As a general rule Ethnobotany Research and Applications follows the Chicago Manual of Style, uses a modified Harvard citation system, and attempts to be similar in structure to models used by similar Ethnobiology and Botany journals. HOWEVER, the journal is charged with exploring new technologies and creative ways for sharing scientific and cultural information.
The following is an alphabetized listing of topics that are sometimes cross-listed.
Abbreviations: Abbreviation of phrases, names of organizations, and often used or awkward terms is encouraged. When an abbreviation is used the full term should be written first followed by the abbreviation in parentheses. This should occur at the first use only unless the abbreviation occurs in subdocuments (see below) other than the text body and then each should be treated as a separate document with its own definition with subsequent use. If an abbreviation is only to be used once in a document or subdocument then no abbreviation should be used and the full phrase, organization or term should be spelled out.
Capitalization: Capitalization should be minimally used. In general words should only be capitalized when it is grammatically correct for them to be capitalized in modern English.
Citations: All literature cited briefly within a manuscript, including Internet citation (see Internet citations), should be cited in full in a section labeled “Literature Cited” within the manuscript. Citations within the text follow a modified Harvard format of (Author year) or when the author is discussed openly within a sentence, author (year). When there are multiple authors use: (Author & author year) or author and author (year); (author et al. year) or author et al. (year). Within the literature cited, no abbreviations should be used except for the first names of authors. See the list of prior citations for examples of how to structure citations of different types of papers. The key is that ABBREVIATIONS SHOULD NOT BE USED and clarity should be encouraged at all times.
Discussion: Discussion sections should be discrete from other sections of a manuscript and not blended or blurred. Discussion sections are for functionally discussion of the results (see results) of the research that came about from using the methods (see methods) of the research described in the particular manuscript. The discussion should not include discussion of results from other sources unless it directly applies to the results of this particular study. The discussion should not be an elaboration on introductory materials on a subject. The discussion should be narrow in focus to the subject of THE CURRENT RESEARCH of the manuscript and its results.
Figure titles: Figure titles must be complete statements. Assume that the figure will become separated from the rest of the manuscript and be found alone. A reader must be able to understand the contents of the figure without needing the adjacent text. If figure titles are not complete statements they will be edited to be that way.
Figures: Figures need to be clear and appropriate for the document research, illustrating important points. Figures that are images should be submitted as separate files in the highest file size possible so that cropping, resizing and other editorial modifications may be effectively made. Maps should be of appropriate scale, illustrating and naming important locations mentioned within the text of the manuscript and other locations important for georeferencing but not unneeded locations. Sufficient georeferencing information such as latitude, compass directions, distance scale, etc. should be included to clarify the scale and location of the research site/area. Other figures should have appropriate axis legends and details that do not exaggerate but accurately reflect the data. The simplest form of data presentation should be used. Tables (see tables) should be used rather than figures in order to illustrate very simple data rather than pie charts or other simple graphic figures unless there is a compelling reason for the figure.
Fonts: With the exception of headings, italic font is reserved for Latin words. Most of these Latin words will be scientific Genus and species names and a few common phrases used within English (et al., in-situ, ex-situ, etc.). Scientific plant family and other higher level names are not placed in italics. With the exception of headings and table/figure axis, bold is reserved for words that are in any language other than the language (see foreign terms below) of the text, table, etc. (besides Latin). For example if the text is written in Spanish, then any words in English, French, Japanese, etc. in the text that would not be found in a Spanish dictionary would be in bold.
Foreign terms: A term is foreign to the language of the manuscript text when it cannot be found in a dictionary of the primary language of the text.
Internet Citations: Citations from the Internet should be formulated to appear as much like other citations as possible with a brief author or title and year followed by a more complete title, site address (http:// is not needed if www. is the leading part of the site address) and if possible the date of the access. If a published journal article, book or other published document was accessed from a web site it is not important to cite the web site but merely to cite the document in the usual format (see citations).
Methods: Methods may be written in several different styles. One style is to discuss the background or introduction to the methods within the methods section rather than within the introduction (see introduction) and then to discuss each specific method as it was employed within the current research that was undertaken.
Results: Results are information collected using research methods (see methods above). Within a research manuscript, content that is results of methods should be distinct and clearly labeled so that readers can easily distinguish the work that has resulted from the methods applied within this research. Results should not be intermingled with discussion (see discussion above) because this blurs the distinction between the actual data and the interpretation of the data. Results may be presented in many different formats, as text, tables, figures and as a mixture. Often results will include a short text statement about the results that points towards a set of tables and/or figures. However, the text should NEVER simply repeat the content of the tables of figures. Likewise, result content should not be repeated within other sections such as methods or discussion, but should be referenced to the appropriate portion of the results.
Result information: As a general rule information reported in figures, tables, appendixes, etc. should not also be reported within the text of the results or discussion section. Rather, the appropriate figure, etc. should be referenced.
Scientific names: Scientific genus and species names that are in Latin should be in italics. All other scientific names should be in plain font. At the first mention of a complete binomial (Genus and species) the authority that is being cited should be indicated. Thereafter the authority should not be included. In addition, subsequent uses of the binomial should have the genus abbreviated to the first letter except when the genus is the first word in a sentence or when ambiguity would occur between two taxa under discussion with the specific epithet. All scientific names need to be verified as those that are currently accepted by science.
Tables: Tables of results from the research and analytical methods as well as tables of other sorts that may appear in the introduction or discussion should be clearly labeled (see figure titles) and organized to logically present the information in some orderly fashion that relates to the research methods or a way in which the results will be discussed. Tables should not report information that is not needed for the research, particularly data that is not analyzed or discussed at all or that was not collected using the research methods but merely appears in a table without explanation.