Dispar
The Online Journal of Lepidoptera
ISSN 2056-9246

Contributing

Content is welcome from everyone, professionals and amateurs alike, so please consider contributing. All queries and contributions can be sent to pete@dispar.org.

Pre-requisites

It is a requirement that contributions have not been published before and are not under consideration for publication elsewhere. However, we are happy to receive contributions of previously published works so long as permission has been obtained for their publication on the web.

Editorial Standards and Peer Review

dispar aims to publish works that are of high quality. Where relevant, contributions will be subject to peer review (this does not apply to trip reports, event reports and reviews).

The Submission Process

We aim to implement a lightweight process with some simple steps:

  1. Propose a contribution. Before submitting, the lead author should make a case for a publication and provide some preliminary information. In particular, outline the proposed content and give a working title. Give an indication of the likely word count and when it would be submitted.
  2. Submit for review and editing. Text may be submitted as plain text or in Microsoft Word or Rich Text Format (RTF), and should include an indication of the placement of any images and associated captions. High-res images should be sent separately and they will be resized as appropriate. Where relevant, ensure that copyright permission has been granted for any text and illustrations not by the authors. Email your contribution directly to the contact given above or indirectly using a web storage mechanism, such as Dropbox.
  3. Accept the published article. Authors will have the opportunity to review the contribution before it is published in its final form and request changes.

House Style

The dispar "house style" (the format used within articles) follows the Harvard (author-date) system with the following exceptions:

Citing within Your Text

When writing a piece of work you should provide references to the sources used. A reference is the detailed bibliographic description of the item from which you gained your information. References are briefly cited within the text, based on the primary author's name and date, and then described in full at the end of your work in a reference list. In order to find out more about a document the reader can simply look up the author's name in the reference list.

To link the information you use in your text to its source (such as a book or article), put the author's name and the year of publication at the appropriate point in your text.

This was first described in Ford (1945).

If the author's name is not naturally placed in a sentence, then put the author's surname and date in brackets.

There is some evidence (Ford, 1945) that this species is capable of surviving winters in the British Isles.

Some additional "rules" for citing authors are:

Reference List

In order to find out more about the document a reader can simply look up the author's name in the reference list. All publications cited must be listed in full in a References section at the end of the article. Conversely, all references listed in the References section must be referred to in the text. Authors are responsible for ensuring these are accurate. List references alphabetically by the (first) author. You should not break down the list by types of material (books, articles, web pages, etc.).

Books

Books should be referenced using the format: Author(s) (Year) Title. Edition (if not the first), Place of Publication: Publisher.

Ford, E.B. (1945) Butterflies. London: Collins.
Thomas, J. and Lewington, R. (2014) The Butterflies of Britain and Ireland. 3rd ed., Gillingham, Dorset: British Wildlife Publishing.
Agassiz, D.J.L., Beavan, S.D. and Heckford, R.J. (2013) Checklist of the Lepidoptera of the British Isles. Telford, Shropshire: Field Studies Council.

Some additional "rules" for referencing books are:

A book chapter or page can be referenced using the format: Author(s) (Year) Title of chapter. In: Author(s) Book title. Place of publication: Publisher, Pages (use p. or pp.).

Journal Articles

Journal articles should be referenced using the format: Author(s) (Year) Title of article. Title of journal, Volume (Part/Issue/Month), Pages (use p. or pp.).

Harrison, J.W.H. (1946) The Lepidoptera of the Hebridian Isles of Coll, Tiree and Gunna, with some remarks on the Biogeography of the Islands. Entomologist's Record and Journal of Variation, 58, p.58.

Web Pages

Web Pages and other electronic references can be referenced using the format: Author(s) (Year) Title of document [Online] Organisation responsible (optional). Available from: web address [Accessed date].

Eeles, P. (2014) The Irish Mountain Ringlet [Online]. Available from: http://www.dispar.org/reference.php?id=1 [Accessed 25 September 2014].

Additional Information Required

In order to ensure appropriate cataloging of publications, could contributors please provide the following information with their contribution: