Submissions

Author Guidelines

General: The authors should aim to submit their work, as concisely as possible. It is recommended that the manuscript of original research paper (research reports) should not be longer than 30–35 pages, including tables, illustrations, and references. Brief Reports /Short Communications and Chronicles are acceptable as well. Each manuscript will be checked for plagiarism and grammar. Please note that Baltic Forestry will not edit submitted manuscripts for style or language, and editors may reject immediately a manuscript if it is compromised by plagiarism, grammatical errors or inadequate style or technical arrangement. Therefore,  authors which are non-native speakers of English or which do not have excellent skills in writing scientific English, are asked to make use of an independent professional editing service. This is mandatory. All services are paid for and arranged by the authors themselves.

 The authors should aim to submit their work, as concisely as possible. It is recommended that the manuscript of original research paper (research reports) should not be longer than 30–35 pages, including tables, illustrations, and references. Brief Reports /Short Communications and Chronicles are acceptable as well. The Brief Report are concise reports of original findings, techniques, or theory. It is most intended for studies of narrower local interest, research of limited scope, updates on statistics, or preliminary results. Brief Reports include the main parts of the original research paper, but text must not exceed 10 pages. The editors may suggest revising and resubmitting manuscripts as Brief Report. The Chronicle should include brief surveys of different kind of scientific and respective events etc. These manuscripts will normally be published quickly after receipt of completed manuscripts. Manuscripts must always be submitted electronically through the journal's online publication management system (OJS); all metadata (e.g., author names and affiliations) must be provided in the system in detail. Upon receipt, the manuscripts will be given id number

Submission of a manuscript implies that it is new, it has not been published elsewhere, and it is not being considered for publication in any other journals.

Style formatting is mandatory for revisions and resubmissions, while initial submission can be of any scientific style as long as it is consistent

The entire manuscript should be 1.5 spaced, leaving 3.0-cm margin at the left, 2.5 cm on top and bottom. Word-processed manuscripts must be prepared in A4 (210 mm × 297 mm) page size using standard font size no smaller than 12 pt. Font size in tables should not be smaller than 9 pt. The default Arial font is preferred in the tables. Use Normal style settings only. Lines and pages should be numbered continuously. Do not number headings of chapters and sub-chapters; align them to the left of the page. The approximate position of the tables and figures should be indicated in the left-hand margin. Scientific names of species must be italicized

Refer to the figures and tables as Figure and Table. Common Latin abbreviations as e.g. (exempli gratia), i.e. (id est), etc. (et cetera), and other, are not italicized. Latin words and phrases should be italicized i.e., in situ, in vivo, in vitro etc. Statistical abbreviations should also be italicized e.g.: P, r, t, t-test, F-test, CV. Put a space before and after all statistical abbreviations, mathematical symbols, mathematical operators ( + , - , > , < etc.) and numbers e.g. r = 0.55, P < 0.001. Do not abbreviate the word "Figure" or “Table”.

The manuscripts should include:

• Title; • Author(s)name(s);• Address(es):department(s), institution(s), location(s), postal code, country (please use only English letters);• Abstract;• Key words;• Introduction;• Materials and methods;• Results; • Discussion and conclusions;• Short acknowledgements (if you wish); • References;  • Figure Captions; • Figures; • Tables

Title page: Title should be as brief as clarity permits. Authors' names and addresses of institutions should be listed below. The name of the corresponding author to whom all correspondence will be sent should be marked with * providing the electronic address and phone number below. Insert "and" (ampersand is unacceptable) before the last name of authors.

Abstract: The text of abstract should not exceed 350 words for original research papers and 150 words for the Brief Reports. Problems, objectives, methods employed, main results and conclusions should be stated. Do not include figures, tables, undefined abbreviations, equations, and quotes in the abstract. Key words: Provide up to the six keywords. Avoid redundancy with the title.

The Introduction should provide a background information to explain why the study was conducted and the research’s development. Definition of research hypothesis is encouraged, as it usually facilitates perception the message of the paper. The purpose of the research is disclosed.

The Materials and methods must provide information allowing exact replication of the research. The methods should be described in details: type and amount of material, location of trials/sample plots, design and structure of trials, measured traits, time and number of measurements, methods and instruments/equipment used in measurements. Special care should be taken for description of methods of data analysis. Describe in detail all of the calculations/transformations and statistical methods, assumptions, definition and verifications of mathematical models, etc. Provide proper information on the software used in the sector of Material and Methods and its quotes in the lists of references. 

The Results should be concise and as objective and descriptive as possible. This section should provide the reader with facts and numbers necessary for finding solution to the problem defined in the Introduction. No discussion of the results is permitted in this part of the paper.

The Discussion should not repeat results, yet state their biological meaning, relevance, and practical/theoretical importance and applications.

The Conclusions should summarize the main findings, their relevance, and potential application.

Within text citation: All the references cited in the text should indicate the author's name followed by the year of publication in brackets. For more than two authors, the first author's name should be followed by 'et al'. If several references are cited together, they should be arranged chronologically such as (Ellenberg et al. 1992, Kouki et al. 2001). If two or more documents have the same author and year, they are distinguished by lower-case letters (a, b, c, etc.), following the year and within the parentheses. For cited documents with no author, 'Anon' should be used; however, such sources should be avoided. Where there are two authors, the ampersands are unacceptable. Please use 'and' instead (e.g., Jensen and Hofmann 2002).

References: Do not number references. List all references cited at the end of paper alphabetically according to the first author. Journal titles should not be abbreviated. Journal titles should be italicized. Do not use the abbreviation pp. for journal citations. Do use pp. (plural)number of pages  for citations of books, reports and booklets. Authors must provide DOI numbers for all of the references they are available. The Authors must provide proper quotes for the software used in the lists of references.

