Author Guidelines

February 2023

Download a PDF version of the guidelines

LANGUAGE

The official language of the journal is English. Use either American English or British English, but stay consistent. Authors must provide linguistically correct manuscripts.

OUTLINE OF THE PUBLISHING PROCEDURE

1. Submission of the manuscript through the OJS system (Authors)
2. Review process (Editor – Section Editor – Reviewers – Authors)
3. Submission of the revised manuscript & revision notes (Authors)
4. Copy-editing (Section Editor – Authors)
5. Layout preparation (Layout Editor)
6. Final proofreading (Editor – Authors)
7. Final layout (Layout Editor)
8. Web publishing & Printing

Submission, communication and the editorial procedure is run through the Acta Carsologica  website:

http://ojs.zrc-sazu.si/carsologica/.

Editorial stages:

SUBMISSION

REEVIEW AND REVISION

COPYEDITING & PRODUCTION STAGE

Journal style:

PREPARING INITIAL MANUSCRIPT

SUBMISSION

To submit a manuscript, you must log in to the Acta Carsologica website. If you are not a user, you need to register on the website:

http://ojs.zrc-sazu.si/carsologica/user/register.

Once you are logged in, click either the Make a Submission button or Submit manuscript from the main page. You may then select Make a new submission under the Submissions heading. Alternatively, you may choose New Submission from your User dashboard (available in the drop-down menu of your User account in the upper-right of the page).

A submission must include the following:

• Provide the original manuscript in a PDF format, including all figures, tables and captions embedded in the text at relevant positions. Make sure that the manuscript is prepared following the guidelines given below.
• Include a cover letter with the manuscript's highlights, a list of potential reviewers and other notes to the editor.

Submission is made in 6 steps, which are self-explanatory. But, take care of these issues:

1. Start:

• Choose English as submission language.
• Choose Section from the dropdown menu.
• You must check all the boxes in Submission Requirements.
• Dd comments to the editor if needed.
• Submit As Author

2. Upload Submission: Upload the Manuscript and Cover letter. Using Add File.

When asked for the file type (What kind of file is this?), check Manuscript for the manuscript and Cover letter for Cover letter.

3. DO NOT upload any separate figures or other files at this step.
4. Enter Metadata:

• Fill all the required fields and Abstract.
• List of Contributors: List all authors with their role and affilitation and ORCID numbers (if available). Use "Add Contributor" to add other authors
• Keywords: Add (all the relevant | four to six) keywords. Separate the keyords by pressing enter. !!System will understand more keywords separated by punctuations as a single complex keyword.
• References: References field is not required.
• Note: your Metadata entry will appear in the bibliographical databases.!Note: Be sure to fill all metadata entries: metadata cannot be changed by the authors latter

5. Confirmation: Finalise the submission.

Technical check up will be performed first. If submission is technically OK, it is forwarded to editor-in chief. If not authors are asked for corrections,

The editor-in-chief and section editors decide if the manuscript fits into the journal and if the scientific content meets the standards. If not, the manuscript might be rejected at this stage. If it does, the paper is sent out for review.

REVIEW and REVISION

After the reviews have arrived, the section editor makes a decision. If not rejected, typically, a revision is required.

The authors must consider all comments, suggestions, and critiques of the reviewers and/or the editor. They should either make changes in a revised manuscript or give clear arguments why no changes have been made. A separate file with detailed responses is mandatory.

When submitting the revision, go to the Review tab on the User dashboard and select Upload File in the Revisions section.

Upload the following files:

1. Clean revised version of the manuscript (PDF or Word) (choose Revision-Clean in the Article Component drop-down list when uploading).
2. Tracked changes version with all changes marked (PDF or Word) (choose Revision with marked changes in the Article Component drop-down list when uploading).
3. Revision notes with the list of comments given by the reviewers and the author's replies (choose Revision notes in the Article Component drop-down list when uploading).

Correct the metadata according to the revisions made, if necessary.

Depending on the reviews, the editor may decide for another review round, suggest a minor revision, or accept the manuscript if there are no or only technical issues that need to be resolved.

COPYEDITING and PRODUCTION

The manuscript is sent to the copyediting phase, where all technical details are checked and communicated between the copyeditor and the authors.

