Article/Note Help Topics

Titles for Articles and Notes

Each scientific article or note should have a title that concisely describes its content.

Text for Articles and Notes

The text box in this section features an HTML Editor that will let you format your text without knowledge of HTML codes. This feature is still very much under development, so bear with us as we fix bugs and add new features. If you would rather write HTML codes by hand, you can turn off the editor.

Adding Images

Images displayed on ToL pages are retrieved from the ToL image database. Not all ToL images are available for use on all ToL pages. You will only be able to select images that have been released by their copyright owners for your intended use. If you would like to use your own images, you first need to upload the image files to the ToL database. When you click on the Add Image link, you will be able to upload a new image using the lower part of the Add an Image to a Page form. See Illustrations for Tree of Life Pages for advice on obtaining images for your ToL pages.

To add an image to your page, click on the Insert Image button  in the HTML Editor or on the Add Image link above a text box (when the Editor is turned off). This will open a window that will allow you to search the ToL Image Database according to a variety of criteria. Once you have found an image you would like to use, click on the select link (if you are using the Editor) or click on the options link (if the Editor is turned off), copy the ToL Image Code and then paste it in the text box in the location where you would like to have the image displayed. If you are using the Editor, you can format your image using the buttons next to the Insert Image button  . If the Editor is turned off, the options link will give you a number of formatting options for your image (centered, with a border). For additional options, e.g., for floating images or for the display of several images next to one another, please have a look at the HTML for Tree of Life Pages page.

References for Articles and Notes

The References section should contain the bibliographic references for your article/note. These should follow the format used in the journal Systematic Biology. The references should include not only cited papers, but also other general references that are relevant to the topic of your article/note.

References should be entered as plain text. Place a carriage return at the end of each reference and none within a reference. Our system uses the carriage return as the marker for the end of one reference and the beginning of the next. Don't use tabs or indents; on ToL pages, references will automatically be formatted with a hanging indent.

Please do not use paragraph tags, links, or any other HTML markup in your references list. Links should be provided in the Internet Links section. Markup will interfere with the automatic processing of references in the future ToL references management systems, which will allow us to link to other databases providing services such as abstracts and full text delivery.

Internet Links for Articles and Notes

The Information on the Internet section provides links to other internet sites that contain information about the topic of your article/note. Please note that the Information on the Internet section is subject to editorial revisions without notice. We may occasionally check and update the links in this section, and we may also add relevant links that we come across or that are sent to us by other people.

Internet links should be entered in an unordered list, e. g.:

The <ul> and </ul> tags mark the beginning and the end of your list, and each item in your list starts with <li> and ends with </li>. Replace http://url with the web address for the site, and add a description if you like.

Credits for Articles and Notes

The Contributor list keeps track of the authors for the article/note. Only registered ToL contributors can be added to the Contributor list. When you click on the Add a Contributor from the ToL Database link, you will be able to search for a contributor in the database, and you can then add this contributor to the list. Use the Shift up and Shift down links in the left column to change the sequence of authors. Click on the remove link in the right column to remove an author.

Only people who have contributed to the scientific content of the page should be listed as Authors. Generally, the article authors will also be the Copyright Owners. Use the Copyright Owner text field only if somebody else owns the copyright (e.g., an employer or a publisher, see Copyright Issues for more information). If a contributor's Correspondent box is checked, their e-mail address will be printed in the "Correspondence regarding this page should be directed to..." notice. Note that throughout the ToL site, email addresses are encoded in order to protect them from being harvested by spambots.

The Copyright Year will usually be the year in which your article/note is first published. You can use the Acknowledgements field to recognize funding agencies and people who helped in the creation of a page, e.g., by providing illustrations or technical assistance.

Use of Articles and Notes

When you contribute to the ToL project, we ask you to give us a license specifying how the submitted materials can be used. In order to meet the needs of a diverse community of contributors, we provide a variety of different options regarding the publication and potential reuse of your materials. If you would like to change the default license applied to your contributions, follow the 'Review license defaults' link in the Scientific Materials Manager.

Attaching Articles/Notes to Groups in the Tree of Life

Please attach your article/note to one or more groups in the Tree of Life. It will then be featured in the articles or notes menu of the branch or leaf pages for this group as well as any other pages attached to such a branch or leaf page.

Please attach your contribution only to those groups for which it is truly relevant. If your contribution is about several different species, you may want to consider attaching it to those species as well as to the common containing group for all species; for example, an article comparing coloration patterns among several species of Dendrobates poison dart frogs should be attached to each of the Dendrobates species featured in the article, and it should be attached to the genus Dendrobates.

If your article/note features species or other groups which are not yet represented in the ToL collection, you can attach your page to the group that is closest to the missing group, e.g., in the case of a species, you can use the genus or the family that a species belongs to.

Subject/Key Words for Articles and Notes

(Not yet implemented)

Indexing the subjects of articles and notes will help us to provide more powerful search tools to people looking for certain kinds of information on the ToL web site and on portal sites that feature ToL content in their catalogues, such as the Gateway to Eductional Materials and the National Science Digital Library.

The subjects listed are those most commonly encountered in current ToL articles and notes. Select all the subjects that are relevant to your contributions. If no combination of subjects provide an appropriate description of your article/note, you can enter additional terms in the Key Words field.

Editing Privileges for Articles and Notes

(Not yet implemented)

The articles/notes form can be edited by anybody who is listed as an author or copyright owner. ToL editors and project administrators also have access to the form. You can provide access privileges to additional ToL contributors who may serve as technical assistants, copy editors, or reviewers. If a reviewer helped you improve your contribution, you may want credit this person as an editor for the page. Do not use editorial credits for technical assistants; their contribution can be recognized in the acknowledgements.

Notes for Articles and Notes

The content of the Notes field is not printed on the ToL web site. You can use this field for internal ToL communication about your article/note. For example, you can leave reminders for yourself or messages to co-authors or editors.

 

Articles and Notes: Save and Preview/Submit for Publication

Use Save & Preview to save the information you entered in the form to the ToL database. You will then get a preview of the page you are constructing. The preview page is located on the ToL development server, which is accessible only to registered ToL contributors.

Once you are ready to have your page published on the ToL web site, click on Submit for Publication. This will send a request to the ToL managing editor to review your page. The editor may then publish the page directly or get back to you with suggestions for revisions.