Parasite Immunology

Edited by:
Eleanor M. Riley and Richard K. Grencis

Print ISSN: 0141-9838
Online ISSN: 1365-3024
Frequency: Monthly
Current Volume: 32 / 2010
ISI Journal Citation Reports® Ranking: 2008: 68/121 Immunology; 8/25 Parasitology
Impact Factor: 2.523

TopAuthor Guidelines

Parasite Immunology encourages the online submission of your manuscripts. Authors should in the first instance submit their manuscripts through http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/pim. Support for online submission is available at http://blackwellsupport.custhelp.com or by e-mail to manuscriptcentral@oxon.blackwellpublishing.co.uk. If online submission is not possible, authors should send original papers (in English) to the address below:

Editorial Office
Parasite Immunology
6 Ardleigh Gardens
Hutton
Brentwood
Essex
CM13 1QR

A title page should contain the author's name(s), place of work, address including e-mail for correspondence, full title and short running title. For indexing purposes, a short number of 'key words' should be identified. Overseas authors may wish to consult an appropriate member of the Advisory Board (listed on the inside of the front cover of the printed journal) prior to submission of material. Authors are invited to provide the names and addresses of up to three suitable Referees, on the understanding that the Editors are not bound by any such nomination.

Authors of all manuscripts are required to license copyright in their paper to Wiley-Blackwell. Copyright licensing is a condition of publication and papers will not be passed to the publisher for production unless copyright has been licensed. Submissions should therefore be accompanied with a completed Copyright Transfer Agreement form or Online Open Form to the editorial office (address above).

OnlineOpen is available to authors of primary research articles who wish to make their articles available to non-subscribers on publication, or whose funding agency requires grantees to archive the final version of their article. With OnlineOpen the author, the author's funding agency, or the author's institution pays a fee to ensure that the article is made available to non-subscribers upon publication via Wiley Interscience, as well as deposited in the funding agency's preferred archive. For the full list of terms and conditions, see http://www3. interscience.wiley.com/authorresources/onlineopen.html#OnlineOpen_Terms. Any authors wishing to send their paper OnlineOpen will be required to complete the payment form available here.

Prior to acceptance there is no requirement to inform an Editorial Office that you intend to publish your paper OnlineOpen if you do not wish to. All OnlineOpen articles are treated in the same way as any other article. They go through the journal's standard peer-review process and will be accepted or rejected based on their own merit.

Papers are accepted on the understanding that they have not been and will not be published elsewhere.

Woods Hole Immuno-Parasitology Prize
Parasite Immunology awards a prize for the best paper published each year by an early-stage investigator. An early-stage investigator is either a student (undergraduate, Masters or PhD level) or a research fellow with no more than three years of post-doctoral research experience, who is the first author of the paper. The prize winner will receive £500 to cover the cost of registering for the annual Woods Hole Immuno-Parasitology meeting and will also have the opportunity to present their paper at this meeting.

Pre-submission English-language editing
If you are not a native English-language speaker, we strongly recommend that you have your manuscript professionally edited before submission. A list of companies that will edit your manuscript for a fee can be found here http://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/english_language.asp. Professional editing is not compulsory, but will mean that reviewers are better able to read and assess your manuscript. Use of one of these companies does not guarantee acceptance or preference for publication in this journal.

Electronic Artwork
You can upload digital versions of figures when submitting your manuscript online. Ideally, these should be sent in native format of PICT if created on a Mac, or in native format or WMF if created in Windows. Files saved as PS, EPS, GIF and TIF may also be used, but please note that it may not be possible to modify them. Avoid using tints if possible; if they are essential to the understanding of the figure, try to make them coarse. Detailed information on our digital illustration standards is available on-line at: http://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/illustration.asp. Disks sent to the Editorial Office will not be returned to authors.

Supporting Information
We are always keen to reduce the size of a manuscript, so you may wish to consider placing some larger tables or supplementary figures, which can be referred to in the text, onto the Wiley Interscience website linked to your published article. Additional Supporting Information may be found in the online version of this article: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/bauthor/suppmat.asp

Original Papers
The text should be preceded by a short Summary not exceeding 200 words. The Summary of a paper in Parasite Immunology is the face of the paper turned to the world. it is not a prècis of the paper, but is a clear, direct account of what was done, why it was done, and why the outcome matters. This is not the place for details or data, or for speculation. Avoid abbreviations, write sparingly, but simply and clearly as to a general audience, and give the highlights only. You can make some simple changes to your title and Summary to improve your article's ranking in Search Engines: guidelines on this can be found here. Please review your article's title and Summary in the light of these suggestions to improve your paper prior to submission and maximise its potential readership.

The Summary should be followed by these sections: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion. Pages should be numbered consecutively in arabic numerals, but tables, footnotes, figure legends including magnifications and acknowledgements should be submitted on separate sheets. Please also ensure that the lines in your manuscript are numbered.

