Preparing your materials

As you prepare your manuscript, consider that your open access article processing charge is likely covered by one of Cambridge University Press’s transformative agreements, which support open access publishing. Read more about the agreements here and check whether your institution is covered here. If funding is not available through a transformative agreement, waivers are available.

Aims and Scope

Parasitology publishes original papers on pure and applied parasitology, including biochemistry, molecular biology, immunology, genetics, physiology, epidemiology, ecology, vaccine and drug studies, and the control of parasitic infections, the application of new techniques, advances in the understanding of host-parasite relationships, theoretical studies and major systematic reviews. There is no minimum or maximum length for a paper but all manuscripts, including short ones, must be prepared in the standard format for this journal and any manuscript that is excessively long will be returned for shortening.

Policy on prior publication

When authors submit manuscripts to this journal, these manuscripts should not be under consideration, accepted for publication or in press within a different journal, book or similar entity, unless explicit permission or agreement has been sought from all entities involved. However, deposition of a preprint on the author’s personal website, in an institutional repository, or in a preprint archive shall not be viewed as prior or duplicate publication. Authors should follow the Cambridge University Press Preprint Policy regarding preprint archives and maintaining the version of record.

Graphical Abstracts

Submission of graphical abstracts is mandatory for all articles to help promote their impact online.

A Graphical Abstract is a single image that summarises the main findings of a paper, allowing readers to gain quickly an overview and understanding of your work. Well-designed and prepared graphical abstracts are an important way to publicise your research, attracting readers, and helping to disseminate your work to a wider audience. Ideally, the graphical abstract should be created independently of the figures already in the paper but it could include a (simplified version of) an existing figure or a combination thereof. Graphical abstracts are displayed at article level, and on the article landing page online.

The graphical abstract should be submitted separately from the main paper using the ‘Graphical Abstract’ file designation on ScholarOne. Graphical abstracts should be clear and easy for the viewer to read, and should illustrate the main pointers of your manuscript. The Editors will decide if your Graphical Abstract is satisfactory or needs improvement but this will not determine the result of the peer-review findings.

Graphical abstract images need to be supplied as 900px high or wide on its longest edge, and as PNG file type.

For further information about how to prepare your figures, including sizing and resolution requirements, please see our artwork guide. Please ensure that any font used is clear to read, and that any text is included as part of the image file (although text should ideally be kept to a minimum). There is also no need to include the title ‘Graphical Abstract’ in your image.

Article types

Parasitology publishes the following article types:

Research article: A research article is an original piece of research with strong, well-supported conclusions that mark a significant advance in understanding.
Review article: Reviews provide a comprehensive assessment of a particular topic or research area.
Systematic review: Parasitology has a special manuscript category to publish systematic reviews with, or without, a meta-analysis of primary data considered. Systematic reviews must be accompanied by a completed Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement checklist. This guideline is to help editors assess the study and for authors to report a systematic review and meta-analysis following wider conventions. If appropriate, we also encourage authors to register their systematic review at an accessible registration platform, such as PROSPERO, before consideration for publication.

In addition Parasitology publishes editorials, but these are not open to general submission.

Preparing your article for submission

Please note that failure to follow the Instructions for Authors will almost certainly result in the manuscript being returned to the author for correct formatting before it is sent out to the referees and hence there will be an unavoidable delay in the processing of your manuscript.

Authors are strongly encouraged to use the Word formatting template when preparing manuscripts. The manuscripts should contain continuous line numbering throughout to help the referees draw attention to specific areas of text.

Review articles follow a slightly different structure to other articles. The structure of review articles should be:

Summary (and key words)
Introduction
Additional headings and sub-headings as appropriate to each paper
Conclusions/Future directions
Acknowledgements
Financial support
Competing interests
References

* Headings are formatted as follows: primary - UPPER CASE; secondary sub-heading -lower case italics on separate line; tertiary sub-heading - lower case italics running on

Research articles and systematic reviews should be organized as below.

1. TITLE PAGE

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, provide an email address for the corresponding author
Word count, including all text but excluding tables, figures and references.

2. SUMMARY ABSTRACT AND GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

The summary abstract should not be more than 250 words and its purpose is to summarize the main aims, results and conclusions in such a way that they could be understood by any interested reader and not only experts in the subject, and could be used by an abstracting journal. A well worded abstract can dramatically improve the visibility and discoverability of your work so please take care with this section. References to published or unpublished work and unnecessary abbreviations should be avoided. Appended to the Summary should be 3-10 relevant key words, suitable for indexing. Nothing else should appear on the Summary page.

In addition to the summary abstract, submission of graphical abstracts is also mandatory. Please see above graphical abstracts section for further details.

3. KEY FINDINGS (required for original Research papers only)

Distil the key results and/or conclusions of the study into 3 to 5 short bullet points of less than 90 characters each. These key points will give the editor and referees an immediate overview of the paper and an insight into the importance of your findings. They must be uploaded to Scholar One at the appropriate step in the submission process, but MUST ALSO be included in your main document.

4. INTRODUCTION

This should be as short as possible, normally not more than 2-3 paragraphs, and should simply serve to introduce the reader to the purpose and significance of the work described. It should neither be a mini-review nor should it be so bland as to be uninformative. When making general statements, reference should be made to recent reviews, and specific references should be cited only if they are particularly relevant.

5. MATERIALS AND METHODS

Sufficient information for the reader to be able to repeat the work must be given, but techniques described in detail in other publications need not be repeated, provided that an adequate reference is cited. Major modifications to methods should be clearly described. The numbers of experiments, replicates, etc. and any statistical tests used should be stated.

The full binomial name should be given for all organisms, except those such as mice, rats and rabbits, commonly used in laboratories and domesticated animals such as cows, dogs and cats. Generic names should be given in full when first mentioned and subsequently if any confusion is likely to arise. If reference is made to an uncommon taxon the authority for the taxon and date should be stated. Abbreviations such as An. (for Anopheles) should be avoided unless absolutely essential, for example when referring to two or more generic names beginning with the same letter. Authors should follow International Rules for Nomenclature and, if new names are introduced, the International Code for Zoological Nomenclature. All strains and sources of hosts and parasites should be stated.

Abbreviations should be used sparingly and unambiguously. SI units should be used wherever appropriate and other standard statistical, chemical, biochemical and molecular abbreviations may also be used. In case of any doubt, authors are advised to spell out the term in full, followed by the abbreviation in parenthesis, when it is first used.

6. RESULTS

These should be confined to a factual account of the actual results obtained. Where necessary results should be analysed using an appropriate statistical test. Discussion and reference to other work should be left to the Discussion.

Tables and Figures must not be presented within the text.

(i) Tables. Each table, headed by a self-explanatory title, must be double spaced on a separate page and numbered consecutively. Rules, particularly vertical ones, should be avoided. Each table should be referred to consecutively as Table 1 etc in the text. The use of bold and italic text should be avoided unless absolutely necessary. They can be either included at the end of the main document or uploaded separately. They must be editable, i.e. not presented as images or PDFs.

(ii) Figures. These may be line drawings or photographs and all should be referred to consecutively in the text as Fig. 1 etc. Component parts of figures should be labelled A, B, C etc. Legends for figures should be self-explanatory and must not contain details of results: they must be included at the end of the main document. The Figures themselves must be submitted separately as .tif or .eps files. We do not accept files such as .tiff, PDF, PowerPoint and .jpg. If your paper contains large image files, submission of smaller files (1MB per image) is recommended for original submissions, for ease and rapidity of uploading. Larger/higher quality files may be requested upon acceptance.Your submission must not exceed 156 MB in total.

Line drawings should not be larger than twice the final size and in no circumstances should exceed 170 x 250 mm. Line drawings should be as simple as possible, lines should be bold enough to stand reduction to about 0.25-0.35 mm. Preferred symbols are open and filled circles, squares and triangles, and these should be used consistently. Lettering should be kept to a minimum and should be self-explanatory and unambiguous and of sufficiently high quality and size to be clearly visible after reduction to final size.

Photographs should be the same size as they will appear in the journal and should be selected to fit neatly into one column (80 mm) or two columns (166 mm). Photographs should be labelled and numbered as for line drawings. For microscopic preparations, scale bars with appropriate units (e.g. 50μm) must be provided; statements of magnification are not acceptable.

7. DISCUSSION (the Discussion section must be separate from the Results section)

The results (including further reference to figures and tables) should neither be repeated in detail nor should new information be introduced. Speculation is encouraged but should not go beyond reasonable and testable hypotheses. The Discussion should not attempt to be a mini-review.

8. 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.

9. FINANCIAL SUPPORT

You MUST include a financial support section. Within this section 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.”

10. REFERENCES

It is essential that the appropriate reference format for Parasitology is adhered to precisely.

Where using reference management software Endnote, please note that Endnote version 7 is compatible with this journal’s formatting.

(i) References in the text.

References should be kept to an essential minimum. Only references to published work or work actually 'in Press’ are permitted. Reference to unpublished work is acceptable but only as either 'unpublished results' or 'personal communication' and under no circumstances should references to unpublished work, work in preparation or un-refereed abstracts be included in the Reference List.

Lists of text references should be arranged in ascending date order and then alphabetically, please note the first line of references is no longer indented.

e.g.:

Brown and Green, 1961; Black, 1995, 2011; Brown, 1995; Brown et al. 2001, 2002a,b, 2010

For papers with more than two authors et al. should be used.

Brown, A et al. (1992a)

When authors are not directly referred to the reference should be in parentheses as follows:

All currently known COI sequences of G. salaris from rainbow trout (Hansen et al 2003; Meinilä et al 2004) are haplotype F.

(ii) List of References

References, which must be double spaced and listed alphabetically, should begin on a separate page following the Discussion and Acknowledgements. The accuracy and appropriateness of the references are solely the responsibility of the author and are not checked in the editorial office.

The format required by this journal is given below and, if in any doubt, authors should refer to a recent copy of the journal. Please note that the names of ###b authors should be given in bold font and that the journal name should be italicized and given in full, not abbreviated. Where known, the article Digital Object Identifier (doi) should be included, at the end of the entry (see example below).

Journal References

Higgs, S, Snow, K and Gould, EA (2003) The potential for West Nile virus to establish outside of its natural range: a consideration of potential mosquito vectors in the United Kingdom. Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 98, 82-87. doi: 10.1016/S0035- 9203(03)00004-X.

Books

Smyth, JD (1994) Introduction to Animal Parasitology, 3rd Edn. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Chapters in Books

Grenfell, BT, Dietz, K and Roberts, MG (1995) Modelling the immuno-epidemiology of macroparasites in naturally-fluctuating host populations. In Grenfell BT and Dobson AP (eds). Ecology of Infectious Diseases in Natural Populations. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 362-383.

WHO Publications

World Health Organization (1995). Onchocerciasis and its Control. WHO Technical Report Series No. 852. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization.

When referencing Parasitology Supplements

Jenkins, DJ and MacPherson, CNL (2003) Transmission ecology of Echinococcus in wild-life in Australia and Africa. Parasitology 127 (Suppl.), S63-S72. doi: 10.1017/S0031182003003871.

PhD Theses (note: we will not accept MSc theses)

Geets, A (1998) Host-parasite interactions between sympatric Pomatoschistus species (Gobiidae, Teleostei) and their helminth parasites: ecological and phylogenic aspects. PhD thesis, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.

Web resources and online publications

Wozniak, RH (1997). Behaviourism: The early years. Retrieved from Bryn Mawr College Psychology Department website: ###a href="http://www.brynmawr.edu/Acads/..." target="_blank">http://www.brynmawr.edu/Acads/... (accessed 29 January 2018).

If no personal author is visible, you should include the organisation responsible for the web page instead. If no date is visible write (n.d.) which stands for 'no date' instead.

On Acceptance

On acceptance to the journal the final version of the manuscript containing the following should be submitted: Title Page, Summary, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgements, References, Tables, Figure legends.

In particular, each table should occupy a separate page.

If requested, you should prepare your final files using the Word formatting template.

Please ensure that your figures are submitted separately at final publication size (one column, 80mm) or two-column (166 mm) and are in the recommended file formats. Following these guidelines will result in high quality images being reproduced in the journal. Please do not submit the final versions of figures in MS WORD, .jpeg or Powerpoint (.ppt) format.

Line artwork

Format: .tif or .eps

Colour mode: black and white (also known as 1-bit)

Resolution: 1000 dpi

Combination artwork (line/tone)

Format: .tif or .eps

Colour mode: greyscale (also known as 8-bit)

Resolution: 600 dpi

Black and white halftone artwork

Format: .tif

Colour mode: greyscale (also known as 8-bit)

Resolution: 300 dpi

Colour halftone artwork

Format: .tif

Colour mode: CMYK colour

Resolution: 300 dpi

For further information, please refer to the Cambridge Journals Artwork Guide, which can be found online here.

How to prepare your materials for anonymous peer review

Please see here for further details.

English language editing services

Authors, particularly those whose first language is not English, may wish to have their English-language manuscripts checked by a native speaker before submission. This step is optional, but may help to ensure that the academic content of the paper is fully understood by the Editor and any reviewers.

In order to help prospective authors to prepare for submission and to reach their publication goals, Cambridge University Press offers a range of high-quality manuscript preparation services, including language editing. You can find out more on our language services page.

Please note that the use of any of these 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.

Seeking permissions for copyrighted material

Please see further guidance here.

Competing Interests

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

Competing interests 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 competing interest declarations relevant to all contributing authors.

Example wording for a declaration is as follows: “Competing interests: Author 1 is employed at organisation A, Author 2 is on the Board of company B and is a member of organisation C. Author 3 has received grants from company D.” If no competing interests exist, the declaration should state “Competing interests: The author(s) declare none”.

Authorship and contributorship

All authors listed on any papers submitted to this journal must be in agreement that the authors listed would all be considered authors according to disciplinary norms, and that no authors who would reasonably be considered an author have been excluded. For further details on this journal’s authorship policy, please see this journal's publishing ethics policies.

Author affiliations

Author affiliations should represent the institution(s) at which the research presented was conducted and/or supported and/or approved. For non-research content, any affiliations should represent the institution(s) with which each author is currently affiliated.

For more information, please see our author affiliation policy and author affiliation FAQs.

ORCID

We require all corresponding authors to identify themselves using ORCID when submitting a manuscript to this journal. ORCID provides a unique identifier for researchers and, through integration with key research workflows such as manuscript submission 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 have authored.
Convenience: As more organisations use ORCID, providing your iD or using it to register for services will automatically link activities to your ORCID record, and will enable you to share this information with other systems and platforms you use, saving you re-keying information multiple times.
Keeping track: Your ORCID record is a neat place to store and (if you choose) share validated information about your research activities and affiliations.

See our ORCID FAQs for more information.

If you don’t already have an iD, you will need to create one if you decide to submit a manuscript to this journal. You can register for one directly from your user account on ScholarOne, or alternatively via https://ORCID.org/register.

If you already have an iD, please use this when submitting your manuscript, either by linking it to your ScholarOne account, or by supplying it during submission using the "Associate your existing ORCID iD" button.

ORCIDs can also be used if authors wish to communicate to readers up-to-date information about how they wish to be addressed or referred to (for example, they wish to include pronouns, additional titles, honorifics, name variations, etc.) alongside their published articles. We encourage authors to make use of the ORCID profile’s “Published Name” field for this purpose. This is entirely optional for authors who wish to communicate such information in connection with their article. Please note that this method is not currently recommended for author name changes: see Cambridge’s author name change policy if you want to change your name on an already published article. See our ORCID FAQs for more information.

Supplementary materials

Material that is not essential to understanding or supporting a manuscript, but which may nonetheless be relevant or interesting to readers, may be submitted as supplementary material. Supplementary material will be published online alongside your article, but will not be published in the pages of the journal. Types of supplementary material may include, but are not limited to, appendices, additional tables or figures, datasets, videos, and sound files.

Supplementary materials will not be typeset or copyedited, so should be supplied exactly as they are to appear online. Please see our general guidance on supplementary materials for further information.

Where relevant we encourage authors to publish additional qualitative or quantitative research outputs in an appropriate repository, and cite these in manuscripts.

Use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools

We acknowledge the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in the research and writing processes. To ensure transparency, we expect any such use to be declared and described fully to readers, and to comply with our plagiarism policy and best practices regarding citation and acknowledgements. We do not consider artificial intelligence (AI) tools to meet the accountability requirements of authorship, and therefore generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and similar should not be listed as an author on any submitted content.

In particular, any use of an AI tool:

to generate images within the manuscript should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, and declared clearly in the image caption(s)
to generate text within the manuscript should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, include appropriate and valid references and citations, and be declared in the manuscript’s Acknowledgements.
to analyse or extract insights from data or other materials, for example through the use of text and data mining, should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, including details and appropriate citation of any dataset(s) or other material analysed in all relevant and appropriate areas of the manuscript
must not present ideas, words, data, or other material produced by third parties without appropriate acknowledgement or permission

Descriptions of AI processes used should include at minimum the version of the tool/algorithm used, where it can be accessed, any proprietary information relevant to the use of the tool/algorithm, any modifications of the tool made by the researchers (such as the addition of data to a tool’s public corpus), and the date(s) it was used for the purpose(s) described. Any relevant competing interests or potential bias arising as a consequence of the tool/algorithm’s use should be transparently declared and may be discussed in the article.