Notes for Contributors

Scope

The Journal of Comparative Pathology exists to publish articles recording research and original scientific findings relevant to the diseases of domesticated and other vertebrate animals. Articles on diseases of man are also appropriate if they present features of special interest when viewed against the general background of vertebrate pathology.

In addition, the Journal may publish Short Papers. These are intended to include reports of small completed investigations, new techniques or case descriptions. They should not have the subdivisions of a full length paper, but should include a brief summary and essential references. They would normally not exceed a word limit of 2000 and should include no more than four supportive figures (as individual images not composites of multiple images) or tables. Such submissions should be clearly marked 'Short Paper'. Single case reports will be accepted only if they make a significant contribution to knowledge.

The Journal publishes Review Articles on topics of broad interest from invited authors with acknowledged expertise in their field. Unsolicited Review Articles will be considered, but authors intending to prepare a review should first contact the Editor-in-Chief to discuss their proposal for a review article.

Conditions of Acceptance

The Editorial Board accepts papers on the understanding that they have not been published elsewhere and, if accepted, will not be reprinted in whole or in part without the Board's written approval. The Board reserves the right to reject, on scientific, ethical or other grounds, any manuscript submitted to it. Each person named in the list of authors of a paper must have made a substantial scientific or critical contribution to the work described and have read and approved the version submitted to the Journal.

Papers will be published with the minimum of delay, bearing the dates of receipt and acceptance. The period between receipt of an article and publication depends on the amount of editorial work and correspondence required and the number of articles already awaiting publication. Exceptionally, the Editor may use discretion in determining whether a degree of accelerated publication could be offered.

Animal Experimentation
Circumstances relating to animal experimentation must meet the International Guiding Principles for Biomedical Research Involving Animals as issued by the Council for the International Organizations of Medical Sciences. They are obtainable from: Executive Secretary C.I.O.M.S., c/o WHO, Via Appia, CH-1211 Geneva 27, Switzerland, or at the following URL: http://www.cioms.ch/publications/guidelines/1985_texts_of_guidelines.htm. Unnecessary suffering in animal experimentation is not acceptable to the Editors of the Journal of Comparative Pathology. Authors must indicate the nature of ethical approval for a study in the appropriate section of the Materials and Methods of a manuscript.

English Language
Manuscripts should be written in English. Authors whose native language is not English are strongly advised to have their manuscripts checked by an English-speaking colleague or professional language editing service prior to submission. Manuscripts of an inadequate standard of English usage may be returned to the authors without review.

Language Editing: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authorshome.authors provides details of some companies who can provide English language and copyediting services to authors who need assistance before they submit their article or before it is accepted for publication. Authors should contact these services directly. For more information about language editing services, please email authorsupport@elsevier.com.

Please note that Elsevier neither endorses nor takes responsibility for any products, goods or services offered by outside vendors through our services or in any advertising. For more information please refer to our terms & conditions http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/termsconditions.cws_home/termsconditions

Format of Articles
Articles must be concise and unnecessary duplication of data in text, tables and graphs should be avoided. Allusions to published work must be brief and limited to what is necessary to evaluate the findings in the manuscript. Extensive reviews of the literature will not be permitted, except in Review Articles.

To avoid repetition, if a related article by the same authors, or some of them, is being offered to a different journal, a copy of that article must be provided, in confidence, for comparison.

Before submitting manuscripts authors are recommended to consult recent issues of the Journal to see the form in which the articles appear.

Manuscripts should be word processed. Times New Roman font at 12 pitch should be used, with generous margins and full double spacing throughout. Each line should be numbered by using the line numbering facility within the word processing package.

Papers should normally comprise:

1. A Summary of the findings presented in the paper and the conclusions drawn from them. Authors may, if they wish, suggest not more than four Keywords that should follow the summary.

2. A brief Introduction stating the purpose of the paper.

3. A concise account of the Materials and Methods used. Authors should note that appropriate positive and negative controls should be performed for all experimental techniques and the nature of these controls should be described with the methodology.

