Standard Zootaxa Subject Editor routine

Prospective authors should have consulted the Coleoptera page (here) on the Zootaxa website to determine who the most appropriate subject editor is
for their particular manuscript and noted the general guidelines posted (here). It might not even be a bad idea to refer them to the Information for Authors
prior to receiving their submission. And they should probably all be recommended to read the recent Zootaxa paper: "Recommendations about nomenclature
for papers submitted to Zootaxa" (PDF).

Once you have received the manuscript and figures from a new author submission, please follow these steps:

  1. Text should be in Word or RTF format; illustrations should be grouped into a single PDF file which will ease your work and that of the reviewers. Should submissions not be in these formats, request it as the necessary starting point.  
  2. Author should include the names of at least two potential reviewers, three or four is better. You can contact any of these names or none, request that they would consider reviewing a paper. You can include the name of the author(s), the title of the paper, a summary of pages, number of figures, etc. - anything that would give the potential reviewer an accurate picture of the size of the paper they are being asked to review.  
  3. Tell the reviewer(s) that they can use a standard form (Reviewer Form), or detail their comments separately, or simply use Word’s Track Changes.  
  4. If you wish, suggest the turn-around time you think is appropriate, e.g. two weeks, one month.  
  5. Zootaxa has a reputation for being a rapid publication, but this is mostly for the time between acceptance and publication. Longer manuscripts require more time for review; authors should be reminded of this if they express impatience with a longer-than-expected review period.  
  6. Once you have received all review copies back, you can either send these separately to the author, or look through the reviews and see if you can summarize by noting the suggested changes/corrections into a single file. This latter step requires a bit more time, but also removes any connection to the reviewers in case any wish to remain anonymous.  
  7. When you return the manuscript to the author, you should also send the file: “Final File Preparation” which indicates many of the specifics of Zootaxa format. If the author makes these improvements, it will probably speed up the publication process.  
  8. Once the author has returned the corrected text, check to see if the suggested changes/corrections have been made. Then you can accept the paper.  
  9. Create a new folder with a title including the author’s name and the primary subject taxon.  
  10. Send an acceptance note to the Zootaxa editorial office: including name, address and email of author(s), title of paper, summary of number of pages, number of figures, number of references cited and number of new taxa described. Include the name of the folder that you will be sending to the editorial office via FTP. CC the [senior] author this message. You will receive an acknowledgment reply from the Zootaxa editorial office.  
  11. Send the folder via FTP (see separate instruction below)  
  12. The Zootaxa editorial office will then contact the author and send page proofs directly. There are Word files that you can send to the author for ordering reprints and signing the copyright over to Zootaxa.  
  13. Zootaxa will provide the senior author and all beetle subject editors a PDF copy of the published article. This PDF will include color illustrations and it can be circulated by the author directly to his/her colleagues. The PDF should not be made available on an author’s webpage or digital publication list for unlimited downloading. Printed copies of the paper are available for purchase by the author, either color or B&W, depending on preference. The author(s) will also be given the opportunity, if sufficient grant support or other funding is available, to pay a per page charge to host the color PDF on the Zootaxa website.  
 
 
  Note:
1. The original illustrations should be sent at a minimum 300 dpi TIF format for photographs and 600 dpi for line drawings. Depending upon the individual file size and the number of illustrations, the transfer of these files from the author to you may be a lengthy process. For those papers with many illustrations, you should request a few examples to check if the files conform to the minimum size, resolution and format requirements. Then it is possible to have the author send files via FTP directly. You can share the FTP routine or you can ask the editorial office to contact the author for these files.		  
     
  Sending final text and figures to the Zootaxa editorial office  
  if you have FTP facilities/experience, connect to the Zootaxa editorial office:  
  ftp site: ftp://ftp.landcareresearch.co.nz
username: landcare
password: mo apopo		  
  1. once connected to the remote site, open the folder “1_ZhangZ”  
  2. then expand the same folder, before copying anything to this folder  
  3. the new folder should be a unique name, perhaps indicating the senior author and the principal taxon in the paper, e.g. “Bily MAD Anthaxia”  
  4. you should include the final text and the graphics files... large image files will take awhile to transfer, but you can watch the progress to make certain that all files are transferred.  
  5. once all files have transferred you disconnect or close the FTP software.  
     
  If you do not currently have FTP software, the program “Filezilla” is available free: http://filezilla-project.org/  
  download, install and it’s fairly intuitive from there!  
     
  Documents you may wish to send to authors:  
 
  Reviewer A form (RTF) here
  Reviewer B form (RTF) here
  Zootaxa Final Files guide (PDF) here
  Zootaxa copyright form (RTF) here
  Zootaxa reprint order form (RTF) here
     
 
  Zootaxa Editorial Office: zed at mapress.com
  
  Managing Editor: Dr. Zhi-Qiang Zhang, Landcare Research, Auckland, New Zealand: editorzhang@gmail.com  
  Publisher: Magnolia Press (here)