- Scope
- Types of paper published
- Submission of manuscripts
- Keywords
- Sections
- Mathematical symbols and equations
- Appendices
- Tables
- Figures
- References
- Review
- Reprints
Scope
The journal publishes original articles in all areas of science, engineering and mathematics. The normal focus of interest is work carried out in the South Pacific region. However, any work of specific or general interest and implications to the Pacific will be considered for publication, and authors based in countries outside the region are encouraged to submit manuscripts.
Types of paper published
The journal has four sections: original research papers, review articles, short communications and book reviews. Authors are required to indicate the section to which the paper is submitted. Reviews may be commissioned or may be submitted as unsolicited manuscripts. Original research papers must report unpublished findings. Short communications take the form abstracts or summaries of work in progress. We expect that the work submitted for publication has not been published before, except in the form of an abstract and it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.
Submission of manuscripts
Submitted manuscripts must be clear, concise, and written in English in double-spaced with 2.5 cm margins all round. Further precise text formatting is not required at the manuscript submission stage. Please note that page limits apply.
Original research papers must adopt the following general structure: Title; Authors´ names and addresses (including email, if any); Abstract (not more than 200 words); Introduction; Methods; Results; Discussion; Conclusion; References. Review articles may adopt any reasonable structure suited to the subject covered, but must commence with an abstract. Short communications should be in the form of continuous text with a title but minimal headings.
Keywords
Authors are requested to provide 4 keywords.
Sections
The headings of all sections, including introduction, results, discussions or summary must be numbered. Three levels of sectioning are allowed, e.g. 2, 2.1 and 2.1.1.
Mathematical symbols and equations
Mathematical symbols are typeset in italics, scalars in italics and vectors in bold face normal. Chemical formulae and physical units, which are all typeset with the normal (upright) font. Equations should be numbered sequentially with arabic numerals in parentheses on the right hand side, i.e. (1), (2), etc.
Appendices
Appendices should be labeled with capital letters: Appendix A, Appendix B etc.
Tables
Tables should appear on separate sheets after the references and be numbered sequentially (e.g. Table 1) and include a brief descriptive title. Headings should precede tables. Minimal use of vertical lines is preferable and formatting should be consistent across all tables. Tables that do not fit into 1 column width should be placed either at the beginning (before any text) or at the end (after all text) of the page in question, and can be justified across the entire page. Horizontal lines are needed at the top and bottom of tables, and may also appear in the body of tables when clarity requires their use.
Figures
Figures should be labeled in consecutive Arabic numerals (e.g. Figure 1) and should appear on separate sheets after the references and tables (if any). All illustrations, whether these are photographs, maps, graphs, diagrams, line drawings, etc. should be referred to as ´Figures´. Figures must be submitted as separate files and not inserted in the document. Electronic figures must only be submitted as JPEG or TIFF files at high resolution, i.e. 300 dpi or greater. Other formats are not acceptable. If other programs were originally used for constructing charts, graphs or line diagrams (e.g. Excel, SPSS, Corel, Harvard Graphics), then each figure must be ´exported´ or ´saved as´ a JPEG or TIFF file.
The journal does not print colour figures - high contrast grey tone figures only are accepted.
Hardcopy submission: if figures are submitted as paper copies, then they must appear in black ink on white paper and must be of a high quality suitable for direct reproduction. Photographs should likewise be printed in black and white.
Captions: figure numbers and captions must not be embedded in the figures. These should be provided in a separate list at the end of the text of the main manuscript.
Size: figures should be of a size that will either fit in one or double column width of the paper.
References
Manuscripts must be adequately supported by reference citations. In the text, citations should be in the standard form of: Zann et al. (1990), or (Zann et al. 1990) as appropriate. Multiple references should be separated by semi-colons, e.g. (Adams and Jones 1992; Masters 1993).
The reference list should be ordered alphabetically and not contain blank lines. Indent by 2.5 mm the second and following lines of each reference. Journal names and book titles should be italicised, and journal volume numbers should be in bold figures. The style and format of the following examples should be adopted:
Nunn, P.D. 1994. Oceanic Islands. Blackwell, Oxford, UK, 413pp.
Terry, J.P. 1994. Soil loss from erosion plots of differing post-burn forest cover, Portugal. In: Soil Erosion as a Consequence of Forest Fires. M. Sala and J.L. Rubio (Eds), Geoforma Ediciones, Logroño, Spain, 133-147.
Zann, L., Brodie, J.E. and Vuki, V. 1990. History and dynamics of the crown-of-thorns starfish Acanthaster planci (L.) in the Suva area, Fiji. Coral Reefs 9, 135-144.
Review
The papers will be reviewed by two referees. Associate editors are responsible for the peer-review process and will inform the author about the outcome of this process respectively. Supplementary material, such as data sets, animated visualisation, etc. should be submitted together with the manuscript for peer-reviewed publication. Author(s) are obliged to suggest 3-4 potential referees who are not closely associated (i.e. at different institutes and who have not collaborated significantly in past research) with any of the authors. After peer review, required revision and formal acceptance of papers, Associate editors will submit the final articles, to the chief editor for publication.
Reprints
The journal does not provide reprints, but a PDF of the published paper will be sent to every contributor.
