Scope | Categories of Papers | Submission Process | ORCID IDs | Zoobank | Originality and Copyright | Manuscript Preparation and Style | Acknowledgements & Required Statements | References | Figures & Tables | Supplementary Materials | Open Access  | Cambridge Language Editing Service | AuthorAID 

Scope

Journal of Helminthology publishes original papers, review articles and short communications on all aspects of pure and applied helminthology, particularly those helminth parasites of environmental health, medical or veterinary importance. As of June 1st 2024, the journal will no longer consider papers focused on free-living helminth taxa, unless the latter are directly relevant to the study of parasitic helminths. Research papers on the ecology and evolution of helminths in wildlife hosts, including plant and insect parasites, are also published along with taxonomic papers contributing to the systematics of a group. The journal will be of interest to academics and researchers involved in the fields of human and veterinary parasitology, public health, microbiology, ecology, epidemiology and biochemistry.

Categories of papers

The Editor welcomes original, creative, high-quality contributions suitable for the journal’s international readership. The novelty and importance of submitted papers should be made clear in the Introduction.

All empirical studies must include clear and appropriate statistical analyses of the data, following best-practice for conducting analyses and reporting results in the field of study.

In addition, for taxonomic papers describing new helminth species, we now require both morphological and genetic data, in accordance with the principles of integrative taxonomy. For papers investigating the anthelmintic properties of plant extracts or other novel compounds, we now require evidence beyond simple in vitro effects on worm or egg survival, such as chemical characterisation of the active compounds, elucidation of their mode of action, and/or in vivo tests of their efficacy and toxicity.

There are no page charges for papers published in Journal of Helminthology.

The journal accepts the following contributions:

Research Articles

This category is intended for full-scale studies of an appropriate length.

Reviews

Journal of Helminthology will publish scholarly, comprehensive reviews that summarise and critically evaluate research in the field, addressing and identifying future implications. Reviews may be invited by the Editor but may also be submitted. Authors wishing to submit papers in this category are advised to contact the Editor before doing so.

Short Communications

This category is for short, definitive reports of exciting developments with the potential for wider application and further exploration. Manuscripts should be formatted as for full length papers but should keep figures and tables preferably to one of each maximum. References should be restricted to the essential only and the article should take up no more than four pages of the journal.

Commentaries

Papers in this section provide readers of Journal of Helminthology with focused, view-point coverage of topical issues which are of high current interest. Articles of this type will be invited but may also be submitted. Authors wishing to submit articles for this section are asked to consult with the Editor.

Acceptance or rejection of the commentary is at the discretion of the Editor, and commentaries will be peer reviewed. Also, the Editor may request or allow a response to the commentary.

Online submission

All manuscripts should be submitted online at:

http://www.editorialmanager.com/joh

After submitting your manuscript, you will receive an email acknowledging receipt of the manuscript and providing the manuscript reference number. You should quote the reference number of your manuscript in all correspondence relating to your manuscript.

Please ensure that your manuscript is uploaded in the correct file formats and using the correct journal styles. You should particularly note the following instructions:

• The uploaded manuscript must be saved as a DOC file (not DOCX) or an RTF file.
• The manuscript file should include title, authors, email address of corresponding author, abstract (250 words), main text, references and captions for tables and figures.
• All figures should be uploaded in TIF format as separate files, and saved at final size and at appropriate resolution. Colour figures must be saved as CMYK (not RGB). Large files can be uploaded as ZIP files.
• Tables must be inserted at the end of the main document, not supplied as separate files.
• Line numbering and page numbering of the manuscript file are required
• A cover letter must be supplied at initial submission. This can be uploaded as a separate file.
• Appended to the Summary should be 3-10 relevant key words suitable for indexing. Nothing else should appear on the summary page.

The cover letter must contain a statement that the manuscript is an original contribution that has not been published elsewhere in substantially the same form, that it is not currently under consideration elsewhere, and that permission has been obtained for any copyrighted material used. You will be given the opportunity during submission to suggest preferred referees, although your suggested referees will not necessarily be used. If you have any queries about the submission process, please contact the editorial office at:  jhelm@cambridge.org.