4. A record of the Results. Systeme Internationale (S.I.) units should be used.

5. A Discussion of the significance of the results.

6. Any necessary Acknowledgments for assistance. All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship as defined above should be listed in an acknowledgments section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, writing assistance, or a department chair who provided only general support. Authors should disclose whether they had any writing assistance and identify the entity that paid for this assistance. Finally, the acknowledgments section should include a declaration concerning Funding and any Role of the Funding Source. Authors should declare the role of study sponsors, if any, in the study design, in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; and in the decision to submit the manuscript for publication. If the study sponsors had no such involvement, the authors should so state.

7. A Conflict of Interest statement. All authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organisations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding.

8. References to published work cited in the text, in alphabetical order. The form should be:

Durand S, Murphy C, Zhang Z, Alexandersen S (2008) Epithelial distribution and replication of foot-and-mouth disease virus RNA in infected pigs. Journal of Comparative Pathology, 139, 86-96.

Where a reference has more than five authors, please give the first five authors followed by et al.

Beuermann C, Beck J, Schmelz U, Dunkelberg H, Schütz E et al. (2009) Tissue calcium content in piglets with inguinal or scrotal hernias or cryptorchidism. Journal of Comparative Pathology, 140, 182-186.

In the text, references to publications by three or more authors should be given in the style "Jones et al." on each occasion.

Titles of books must be given in full with publisher, place of publication and edition if other than first, e.g. Dellman HD (1998) Endocrine system. In: Textbook of Veterinary Histology, 5th Edit., HD Dellman, J Eurell, Eds., Lippincott, Williams and Wilkins, Philadelphia, pp. 287-302.

PhD theses should be cited as: Allenspach K (2002) Chronic Enteropathies in Dogs - Research into the Pathogenesis, Diagnosis and Treatment. PhD Thesis, University of Berne.

Graphical Abstracts
The Journal will publish a 'graphical abstract'in the on-line version of the Table of Content for each issue of the Journal. Graphical abstracts comprise a single image(that may or may not be one of the figures in a paper) that encapsulates the subject of the paper. The image should be accompanied by a single sentence of text (of no more than 50 words) that describes the key message of the paper. Graphical abstracts will not be published in the print or on-line versions of the actual paper. Graphical abstracts are optional, but where authors would like to include such an abstract the image and proposed sentence must be submitted with a revised manuscript. The sentence may be modified by the Editor-in-Chief.

Tabulated Material
Tables require captions and should be self-explanatory. Each column should have a heading that accurately describes all entries beneath. Tables should be submitted on separate sheets and designed to fit into the type area of one printed page or less.

Illustrative Material
All illustrative material must be of high quality. Text figures (i.e., diagrams, charts, graphs), should bear lettering, numbers and symbols large enough to be legible after sizing to the journal pages. The figures will be inserted in the text at appropriate places. Authors may wish to have several illustrations grouped into a composite plate. If so, they should submit a sketch plan of the suggested layout but not electronically group the photographs as this work will be undertaken by the Publisher. Such composite blocks should be of the same proportions as the page of the Journal. Where the author wishes to draw attention to particular features by means of arrows or lettering, these should be superimposed electronically on the photographs. No charge will be made for a reasonable number of figures or for the use of colour for photographic illustrations if in the Editor's opinion it enhances the presentation of results. The maximum page area available for blocks is 23 x 16.9 cm. Figures designed to span one or both columns on a page should be 8.2 cm or 16.9cm wide, respectively.

Legends to all illustrations submitted should be shown separately and, where appropriate, should state the stain and magnification. The latter should be given in the form of a magnification bar inserted directly onto the image.

The following formats can be used to submit figures electronically: EPS; TIFF (minimum resolution of 300 dpi for colour and halftones, 1000 dpi for bitmapped line drawings and 500 dpi for combination halftone/line drawing); DOC/XLS/PPT (if figures are created in any Microsoft Office application please supply "as is"). For a detailed guide on electronic artwork please visit our website http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions

Use of Copyright Material
If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included, the Author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article. Elsevier has preprinted forms for use by Authors in these cases: contact Elsevier's Rights Department, Oxford, UK: phone (+1) 215 239 3804 or +44(0)1865 843830, fax +44(0)1865 853333, e-mail healthpermissions@elsevier.com. Requests may also be completed online via the Elsevier homepage http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authorsview.authors/permissions

Material in unpublished letters and manuscripts is also protected and must not be published unless permission has been obtained.

