ISSN 0100-736X print version
ISSN 1678-5150 online version

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

• Objective and editorial policy
• Presentation of manuscripts

Published monthly, PVB publishes original works and review articles in the field of veterinary pathology in its general sense, mainly relating to deseases of economic significance and of interest to public health.

Although the journal does not accept short communications in the form of scientific notes, there is no minimum limit of pages for a submitted work. However, it should present enough information about the experiments or the methodology used in the study.

Three copies of the work written in Portuguese or in English should be sent to the editor at the address below, together with a diskette (preferably prepared in MS-Word 7.0). All works should present the results of research which were not published and are not being considered for publication by other journal.

Although the concepts and opinions expressed in the works are responsibility of the authors, the editor, with the assistance of the Advisory board, reserves the right to suggest or request all necessary or recommendable changes.

a) Article's title should be concise, and point the work's content out;

b) Abstracts both in English and in Portuguese should be presented using active voice in the past. Abstratcs should point out what was done and studied, as well as the most important results and conclusions. Indexing terms should be added at the final of each abstract. Authors should refer to the most recent issue of the journal to observe examples of abstracts.

c) The introduction should be brief, quote specific bibliographical citation (this should not assume the main importance of the item), and conclude with the work's objective.

d) Material and Methods should present all necessary data for other researchers to reproduce the work.

e) Results should concisely present all assembled data. Tables should only be prepared with relevant data, presenting averages of several repetitions, if appropriate. In some cases, it is suitable to express complex data through graphics, instead of presenting them in extensive tables.

f) In the discussion, the results should be discussed in relation to the literature. It is not recommended to mention works in progress or future plans, in order to avoid any author's and journal's obligation to publish them.

g) Conclusions should only be based on the results presented in the work.

h) Acknowledgements should be succinct, and should not appear in the text nor in footnotes.

i) The reference list, which should only include the bibliography cited in the work and the one that has served as secondary data sources, should be arranged in alphabetical order according to the surname of the first author. All author names and the title of each publication should be recorded. The title of the journal or work should also be cited in full or abbreviated, according to the rules of the Associação Brasileira de Normas Técnicas - ABNT (Brazilian Association for Technical Standards), Style Manual for Biological Journals (American Institute for Biological Sciences) and / or Bibliographic Guide for Editors and Authors (American Chemical Society, Washington, D.C.).

2. The preparation of the text should comply with the following rules:

a) all works should be typed double-spaced in only one side of the paper with margins of at least 2,5 centimetres; tables should be presented at the final of the work in separate sheets, using paper A4, if necessary; all pages should be consecutively numbered and ordered in text, captions, tables and figures;

b) the text should be the most concise possible, preferably using an impersonal language and the past tense; footnotes should be numbered consecutively in superscript Arabic numerals; footnotes should appear at the bottom of their respective pages; all tables and figures should be mentioned in the text, preferably by their identification number and following this numerical order; the abstracts should appear in a single paragraph, and should not quote bibliographical references;

c) author's professional address should appear as a footnote in the first page of the work;

d) all acronyms and abbreviations should appear within parentheses following their full names the first time they are mentioned in the text;

e) bibliographical citations should follow the form "author and year"; for works with two authors, both author names should be cited; for works with three or more authors, only the first name should be cited and followed by "et al." and the year; for works with same authors and year, a lower-case letter should be added to the year in order to differentiate them; all cited works should appear in full in the reference list, including those which have served as secondary data sources; however, secondary sources should not be cited in the text; this should be stated at the final of the reference list in the following form: "(Cited by Author 19..)"; the secondary sources should be cited only once in the reference list; personal communications and other unpublished data should be preferably cited within parentheses in the text, citing their titles and authors; the comma should not be used between author and year; the semicolon should not be used after the year; examples: (Flores & Houssay 1917, Roberts 1963a,b, Perreau et al. 1968, Hanson 1971);

f) reference list should be prepared with a minimum of punctuation, and without using capital letters; scientific names should be underlined, following the journal's style (please see the most recent issue), including the citation order of the bibliographical elements.

3. Figures (graphics, drawings, maps or photographs) should be presented in a bigger size (about 150%) to allow reductions. Use lettering or signals of sufficient size to be legible after reduction, when appropriate. No part should be typed. Magnification should be preferably indicated in the figure area; a title at the top of the figure should be avoided. Drawings should be made in black ink on white paper; do not use squared paper. Using a soft pencil, each figure should be identified at the margin or on the back with the author's name, the figure number and an arrow pointing to the top. Photographs should be presented in black and white glossy prints, and should not be mounted. Coloured slides should also be presented. Only in the case colour is essential for the complete understanding of the fugures, their printing will be in colour. Do not use paper clips or staples; send figures in an envelope instead.

4. Figure's descriptive captions should contain sufficient information to make them understandable. Captions should be presented in separate sheets, beginning with the title of the work.

5. Tables should be understandable without reference to the text. Each table should have a complete title. Vertical rules should not be used in tables; instead, two long lines should be used, one above and the other below the column headings; between these two lines, other shorter lines can be used to group columns. Footnotes should be indicated in alphabetical letters, restarting from a each new table. Footnotes should appear just below the respective table, separated by a short line at the left.