ORCID IDs

Journal of Helminthology now requires that all corresponding authors identify themselves using ORCID when submitting a manuscript to the journal. Joining ORCID is fast, free and you do not need to have a current affiliation. ORCID provides a unique identifier for researchers and, through integration in key research workflows such as publication and grant applications, provides the following benefits:

• Discoverability: ORCID increases the discoverability of your publications, by enabling smarter publisher systems and by helping readers to reliably find work that you’ve authored.
• Convenience: As more organisations use ORCID, providing your ID or using it to register for services will automatically link activities to your ORCID profile, and will save you re-keying information multiple times.
• Keeping track: Your ORCID profile is a neat place to record and display (if you choose) validated information about your research activities.

If you don’t already have an ID, you’ll need to create one if you decide to submit a manuscript to Journal of Helminthology. You can register for one directly from your user account on ScholarOne or Editorial Manager or via https://orcid.org/register. If you already have an ID, please use this when submitting by linking it to your ScholarOne user account. Simply log in to your account using your normal username and password. Edit your account by clicking on your name at the top right of the screen and from the dropdown menu, select 'E-Mail / Name'. Follow the instructions at the top of the screen to update your account.

For more information on ORCID please visit: https://www.cambridge.org/using-ORCID

NOTE: Registering new species of helminths with ZooBank

Since Journal of Helminthology has now moved to electronic-only publication, authors of papers where new species are described should register these details, including new zoological names or other nomenclaturally relevant information, with ZooBank (zoobank.org) before FirstView online publication. Zoobank is an open-access, community-generated registry for zoological nomenclature.

Originality and copyright

To be published in Journal of Helminthology, a manuscript cannot have been published previously, nor can it be under review for publication elsewhere. Papers with multiple authors are reviewed in the assumption that all authors have contributed materially to the research report, have approved the submitted manuscript and concur with its submission to Journal of Helminthology. 

If you plan to include material that has been published elsewhere and/or is under copyright of a third party, it is the authors’ responsibility to obtain permission to re-use or reproduce this material in the paper and to include necessary credits in the paper. When you submit your manuscript, please upload signed copies of any permission agreements.

You can find suggestions about how to word your letters requesting permission to use material owned by a third party here.

Manuscript preparation and style

All contributions must be written in English. Papers should be as concise as clarity permits, and figures should be restricted to the minimum number required for a clear explanation. You should ensure that text, figures, citations and references adhere to the journal styles described in this document. An EndNote style for the journal can be downloaded here.

Please note that line numbering and page numbering are required for all submitted manuscripts.

The title page should include:

• The title of the article, which should be short (preferably up to 12 words) but informative and accurately reflect the content.
• Authors’ names and contact details: please list a brief affiliation for each author including country (assigned with superscript numbers) below the author names, and in addition, indicate the corresponding author with an asterisk and in this case provide an email address
• Word count, including all text but excluding tables, figures and references.

In Short Communications, add the text ‘Short Communication: ’ at the start of the title of your paper.

The Abstract should be an unstructured abstract. It must not exceed 250 words, but it must provide the reader with a self-contained summary of the paper. It should include a brief introduction to the paper, the method, the key findings and the conclusions.

The body of the manuscript should be broken into sections, such as the Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgements, References.

In Short Communications, the results and the discussion should be described and discussed under one heading ‘Results and Discussion’.

Please ensure that all headings conform to journal style:

• Main headings typed in bold with an initial capital only: ‘Summary’, ‘Materials and methods’
• Subheadings: typed in italic (except for those words and symbols which would be italicized in the text), e.g. ‘Sample collection’.

You should identify within the text where figures and tables should be inserted. Use standard abbreviations (e.g. fig. and figs.), use metric units, use British rather than American spellings, and use 'z' not 's' spellings in words with 'ize'. Use italics for taxonomic nomenclature.

You should cite all figures, tables and Supplementary files within the text. Figures/tables should be numbered sequentially as they appear in the text.