Tables and figures should be referred to in the text together with an indication of their approximate position recorded in the text margin. References should be cited in the Vancouver style. In the text they should be numbered in superscript in the order in which they appear. The reference list should follow the numbering sequence used in the text and should include: the names and initials of all authors; the full title of the article; the source of reference using abbreviations for journal titles as shown in Index Medicus, the year, volume number and first and last pages. For references with more than six authors, the first three should be listed, followed by et al. For references cited from books, the title of the book should be followed by the names and initials of the editors, the edition, the place of publication, the publisher, the year of publication and the first and last pages.

Examples:

1) Rogerson SJ, Novakovic S, Cooke BM, Brown GV. Plasmodium falciparum-infected erythrocytes adhere to the proteoglycan thrombomodulin in static and flow-base systems. Exp Parasitol 1997; 86 8-18.

2) Parks DR, Lanier LL, Herzenberg LA. In Handbook of Experimental Immunology, ed. Weir DM, Oxford: Blackwell Science Ltd; 1986; 29

Authors are responsible for the accuracy of their references.

Spelling should conform to The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English and units of measurement, symbols and abbreviations with those in Units, Symbols and Abbreviations (1977) published and supplied by the Royal Society of Medicine, 1 Wimpole Street, London W1M 8AE. This specifies the use of SI units.

Illustrations should be labelled with the figure number and author's name in soft pencil on the back identifying the top edge.

Photographs should be glossy bromide prints of good contrast and well matched, preferably mounted on card and with a transparent overlay for protection. The overlay should be used to indicate masking instructions, lettering or arrows. Specific features may be identified for electronmicrographs either directly on the prints or on the overlay.

Magnifications should be notified to the exclusion of the insertion of scales on prints. Photographs will be printed unreduced where possible but should not exceed 23 × 17 cm (which is the page size) and authors may be asked to contribute to the cost of printing if the space requested for illustrations is considered excessive.

In the case of electronmicrographs it is desirable that full page width should be utilized. Colour illustrations are encouraged. The first colour figure is free but the author must pay the cost of reproduction in full for subsequent figures. Please note that if there is more than one piece of colour artwork in your manuscript when it is accepted for publication, Wiley-Blackwell requires you to complete and return a colour work agreement form before your paper can be published. This form can be downloaded as a PDF* from the internet. The web address for the form is:

http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/pdf/SN_Sub2000_X_CoW_F1.pdf

Once completed, please return the form to the Editorial Office at the address given at the top of this page. Any article received by Wiley-Blackwell with colour work will not be published until the form has been returned.

* To read PDF files, you must have Acrobat Reader installed on your computer. If you do not have this program, this is available as a free download from the following web address:

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

Brief Definitive Reports
The journal publishes studies that are not required to be written up as conventional papers. They should not be structured like original papers but should contain brief accounts of background studies, methods used, results and discussion. References should be kept to a minimum and there should be no more than one table and one figure. Maximum length accepted is four pages of typescript. They will be given some priority in publication as the schedule permits.

Viewpoint and Review Articles
These will normally be commissioned, but submitted articles would be considered though the editors should be consulted in advance.

Letters to the Editor
These are published if they comment usefully on material published in previous issues, and should not exceed 400 words.

Meetings Reports
Reports on meetings or parts of meetings concerned with parasite immunology will be published. Again, these reports will be commissioned, but the editors will be pleased to receive reports that might be used.

Disclosures
For each author, disclose potential conflicts of interest, including all relevant financial interests (e.g. employment, significant share ownership, patent rights, consultancy, research funding) in any company or institution that might benefit from the publication (or state 'none'). Authors do not need to report the sums concerned.

Animal Experiments
The Editors will not allow any papers to be published that describe experiments on living animals which may reasonably be presumed to have inflicted unnecessary pain or discomfort upon them. Experiments on living vertebrates or Octopus vulgaris should conform in principle to the legal requirements in the UK. Whenever appropriate, a statement should be included indicating that experiments were performed in accordance with local/national guidelines.

Display of sequences
Prepare sequences as figures, not tables. This will ensure that proper alignment is preserved.

Submission of sequences to GenBank
Original DNA sequences reported in Parasite Immunology must also be submitted to GenBank. Instructions for submission can be found at the following address: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Genbank/. An accession number should be supplied parenthetically at a relevant location in the text.

Human and murine genes
For human genes, use genetic notation and symbols approved by the HUGO Nomenclature Committee. Approved gene symbols should be obtained prior to submission from the HUGO Nomenclature Committee, nome@galton.ucl.ac.uk. For nomenclature guidelines, see White et al., 'Guidelines for Human Gene Nomenclature' [Genomics, 45, 468-471 (1997)]. The Gene Name Proposal form may be completed on the Nomenclature Web page: http://www.genenames.org. Use ISCN nomenclature for cytogenetics notation [Mitelman, F. (ed.) ISCN 1995: An International System for Human Cytogenetic Nomenclature, S. Karger, Basel]. Human gene names and loci should be written in uppercase italics and Arabic numerals. Protein products are not italicized. For mouse strain and genetic nomenclature, refer to the International Committee on Standardized Genetic Nomenclature for Mice: http://www.informatics.jax.org/nomen/. New symbols and names for genes should be obtained prior to submission through the online symbol registry form at: http://www.informatics.jax.org/nomen/nomen_submit_form.shtml.

