Submissions

Author Guidelines

Submissions

Please review the journal's section policies before initiating a submission.

Manuscripts must be double-spaced and submitted online via this website. Submission of an original manuscript to the Journal will be taken to mean that:

• it represents original work not previously published; 
• it is not being considered elsewhere for publication; 
• the author(s) is willing to assign copyright to the journal as applicable (add link) and, 
• if accepted for publication, the manuscript will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in any language, without the consent of the Journal.

In the case of so-called "working papers," i.e., narrowly distributed in print form but also available online, the author(s) have to provide solid evidence the manuscript submitted to Confluence is substantially different in style, organization, data, and analysis from the working paper (i.e., the submitted material is indeed original work). Authors must take full responsibility for all figures, graphics, tables, etc., and present them as camera-ready copy (please see instructions listed below).

Submissions Process

Go to the registration page if you do not yet have a username and password. Please ensure that you register as an 'Author' when creating your account.

Once you have an online account, login and click on the 'Author' link. The 'Author' page will include a link to begin the online submission process.

When submitting online, please note that you need to click on 'Save/Continue' at the bottom of each page in order to proceed to the next step in the submission process.

There are 5 steps to an online submission:

• In Step 1, please ensure that:
  • You select a section from the 'Journal Section' menu.
  • You review, complete, and check off each item in the 'Submission Checklist'.
• In Step 2, please ensure that:
  • You provide your personal information (name, email, etc.).
  • You provide the title of your article or reviewed book.
• In Step 3, please ensure that: 
  • You upload a copy of your manuscript in DOC or DOCX format (i.e. filename should end with .doc or .docx).
  • You have used the numbered lines.
  • You remove all personal, identifying information from the submission file as per the provided instructions. Please note that this is not required for book reviews.
  • Please include figures, tables, or images within your manuscript file after removing all personal, identifying information from each image; however, after peer review, if your article has been accepted, each image must be uploaded as a supplementary file.
• In Step 4, (to be incorporated after peer review is complete) upload all tables, figures, images, as supplementary files (this can be done by clicking on "add a supplementary file":
  • Tables should be saved and uploaded as separate DOC or DOCX files (i.e. filenames should end with .doc or .docx).
  • Figures and images should be saved and uploaded using high-quality image formats: BMP, TIFF, EPS, JPEG (uncompressed); not GIF or compressed JPEG.
  • Figures and images should be 300dpi (print quality; not compressed) and each image/figure should be uploaded as an individual supplementary file.
  • Audio and video files should be saved and uploaded using the MPEG format (MP3 for audio and MPEG for video).
• In Step 5, finish your submission by reviewing your submission details and confirming that your submission is complete.

Written Permissions for Material Copyrighted by Others

• Authors are responsible for obtaining written permission to reproduce someone else’s work (artwork, memes, photographs, forms, tables, graphs, unpublished communications that support/refute your data, and other materials). 
• Permissions must be collected from the original creators. 
• Permissions should be in email format to accompany the final report submission for Manager/Editor approval. 
• Acknowledgement of credit for all outside materials must be cited in the paper.

Manuscript Length Guidelines

Please ensure that your submission manuscript does not exceed the following length guidelines.

• Standard science articles: 4000-7000 words
• How to articles: maximum 5000 words
• Brief literature reviews: maximum 2000 words
• Conference/workshop summaries: maximum 3000 words
• Extension-based articles: 1500-2500 words
• Book reviews: maximum 1000 words

General Style Guidelines

• Submitted in English. Canadian English/French spelling and punctuation is expected (i.e., colour, metres, kilometres, etc.).
• No footnotes; no embedded notes (please see below under Notes). 
• Use SI units. Where original units are not SI, convert and provide SI conversions after [e.g., 50 ft (15.24 m)]. 
• Avoid first person (i.e., “we measured streamflow” should be replaced by “streamflow data were measured”). 
• More specifics on style and grammar can be found in sections 5 and 8 in the Forest Science Style Guide.

Abstracts

For each article (but not the commentaries or the research in brief), the author must provide a 100-125 word abstract. These summaries should be placed immediately below the paper title, author and institutional affiliation.

Keywords

Confluence requests that potential authors assign 3–5 keywords to their article. Keywords should follow immediately after the abstract.