For research citations, use ‘&’ for two authors and ‘et al.’ for three or more authors. Use a, b etc. as defined by the alphabetical order in the Reference list if citing more than one paper by the same author. Arrange chronologically by year of publication in the citation. For example, ‘(Blackman et al., 1994; Roberts & Kumar, 1995)’.

Use the styles ‘Polaszek (1996)’, ‘Zhang & Hewitt (1997)’ and ‘Harry et al. (1998)’ at the start of or within a sentence. Otherwise use ‘(Polaszek, 1996)’, ‘(Taylor & Davies, 1989)’ or ‘(Hu et al., 1996)’.

Acknowledgements

You may acknowledge individuals or organisations that provided advice, support (non-financial). Formal financial support and funding should be listed in the following section.

Financial support

Please provide details of the sources of financial support for all authors, including grant numbers.

For example, “This work was supported by the Medical research Council (grant number XXXXXXX)”. Multiple grant numbers should be separated by a comma and space, and where research was funded by more than one agency the different agencies should be separated by a semi-colon, with “and” before the final funder. Grants held by different authors should be identified as belonging to individual authors by the authors’ initials. For example, “This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust (A.B., grant numbers XXXX, YYYY), (C.D., grant number ZZZZ); the Natural Environment Research Council (E.F., grant number FFFF); and the National Institutes of Health (A.B., grant number GGGG), (E.F., grant number HHHH)”. Where no specific funding has been provided for research, please provide the following statement: “This research received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.”

Conflict of interest declaration

All authors must include a conflict of interest declaration in their manuscript. This declaration will be subject to editorial review and may be published in the article.

Conflicts of interest are situations that could be perceived to exert an undue influence on the content or publication of an author’s work. They may include, but are not limited to, financial, professional, contractual or personal relationships or situations.

If the manuscript has multiple authors, the author submitting must include conflict of interest declarations relevant to all contributing authors. Example wording for a declaration is as follows: “Conflict of interest: Author A is employed at company B. Author C owns shares in company D, is on the Board of company E and is a member of organisation F. Author G has received grants from company H.” If no competing interests exist, the declaration should state “Conflict of interest: The author(s) declare none”.     

Ethical standards

Where research involves human and/or animal experimentation, the following statements should be included (as applicable): “The authors assert that all procedures contributing to this work comply with the ethical standards of the relevant national and institutional committees on human experimentation and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008.” and “The authors assert that all procedures contributing to this work comply with the ethical standards of the relevant national and institutional guides on the care and use of laboratory animals.”

Publication Ethics

Please visit this page for information on our ethical guidelines.

References

In the References, use the main heading ‘References’. Arrange the references alphabetically, using the CambridgeA reference style. All words in the journal title should be spelled out in full and should start with an initial capital. The article name should have an initial capital for the first word, and use lower case for all other words that are not proper nouns. For example:

Journal

Molloy, S, Holland C, and O'Regan, M. (1995) Population biology of Pomphorhynchus laevis in brown trout from two lakes in the west or Ireland. Journal of Helminthology 69, 229–23.

Online publications: If a paper is published online, but has not yet been published in a printed issue, please list the article’s DOI. Once the paper has been published in print, the full reference should be given in the usual way.

Book

Bailey NTJ (1995) Statistical Methods in Biology. 3rd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Chapter in a Book

Sanderson CJ (1993) Cytokines active in eosinophils. In Makino S. and Fukuda T. (eds), Eosinophils: Biological and Clinical Aspects. Boca Raton: CRC Press, pp. 274–284.

Websites

World Health Organization (2011) World Report on Disability.  Geneva: WHJO. Available at https://www.who.int/disabilities/world_report/2011/en (accessed January 1, 2023).

Figures

  All figure files should be saved as TIFs, at final size and at appropriate resolution (600–1200 dpi for artwork and 300 dpi for photographs). Other file formats or figures ‘pasted’ into Word files are not accepted. Colour figures should be saved in CMYK (not RGB). Design your figures with the journal’s page format in mind (column width 80mm, with a text area of 170×225 mm), making best use of page space. Use a sans-serif font, such as 9pt Arial or Helvetica. Do not include the figure number (e.g. Fig. 1) within the figure. However, in figures that are made up of multiple parts, you should include labels in lower-case font for each part of the figure: (a), (b), (c) etc. Figure captions should be inserted at the end of the main text file, not typed within the figure. Labels on graph axes must have an initial capital and they should run along the graph axes, not perpendicular to the axes.   