Once the copyediting is completed, authors are asked to submit the original figures as separate files and the paper goes to production.

The galleys are then checked by the authors and by the editorial proofreader.

Final corrections and publishing on the Acta Carsologica OJS site (Forthcomming Issue) are followed by inclusion and publishing (web+print) within a regular issue.

PREPARING THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT

MANUSCRIPT STRUCTURE

The manuscript should include the following units:

• Title page
• Abstract + keywords
• Main text with figures, tables and captions at relevant positions
• References

Line numbering: All line numbers should be placed on the left margin of the page, and each and every line should be numbered. Please number all pages continuously and do not restart the line numbering on each page.

Sections: The headings of all sections, including introduction, results, discussions or summary must be numbered. Three levels of sectioning are allowed, e.g. 3, 3.1, and 3.1.1.

Text formating: Avoid any unnecessary formatting of the text! Keep it simple.

Units: Use SI units and style as recommended by https://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/checklist.html.

Title page

The title page should include the title of the paper, the name(s) of the author(s) without academic titles, their affiliations, post and e-mail addresses. The corresponding author should be marked with an asterisk.

The title should be short, yet illustrative. If it includes a local, regional name, this must be accompanied by a name of a broader region for better understanding.

Abstract and keywords

The abstract should have up to 300 words and should be written in one paragraph. Authors should provide 4 to 6 keywords. Guidance may be obtained from the most recent American Geological Institute GeoRef Thesaurus. Keywords should be placed beneath the abstract, separated by commas, and at the end there must be a full stop. Keywords must match those entered in the metadata.

Text, Figures and Tables

The length of the text should not exceed 5000 words. Contact the editor if you are considering publishing a longer paper.

When referring to figures, tables and equations within the text, cite them in the full, non-abbreviated form: Figure #, Table #, Equation #.

Figure and table captions

All figures and tables must have a caption. This should be comprised of a brief title (not on the figure) and a description of it. Keep text to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used. Do your best to make the figures self-explanatory.

Captions should begin with Figure #: Caption or Table #: Caption, where # is the figure/table number followed by a colon and then the caption. Number figures and tables continuously.

Begin your figure caption with a brief title sentence for the whole figure and continue with a short description of what is shown in each panel. Avoid in-depth explanations in the captions. Capitalize the first word of the caption and end the caption with a full stop.

Submission of final figures

Prior to production, final figures must be uploaded as separate files. We suggest the following:

1. Figures must be produced as high-resolution raster files (TIFF, JPG, …) with a minimum of 300 dpi considering the size of print. A raster image of about 2000 pixels wide is required for printing an image at its maximal size as the two column width is about 6.3 inches. If possible, submit vector files (PDF, EPS, SVG). Name the figure file as Figure_#.*, where # is the paper's figure number.
2. Multi-paneled figures must have all panels assembled into one piece and supplied as one file. Each panel must be labeled with uppercase letters (A, B, C, etc) in boldface Arial (12pt). Collor of the letters should be black or white, whicheve provide a better contarast.
3. Pack all figure files into one zip/arj archive.
4. Upload the archive by opening a discussion in the Production or Copyediting tab or use Upload File in the Review tab of the submission.

References

In-text citations

Author/editor and the year of publication must be stated according to the following rules:

1. Single author: the author's name (without initials, unless there is ambiguity) and the year of publication: (Valvasor, 1689) or As Valvasor (1689) mentions ... for narative citation;
2. Two authors: both authors' names separated with an “&” or “and” in narative and the year of publication (Ford & Williams, 2007) or Research of Ford and Williams (2007) supports ...;
3. Three or more authors: first author's name followed by 'et al.' and the year of publication (Kranjc et al., 2000) or Kranjc et al. (2000) suggests ...

Citations may be made directly (or parenthetically). Groups of references can be listed either first alphabetically, then chronologically, or vice versa. Several works cited at the same time are separated by semicolon. When citing works by the same author at the same time, enter authors name once, followed by publication dates separated with commas. When citing works by the same author written in the same year, each work is assigned a lowercase letter and then separated by a comma in order to differentiate between the works.