Author Bio

The author(s) must supply a brief biography including name, rank, institution, institutional address, and email address. Author information and bio should be entered in Step 2 of the online submission process, and not as part of the submission file itself. For example, Dan Moore is Editor Confluence: Journal of Watershed Science and Management. Mailing Address: add a mailing address if applicable. Email: editor@confluence.ca

General Formatting

Authors are advised to follow as closely as possible the Chicago Manual of Style.

Layout

• The text should be double-spaced.
• Start each paragraph at the margin (no tabs to indent first line). Place an extra blank line between paragraphs to separate.
• Em-dashes should be keyed in with no space at either end (e.g., phrases—these being separate items—should be followed logically).
• En-dashes (shorter than em-dashes) should be used for date or page ranges (e.g., 2011–2016; pp. 39–53).
• Figures and tables should:
• be referenced within the text, e.g. "(see Figure 1)"
• be numbered continuously
• include descriptive captions that include the credit to the original creator and end in a period if a complete sentence
• should be captioned below if a figure; tables are captioned above
• always be uploaded as supplementary files in Step 4 of the online submission process

Heading Styles

• First level headings: (Boldface, first word capitalized, justified at left margin, on a separate line)
• Second level headings: (Plain type, first word capitalized, justified at left margin, on a separate line)
• Third level headings: (Italic type, first word capitalized, justified at left margin, on a separate line)

Citations in the Text

• If the work has more than two authors, please use et al. (Pike, Bittman, et al.)
• When titles of journals or books are mentioned, they should be italicized, not underlined.
• If the citation follows a quotation, place the parentheses after the quotation marks but before the end punctuation. For example: ''for the future of watershed science'' (Bittman, 2015, p. 42).

Numbered or Bulleted Lists

• Sub-bulleted or numbered lists are acceptable. 
• Points that are complete sentences should begin with a capital letter and end with a period.
• When lists points do not form complete sentences: 
• begin each point with a small letter;
• end each point with a semi-colon; 
• use the word ‘and’ in the second to last point; and
• end with a period.

References

• Following the Notes, list only those works actually cited in the text.
• The heading for the references should be bold and left-justified, as References.
• Double space all entries.
• Separate the main items in each entry by periods (i.e., name of author, title of book, etc.). Leave one space between a period and next part of the entry.
• Publication date should follow author name. 
• Title of book should follow date.
• For articles, the title should be in plain text, with only the first word capitalized; also capitalize first word AFTER a colon; any Latin names should be in italics.
• For journals the volume number of the periodical volume should be followed by the issue number (if one is applicable) in plain text and parentheses, followed by a colon and the page numbers (no space after the colon). See examples below.
• The formats must be strictly adhered to in terms of punctuation and order of the items within each entry.

Book: Vega, F.E., and R.W. Hofstetter (editors). 2015. Bark beetles. Biology and ecology of native and invasive species. Academic Press, Elsevier Inc. San Diego, Calif.

Article in a book: Amman, G.D. 1978. Biology, ecology, and causes of outbreaks of the mountain pine beetle in lodgepole pine forests. In: Theory and practice of mountain pine beetle management in lodgepole pine forests [symposium proceedings]. D.L. Kibbee, A.A. Berryman, G.D. Amman, & R.W. Stark (editors). Washington State University, Pullman, Wash. pp. 39–53.

Article in a journal: Cole, W.E. 1973. Crowding effects among single-age larvae of the mountain pine beetle, Dendroctonus ponderosae (Coleoptera: Scolytidae). Environmental Entomologist 2:285–293.

Government document: B.C. Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations. 2014. Forest practices branch: Stocking standards. http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hfp/silviculture/stocking_stds.htm (Accessed October 2015).

Website: B.C. Ministry of Forests and Range (BCMOFR). 2009. Growing opportunities. A new vision for silviculture in British Columbia. March 2009. Discussion Paper prepared by the B.C. Ministry of Forests and Range. http://www..for.gov.bc.ca/hfp/silviculgture/discussion_paper/SilvicultureDiscussionPaper-FINAL.pdf (Accessed July 2015).

Notes

• Footnotes are not used in this format; only endnotes (notes) are used.
• Do not use automatically formatted endnotes. Notes should appear at the end of the text and before the references (typed in a regular text). Endnote numbers in the text should be regular text formatted as superscript, not embedded.
• Use of notes should be very sparing. They should be used only where additional explanations are absolutely necessary and cannot be incorporated in the text. Maximum: 10.
• Notes should be listed after the text and before the list of biographical references.
• The heading, Notes, should be bold and left-justified as Notes (bold and left-justified).

Appendices

Any appendices should follow reference section and follow the same guidelines as regular text.

Book Review Guidelines

The book's contents should be concisely stated. Most of the review should be dedicated to the assessment of the book's strengths and weaknesses. Rather than listing in detail what is found in each of the book's chapters, the reviewer should emphasize what is most significant in the volume, the adequacy of the methods deployed, and the overall worth of the text. The issues addressed in the review could include some of the following:

• What are the origins of the text? How did it come to be produced?
• What is the book generally about? What is the intent of the author in writing the book (e.g., scholarship, entertainment, political partisanship, etc.)?
• What standpoint is taken (e.g., detached scholar, autobiographical, advocacy, etc.)?
• What is the line of argument, if any?
• What sort of evidence is used?
• How is the material organized and structured?
• To what extent does the author achieve his/her goals?
• Is the standpoint appropriate to the intentions and the subject matter?
• Do the steps in the argument follow logically?
• Are there hidden assumptions?
• Are the claims following from the argument well supported by evidence?
• Is the work generally persuasive? Why or why not?
• Is the work generally consistent (i.e., are there contradictions)?
• Is the work generally coherent (i.e., do the various parts complement one another and go together well)?
• Is the book well written?
• To what extent does the book make a contribution to our understanding of the particular area of communication in question?

Submission Files

To enable blind peer review for articles, the author(s) must ensure that all personal, identifying information is removed from all submitted files. This includes all identifying information in the actual text of the manuscript as well as all identifying information saved internally by software such as Microsoft Word as part of the file's attributes and properties.

To remove all identifying information saved as part of the file's attributes and properties, please complete the following steps, depending on your operating system and software, prior to uploading your submission files.

Word 2013, 2010, or 2007 for Windows:

• Use the Document Inspector to remove personal data.

Word 2003 for Windows:

• Download, install, and use the Remove Hidden Data tool.

Or

• Open the file in Word
• In the menu, go to 'Tools' => 'Options'
• Select the 'Security' tab
• Under Privacy options, enable 'Remove personal information from file properties on save'
• Click on 'Ok' to save the preference settings
• Save the document

Word 2002 for Windows:

• Open the file in Word
• In the menu, go to 'Tools' => 'Options'
• Select the 'Security' tab
• Under Privacy options, enable 'Remove personal information from file properties on save'
• Click on 'Ok' to save the preference settings
• Save the document

Word 2000 for Windows:

• Open the file in Word
• In the menu, go to 'Tools' => 'Options'
• Select the 'User Information' tab
• Under Privacy options, select 'Remove personal information from file properties on save'
• Click on 'Ok' to save the preference settings
• Save the document

Word 2011 or 2008 for OSX:

• Open the file in Word
• In the menu, go to 'Word' => 'Preferences' => 'Personal Settings'
• Select the 'Security' tab
• Under Privacy options, enable 'Remove personal information from this file on save'
• Click on 'Ok' to save the preference settings
• Save the document

Word 2004 for OSX:

• Open the file in Word
• In the menu, go to 'Word' => 'Preferences' => 'Security'
• Enable 'Remove personal information from this file on save'
• Click on 'Ok' to save the preference settings
• Save the document

NeoOffice for OSX:

• Open the file in NeoOffice
• In the menu, go to 'NeoOffice' => 'Preferences'
• Under the left-hand, 'NeoOffice' menu, select 'Security'
• Enable 'Remove personal information on saving'
• Click on 'Ok' to save the preference settings
• In the menu, go to 'File' => 'Properties'
• Disable 'Apply user data' and click on the 'Reset' button
• Save the document

OpenOffice, all platforms:

• Open the file in OpenOffice
• In the menu, go to 'Tools' => 'Options...'
• Under the left-hand, 'OpenOffice' menu, select 'Security'
• Click on the 'Options...' button for 'Security options and warnings'
• Enable 'Remove personal information on saving'
• Click on 'Ok' to save the preference settings
• In the menu, go to 'File' => 'Properties'
• Disable 'Apply user data' and click on the 'Reset' button
• Save the document