Supplementary Material
Elsevier now accepts electronic Supplementary Material to support and enhance your scientific research. Supplementary files offer the author additional possibilities to publish supporting applications, movies, animation sequences, high-resolution images, background datasets, sound clips and more. Supplementary files supplied will be published online alongside the electronic version of your article in Elsevier web products, including ScienceDirect: http://www.sciencedirect.com In order to ensure that your submitted material is directly usable, please ensure that data are provided in one of our recommended file formats. Authors should submit the material together with the article and supply a concise and descriptive caption for each file. For more detailed instructions please visit http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authors.authors/authorartworkinstructions

Submission of Manuscripts
Submission to the Journal of Comparative Pathology now proceeds online via Elsevier Editorial System: http://ees.elsevier.com/yjcpa. Authors will be guided step-by-step through uploading files directly from their computers. Electronic PDF proofs will be automatically generated from uploaded files, and used for subsequent reviewing.

The Journal of Comparative Pathology has no page charges.

Author Queries
For enquiries relating to the submission of articles (including electronic submission where available) please visit the Journal homepage at http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jcpa. You can track accepted articles at http://www.elsevier.com/trackarticle and set up e-mail alerts to inform you when an article's status has changed. Also accessible from here is information on copyright, frequently asked questions and more.

Page Proofs
Contact details for questions arising after acceptance of an article, especially those relating to proofs, will be provided by the publisher.One set of page proofs in PDF format will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author. Elsevier now sends PDF proofs which can be annotated; for this you will need to download Adobe Reader version 7 available free from http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html . Instructions on how to annotate PDF files will accompany the proofs. The exact system requirements are given at the Adobe site: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/acrrsystemreqs.html#70win. If you do not wish to use the PDF annotations function, you may list the corrections (including replies to the Query Form) and return to Elsevier in an e-mail. Please list your corrections quoting line number. If, for any reason, this is not possible, then mark the corrections and any other comments (including replies to the Query Form) on a printout of your proof and return by fax, or scan the pages and e-mail, or by post.

Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text, tables and figures. Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the Editor. We will do everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately. Therefore, it is important to ensure that all of your corrections are sent back to us in one communication: please check carefully before replying, as inclusion of any subsequent corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility.

Offprints and PDF Files
Authors submitting a manuscript do so on the understanding that if it is accepted for publication, exclusive copyright in the paper shall be assigned to the Publisher. In consideration for the assignment of copyright, the Publisher will supply 25 offprints of each paper or a PDF file of the article via e-mail. The PDF file is a watermarked version of the published article and includes a cover sheet with the journal cover image and a disclaimer outlining the terms and conditions of use. Further paper offprints may be ordered at extra cost at the proof stage.

Author's Rights
As an author you (or your employer or institution) may do the following:

• make copies (print or electronic) of the article for your own personal use, including for your own classroom teaching use
• make copies and distribute such copies (including through e-mail) of the article to research colleagues, for the personal use by such colleagues (but not commercially or systematically, e.g., via an e-mail list or list server)
• post a pre-print version of the article on Internet websites including electronic pre-print servers, and to retain indefinitely such version on such servers or sites
• post a revised personal version of the final text of the article (to reflect changes made in the peer review and editing process) on your personal or institutional website or server, with a link to the journal homepage (on elsevier.com)
• present the article at a meeting or conference and to distribute copies of the article to the delegates attending such a meeting
• for your employer, if the article is a 'work for hire', made within the scope of your employment, your employer may use all or part of the information in the article for other intra-company use (e.g., training)
• retain patent and trademark rights and rights to any processes or procedure described in the article
• include the article in full or in part in a thesis or dissertation (provided that this is not to be published commercially)
• use the article or any part thereof in a printed compilation of your works, such as collected writings or lecture notes (subsequent to publication of your article in the journal)
• prepare other derivative works, to extend the article into book-length form, or to otherwise re-use portions or excerpts in other works, with full acknowledgement of its original publication in the journal

Funding body agreements and policies
Elsevier has established agreements and developed policies to allow authors who publish in Elsevier journals to comply with potential manuscript archiving requirements as specified as conditions of their grant awards. To learn more about existing agreements and policies please visit http://www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies.