Guide for Authors

Please note, that only manuscripts that comply with the journals Aims and Scope and the Guide for Authors of Landscape Online as outlined here will be accepted as submissions. Furthermore all authors need to agree to the Open Access Policy and grants Landscape Online the right to publish this article under the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY) license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0. Articles that do not meet any of these criteria may be rejected. 

However, successfull submission of a manuscript does not guarantee acceptance for publication. All kinds of articles must not be published beforehand in another journal. Therefore, all manuscripts will undergo a plagiarism check based on Crossref Similarity Check powered by iThenticate. Any overlap with a published or submitted work needs to be declared to the editorial mangement on submission. Please also note the information on ethical policies for authors. To meet scientific standard all articles need to undergo a double-blind peer-review process. The average acceptance rate of manuscript submissions in Landscape Online is currently about 37% - 42 accepted manuscripts of 114 processed manuscripts (within 5 years period 2016-2021).

Manuscript preparation for submission

For your initial submission, please use our Word Template (DOT) to provide your entire manuscript, including tables and figures, within a single text document. Here you can download a word template. Submit the manuscript as MS Word DOCUMENT (*.DOCX / *.DOC) or RICH TEXT FORMAT (.RTF). 

The submission needs to contain both: a non-anonymous and an anonymous version of the manuscript:
- The non-anonymous version contains author names, institutions, email addresses acknowledgements and funding information.
- The anonymous version needs to ensure that reviewers won’t be able to identify authors and co-authors, as well as the institution where the research was carried and fundings. Therefore also avoid any acknowledgements in this version. Please make sure that neither of these information are mentioned in the text. Also refer to self-cited work in the third person and avoid any own references in the first person or replace author names with [author(s)] in the text. You may use the Document Inspector in MS Word to remove identifying properties (meta data, hidden content). 

Article categories

We offer four different paper categories, namely full research articles, reviews, ideas and syntheses. All paper categories should be focused and appropriate to its content.

Research Article
Original Articles summarize and examine in-depth important aspects of landscape (ecological) research both, a specific project, model or a theory on landscape. There is no further regulation as to the structure of the article. But all papers should have a clear scientific structure, including introduction, methods, results, discussion and conclusions. Research Article are typically between 6.000 and 8.000 words, including manuscript text and references (30-60 references as a guideline).

Review
Reviews give a critical overview of recent publications and comprehensive state-of-the-art knowledge on a specific topic/topic area in landscape (ecological) research. Reviews elaborate major research questions, indicate research gaps, and suggest future research directions. They typically base on a web-based database survey and analysis to grab the state of the art comprehensively. Reviews are typically between 8.000 and 12.000 words, including manuscript text and references.

Idea
Ideas present new concepts, methods, methodologies, models, approaches, or theoretical aspects in landscape (ecological) that should be further discussed within the scientific community. There are no restrictions to the structure of Ideas presented, but submissions must clearly present what the novelty is. Ideas need to be well derived from recent literature. Furthermore, advantages and disadvantages of the presented Idea must be discussed. Ideas should be up to 6.000 words, including manuscript text and references (30-60 references as a guideline).

Synthesis
Syntheses offer more specifically target scientific outputs for knowledge brokerage, putting emphasis on theory-practice transfer and policy making. This might include summary of PhD thesis or research outputs from scientific projects that might have been already published separately in order to give new insights if combined. Syntheses should be up to 6.000 words, including manuscript text and an appropropriate number of references. 

Citation guidelines 

In accordance with Landscape Online's citation guidelines, authors are required to follow APA style (Seventh Edition) for all submissions. Authors are encouraged to visit the APA Style website for detailed instructions on how to format their citations for different types of sources. Some examples are listed below: 

Journal Articles
Format: Surname, First Initial. (Year). Title of article. Title of Journal, Volume(Issue), Page range of article. DOI
Example: Riitters, K. H., O'Neill, R. V., Hunsaker, C. T., Wickham, J. D., Yankee, D. H., Timmins, S. P., Jones, K. B., & Jackson, B. L. (1995). A factor analysis of landscape pattern and structure metrics. Landscape Ecology, 10(1), 23–39. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00158551

Books
Format: Surname, First Initial. (Copyright Year). Title of the book (Number of edition if available). Publisher. DOI if available
Example: Turner, M. G., & Gardner, R. H. (2015). Landscape Ecology in Theory and Practice. Springer New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2794-4

Chapter in Books
Format: Surname, First Initial. (Year). Title of chapter. In A. Editor & B. Editor (Eds.), Title of Book (pp. xx-xx). Publisher. DOI if available
Example: McGarigal, K., & Cushman, S. A. (2009). The gradient concept of landscape structure. In J. A. Wiens & M. R. Moss (Eds.), Issues and Perspectives in Landscape Ecology (pp. 112–119). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511614415.013

Dissertation
Format: Surname, First Initial. (Year). Title of dissertation. Name of University. Place. DOI or URL if available. 
Example: Burkhard, B. (2004). Ecological Assessment of the Reindeer Husbandry System in Northern Finland. PhD thesis. Kiel University. Kiel.

Internet Source
Format: Author Name. (Year). Title of webpage/document/site/article. Retrieved Date from URL
Example: McNoleg, O. (1996). The integration of GIS, remote sensing, expert systems and adaptive co-kriging for environmental habitat modeling of the highland haggis using object-oriented, fuzzy-logic and neural-network techniques. Retrieved March 7, 2009, from https://ricottalab.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/mcnoleg-1996.pdf
World Population Review. (n.d.). Total Population by Country 2024. Retrieved March 7, 2024, from https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries

(If a source does not have a date, or if the information at the webpage is constantly being updated, use the notation 'n.d.'.)