For periodicals
Verbylaitė, R., Pliūra, A., Lygis, V., Suchockas, V., Jankauskienė, J. and Labokas, J. 2017. Genetic diversity and its spatial distribution in self-regenerating Norway spruce and Scots pine stands. Forests 8(12): 470-487; doi:10.3390/f8120470

For edited symposia, special issues
Iwata, M., Hirano, T. and Hasewaga, S. 1982. Radial variation in black alder. Genetics of Alders. Proc. 13th NEFTIC conf., 1981: 17-25.

For books

Eckerberg, K. 1987. Environmental protection in Swedish forestry: A study of the implementation process. University of Umeå, Umeå, 220 pp.

For multi-author books
Kandler, O. 1992. The German forest decline situation: a complex of diseases. In: Manion, P.D. and  Lanchance, D. (Editors): Forest decline concepts. St. Paul, Minnesota, p. 181-190.

For unpublished reports, departmental notes, etc.
Arminas, A. 1995. Forest conditions in Lithuania. Lith. For. Res. Inst., Dep. Note SIN/261 (unpubl.), 9 pp.

The non-English references (e.g. Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Russian, etc.) must be translated into English. Directly after a non-English title, insert the English translation in angle brackets [ ] followed by the punctuation of the mother sentence. The original title is to be retained and a notation (in Russian) or (in Lithuanian with English abstract) should be added

Vilčinskas, J. 1931. Medynų prieaugis Lietuvos miškuose [Wood increment in Lithuanian forests]. Mūsų girios 7: 315-328, (in Lithuanian)

 Tables: Tables are to be submitted as editable Word files in Table format, not as pictures. Tables, planned to fit a printed width of either 8 or 16 cm, should be typed on separate pages, and collected at the end of the text. Larger tables should be avoided. Their approximate position might be indicated in the margin of paper. Tables should be numbered in Arabic numerals and furnished with explanatory headings and captions. Do not use vertical and inner horizontal lines to separate each column and row (include horizontal lines above and below the column header, and at the bottom of table only). Leave some space between columns instead. Text and numbers within tables must be in Arial fonts, 9-10 pt. All explanations important to the understanding of the table should be given as a footnote at the bottom of the table or in the caption.

Figures:Figures should be only of high-resolution at a minimum of 1000x1000 px , suitable for the direct reproduction and on a scale for reduction to half their original size. Preferred file format is ‘jpeg’. Do not provide figures of lower resolution. MS vector drawing formats (‘mf’, ‘emf’) as well as Excel objects are acceptable. Authors should ensure that numerical and alphabetic notations are large enough to be fully legible after reduction (a suitable final size for fonts, symbols and numbers there is 2-3 mm). Graphs should be made preferably by using their initial format as Excel. Figures should be planned to appear with a maximum final width of 8, 12 or 16 cm. Figures are numbered in Arabic numerals. The list of captions should be typed on the separate page. Figures should be prepared preferably with black-and-white or grey-scale settings. Colour figures are possible for the online version of articles; however, they should be convertible to greyscale without loss of possibility to distinguish information. Colour figures in print could be used only in exception cases. The additional costs for printing colour illustrations must be paid after paper acceptance for publication. If authors are willing and able to pay the associated charges, they should indicate their request, preferably upon submission, and indicate which figures are intended for colour in print version. To avoid inaccuracies please check all information.

Formatting is mandatory for revisions

Changes in Authorship: Requests to add / remove an author or to re-arrange the author names are acceptable from the corresponding author of the paper before its acceptance for publication. If the author order changes from the initial submission during peer reviewing, the corresponding author must provide evidence of approval by all the authors. If an author is being added after the initial submission, the corresponding author must provide an explanation of the addition as well as approval by all the initial authors and approval of the author being added.

ONLINE SUBMISSION:

2. Login as author, then in upper left menu click on 'Make a new Submission'.

3. From the drop meniu select a coresponding section.

4. Check all items in Submission Preparation Checklist.

5. In a box 'Comments for the Editor' provide names, affilations and emails of four potential reviewers

6. Upload MS Word .doc file with manuscript text. File exceeding 9 Mb cannot be uploaded.

7. Step-by-step fill in all boxes with information on manuscript requested, including names and institutions of all authors, summary and keywords.

8. Use link 'Add a supplementing files' to upload files with figures, tables and supplements. Files exceeding 9 Mb cannot be uploaded.

9. Finish submission.

REVIEW AND REVISION 

All communications with Managing editor or Subject editors should be done exclusively via Baltic Forestry OJS system.

Your submission will be assigned to corresponding Subject editor who will manage whole review and editing processes. Subject editor will assign two external annonymous reviewers to review the submission.

Corresponding author will be informed both via email and in OJS submission site on review results upon receiving all reviews from two reviewers.

Authors have to revise the paper addressing all concerns, comments and recommendations from both reviewers as well as Subject editor and/or Managing editor.

Please note that in order to evaluate the revision made, along with the revised version of the manuscript we will need to have the accompanying letter in which all reviewers' comments that have been indicated on Review form and directly on your manuscript are addressed point-by-point.

After each review cycle a revised manuscript file(s) and accompanying letter on revisions made should be uploaded onto 'Revisions' section of the 'Review' window of your submission in the Baltic Forestry Online System.

As usual, the revised manuscript will be resent to referees to check the improvements made. Second review round could be initiated if revisions are not satisfactory.

When paper is accepted for publishing, the file with revised final 'clean' manuscript should be uploaded onto 'Revisions' section of the 'Review' window  by substituting previous file of revised manuscript. 

 P.S.