Examples:

‘as shown by Palmer (1991)’
‘other authors (Sauro, 1995; Dreybrodt 1999a, 1999b; Nicod, 2004, 2008; Sauro, 2007; Bosak et al., 2010) have demonstrated’
‘Bosak et al. (2010) have recently shown'

Reference List

To avoid unecessary errors in literature list and simplify the copy-editing, we strongly encourage the authors to submitt  the literature in one of the common structured format (BibTex, Ris, Jats). If you are working with reference manager (Zotero, Mendeley, Endnote) simply export the bibliography in one of the format and add file to submission list. This will speed-up the copy-editing process and layouting of your paper.

If, for whatever the reason, you cannot send the structured bibliography file, follow the examples given below and our copy-editor will produce the structured file.

References should be arranged first alphabetically and then further sorted chronologically if necessary. More than one reference from the same author(s) in the same year must be identified by the letters 'a', 'b', 'c', etc., placed after the year of publication and referred to accordingly in in-text citations. If available, add a persistent identifier (DOI preferred). Please note that if the reference ends with a persistent identifier, it should not end with a period/full stop.

Examples:

Journal article:

Author(s) (initials after last name), Year. Title. Journal title, Volume: Page numbers. Persistent identifier (DOI preferred)

Eisenlohr, L., Meteva, K., Gabrovšek, F., Dreybrodt, W., 1999. The inhibiting action of intrinsic impurities in natural calcium carbonate minerals to their dissolution kinetics in aqueous H2O–CO2 solutions. Geochimica et cosmochimica acta, 63(7): 989-1001. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0016-7037(98)00301-9

Journal article with an article number (no pages):

Author(s) (initials after last name), Year. Title. Journal title, Volume: Article number. Persistent identifier (DOI preferred)

Kruger, W., Latypov, R., 2021. Magmatic karst reveals dynamics of crystallization and differentiation in basaltic magma chambers. Scientific Reports, 11(1): 7341. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-86724-y

Preprint:

Author(s) (initials after last name), Year. Title. Preprint server name [Preprint]. Persistent identifier as URL. Published date.

Perne, M., 2021. DistoX calibration tools and the need for calibration checking. arXiv [Preprint]. https://arxiv.org/abs/2102.09891v1. 19 February 2021.

Book:

Author(s) (initials after last name), Year. Title. Series title and Volume (if one). Publisher, Location, Total number of pages. Persistent identifier (DOI preferred)

Ford, D.C., Williams, P., 2007. Karst Hydrogeology and Geomorphology. John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, 562 pp.

Dissertation, thesis or report:

Author (initials after last name), Year. Title [Designator]. Issuing organisation, Total number of pages. Persistent identifier (DOI preferred)

Leckenby, R.J., 2005. Dynamic characterisation and fluid flow modelling of fractured reservoirs [PhD thesis]. Imperial College London, 245 pp.

Chapter in an edited book:

Author(s) (initials after last name), Year. Chapter title. In: Editors (Eds.), Book Title. Publisher, Location, pp. first page–last page. Persistent identifier (DOI preferred)

Dreybrodt, W., Eisenlohr, L., 2000. Limestone dissolution rates in karst environments. In: Klimchouk, A., Ford, D.C., Palmer, A., Dreybrodt, W. (Eds.), Speleogenesis: Evolution of karst aquifers. National Speleological Society, Huntsville, pp. 136–148.

Published work in conference proceedings:

Author(s) (initials after last name), Year. Chapter title. In: Editors (Eds.), Book Title, Name of meeting, Location of meeting, Date of meeting, pp. first page–last page. Persistent identifier (DOI preferred)

Stevanovic, Z., Ali, S., Iurkiewicz, A., Lowa, F., Andjelic, M., Motasam, E., 2005. Tapping and managing a highly productive semiconfined karstic aquifer: Swarawa near Sulaimaniyah (Iraq). In: Stevanovic, Z., Milanovic, P. (Eds.), Water resources and environmental problems in karst, Proceedings of IAH Int. Conf. KARST 2005, Belgrade, Serbia, September 2005, pp. 327–334.

Website:

Creators, Year. Title. URL [Access date].

Wikipedia, 2021. Karst. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karst [Accessed 13 May 2021].

Dataset, Map:

Creators, Year. Title. Publisher/repository [Data set]. Persistent identifier (DOI preferred)

Creators, Year. Title. Publisher [Map]. Persistent identifier (DOI preferred)