Do not abbreviate journal titles:

Freeman, W.J. (1958) Distribution in time and space of prepyriform electrical activity. Journal of Neurophysiology 2: 644-66.
http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/abs/neuro/199806009

Dennett, D.C. (1991) Two contrasts: Folk craft versus folk science and belief versus opinion. In: The future of folk psychology: Intentionality and cognitive science, ed. J. D. Greenwood, Cambridge University Press.
http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/abs/phil/199804005

Bateson, P. P. G. & Hinde, R. A., eds. (1978) Growing points in ethology, Cambridge University Press.

13. ENDNOTES AND APPENDICES SHOULD BE GROUPED TOGETHER AT THE END OF THE PAPER AND SHOULD IDEALLY BE LOCALLY LINKED TO IN THE TEXT TO FACILITATE THE READER (AND OF COURSE THE REFEREE'S TASK)
14. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS SHOULD BE PLACED AT THE END OF THE PAPER.



• BBS's rigorous timetable constraints (requiring the coordination of target articles, commentaries, and authors' responses within the publishing queue) make it extremely difficult for us to process follow-up drafts of your submission. Please make sure that the paper you submit is the carefully checked final draft which you wish the referees to address.

• Please also ensure that your submission has been proof-read by a native English speaker before submission. This of course greatly improves its chances at the refereeing stage.

In addition, we also require:

1. AN EXPLICIT RATIONALE FOR SOLICITING COMMENTARY, AS A SEPARATE MS WORD FILE (c. 500 WORDS).
2. A LIST OF POTENTIAL COMMENTATORS TYPED IN THE BODY OF AN EMAIL TEXT OF AN EMAIL LIKE SO:
   

   Lastname,	First Name,	email
   Lastname,	First Name,	email
   Lastname,	First Name,	email

We prefer that you email your submission to us at bbs@bbsonline.org