Clinical trials registry
In accordance with the guidelines published by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), Parasite Immunology will require, as a condition of consideration for publication, that all clinical trials be registered in a public trials registry (for example, at www.clinicaltrials.gov). Trials must register at or before the onset of patient enrollment. For more information, see www.icmje.org and go to Section III.J.

Microarray databases
Parasite Immunology supports the efforts of the Microarray Gene Expression Data Society to standardize the presentation of microarray data, and we recommend that authors follow their guidelines and checklist (http://www.mged.org/Workgroups/MIAME/miame_checklist.html). In addition, the journal strongly recommends the supplemental microarray data be deposited in a public database such as Gene Expression Omnibus (or GEO, at http://www.ncbi.hlm.nih.gov/geo/) or Array Express (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/arrayexpress/) or submitted for peer-review with the initial submission of the manuscript.

Data sharing
Parasite Immunology supports the efforts to encourage open sharing of publication-related data. Parasite Immunology adheres to the beliefs that authors should include in their publications the data, algorithms, or other information that is central or integral to the publication or make it freely and readily accessible; use public repositories for data whenever possible; and make patented material available under a license for research use. For more information, see the NAS website: http://books.nap.edu/books/0309088593/html/1.html

Distribution of reagents
The Editors of Parasite Immunology have adopted the policy that any readily renewable resources mentioned in a journal article not already obtainable from commercial sources shall be made available to all qualified investigators in the field. The policy stems from the long-standing scientific principle that authenticity requires reproducibility. Publication in Parasite Immunology constitutes a de facto acceptance of this policy. Included are reagents that can be easily provided; specifically, nucleic acid sequences, cDNA and genomic clones, cell lines, and monoclonal antibody clones. Small amounts (sufficient for the replication of any in vitro work reported) of novel protein reagents are also considered easily transferable.

Although the Editors appreciate that many of the reagents mentioned in Parasite Immunology are proprietary or unique, neither condition is considered adequate grounds for deviation from this policy. Suitable material transfer agreements can be drawn up between the provider and requester, but if a reasonable request is turned down and submitted to the Editor-in-Chief, the corresponding author will be held accountable. The consequence for noncompliance is simple: the corresponding author will not publish in Parasite Immunology for the following three years.

Proofs
The corresponding author will receive an email alert containing a link to a web site. A working e-mail address must therefore be provided for the corresponding author. The proof can be downloaded as a PDF (portable document format) file from this site. Acrobat Reader will be required in order to read this file. This software can be downloaded (free of charge) from the following web site: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html.
This will enable the file to be opened, read on screen and printed out in order for any corrections to be added. Further instructions will be sent with the proof. Hard copy proofs will be posted if no e-mail address is available. Excessive changes made by the author in the proofs, excluding typesetting errors, will be charged separately.

Author Services

NEW: Online production tracking is now available for your article through Wiley-Blackwell's Author Services.

Author Services enables authors to track their article - once it has been accepted - through the production process to publication online and in print. Authors can check the status of their articles online and choose to receive automated e-mails at key stages of production. The author will receive an e-mail with a unique link that enables them to register and have their article automatically added to the system. Please ensure that a complete e-mail address is provided when submitting the manuscript. Visit http://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthors for more details on online production tracking and for a wealth of resources including FAQs and tips on article preparation, submission and more.

Early View
Parasite Immunology is covered by Wiley-Blackwell's Early View service. Early View articles are complete full-text articles published online in advance of their publication in a printed issue. Articles are therefore available as soon as they are ready, rather than having to wait for the next scheduled print issue. Early View articles are complete and final. They have been fully reviewed, revised and edited for publication, and the authors' final corrections have been incorporated. Because they are in final form, no changes can be made after online publication. The nature of Early View articles means that they do not yet have volume, issue or page numbers, so Early View articles cannot be cited in the traditional way. They are therefore given a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), which allows the article to be cited and tracked before it is allocated to an issue. After print publication, the DOI remains valid and can continue to be used to cite and access the article.

Offprints
Free access to the final PDF offprint or your article will be available via author services only. Please therefore sign up for author services if you would like to access your article PDF offprint and enjoy the many other benefits the service offers. Paper offprints may be ordered at prices quoted on the order form, which accompanies proofs, provided that the form is returned with the proofs. The cost is more if the order form arrives too late for the main print run. Offprints are normally dispatched within three weeks of publication of the issue in which the paper appears. Please contact the folowing if offprints do not arrive: C.O.S. Printers Pte Ltd., 9 Kian Teck Crescent, Singapore 628875; Fax: +65 6265 9074; Email: offprint@cosprinters.com. However, please note that offprints are sent by surface mail, so overseas orders may take up to six weeks to arrive. Electronic offprints are sent to the first author at his or her first email address on the title page of the paper, unless advised otherwise; therefore please ensure that the name, address and email of the receiving author are clearly indicated on the manuscript title page if he or she is not the first author of the paper.