Tables

Tables should be placed in the main manuscript file at the end of the document, not within the main text. Each table should be placed on a separate page and its approximate position in the text must be indicated in the typescript. Tables must be supplied in a modifiable format, not as graphics. Large tables or additional tables could be submitted as online-only Supplementary Material.

Your tables should be designed, whenever possible, to be printed in the normal orientation of the text. Place a single rule at the top and at the foot of the table and below the column headings. Within the body of the table, the data should be grouped so as to make the use of rules unnecessary (do not use horizontal and vertical lines within the body of the table). Do not use any background shading.

Use an initial capital in column headings and row headings. Type the table number and a short title at the top of the table.

Keys

Keys should be placed in the main manuscript file at the end of the document, not within the main text. Each key should be placed on a separate page and its approximate position in the text must be indicated in the typescript. Keys must be supplied in a modifiable format, not as graphics.

Your keys should be designed to be printed in the normal orientation of the text, full-page width.

Please provide a short caption to be placed under the key.

Supplementary Material

The online platform gives authors the opportunity to include material that it would be impossible or impractical to include in the printed version, for example, extensive datasets, 3D structures/images or video files. You must upload Supplementary Material at the same time that you submit your manuscript. If accepted, this material will be placed online with the published article. Authors should ensure that they mention within their article that Supplementary Material is available on the journal’s website.

At the head of the first page of your Supplementary Material file, type ‘Journal of Helminthology’, the article title, the names of the authors, and then the relevant inclusions. Please note that (unlike figures included in the printed article) captions or legends should be included for all figures and tables in Supplementary Material. You should number figures or tables with the prefix ‘S’, e.g. Supplementary Figure S1, Supplementary Table S1.

Although Supplementary Material is peer reviewed, it is not copyedited or typeset and it is loaded onto the journal’s website exactly as supplied. You should check your files carefully. Corrections cannot be made to the Supplementary Material after acceptance of the manuscript. Please bear this in mind when deciding what content to include as Supplementary Material.

Open Access

Authors have the option to publish their paper under a fully Open Access agreement, upon payment of a one-off Article Processing Charge (APC). In this case, the final published Version of Record (VoR) will be made freely available to all in perpetuity under a creative commons license, enabling its re-use and re-distribution. This Open Access option is only offered to authors upon acceptance of an article for publication. For more information, please see here.

Cambridge Language Editing Service

We suggest that authors whose first language is not English have their manuscripts checked by a native English speaker before submission. This is optional, but will help to ensure that any submissions that reach peer review can be judged exclusively on academic merit. We offer a Cambridge service which you can find out more about here, and suggest that authors contact as appropriate. Please note that use of language editing services is voluntary, and at the author’s own expense. Use of these services does not guarantee that the manuscript will be accepted for publication, nor does it restrict the author to submitting to a Cambridge-published journal.

AuthorAID

AuthorAID is a global network that provides free support, mentoring, resources and training to help researchers in low- and middle-income countries to write, publish and otherwise communicate their work.

Key features of AuthorAID are:

• A community space for discussion and questions where researchers can benefit from advice and insights from members across the globe
• Access to a range of documents and presentations on best practice in writing and publication
• World-wide training workshops and MOOCs on scientific writing
• A chance to network with other researchers
• Personal mentoring by highly published researchers and professional editors

For any authors new to publishing research articles, we encourage you to make use of the AuthorAID resources before submitting your paper to Journal of Helminthology. Through the AuthorAID network, guidance can be found to help researchers through the process of writing and submitting scientific papers, advice about responding to reviewer comments, as well as research design and grant applications. 

Please note that seeking support through AuthorAID will not guarantee acceptance for publication in Journal of Helminthology, or affect the editorial process in any way.