Aims and scope
Animal Health Research Reviews provides an international forum for the publication of reviews and commentaries on all aspects of animal health. The journal covers all facets of animal health and science, including but not limited to both infectious and non- infectious diseases in domestic and wild animals. Articles may be in-depth reviews of a specific aspect of a disease or pathogen, or may cover all aspects of a disease.
The journal publishes both solicited and unsolicited articles. Review papers will generally be commissioned by the Editors. However we welcome suggestions for papers and request that you send a brief synopsis (300 words or less) to ahrjournal@cambridge.org before embarking on a full paper. This will help us tailor papers to the intended readership and minimize the risks of review duplication.
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 – delivered in partnership with American Journal Experts. 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Article Types
Animal Health Research Reviews publishes three manuscript types.
Reviews
These papers include overviews of recent research literature in a larger subtopic or comparative reviews of related work in different species. Reviews will normally be specially commissioned but we would welcome any suggestions from authors for reviews they wish to write. Reviews can be comparative across species or be confined to a single species. Reviews will normally be 5000-8000 words in length.
Systematic Reviews
A systematic review uses a replicable stepwise approach to identifying, evaluating and summarizing scientific evidence relevant to a specific question about topics such as interventions, etiology, disease burden (prevalence/incidence) and detection. Explicit structured steps to conduct systematic reviews should be followed as defined in Animal Health Research Reviews 15(1): 3-13 (doi:10.1017/S146625231400005X).
Style for systematic reviews. The PRISMA guidelines should be used to prepare the draft and include each recommended heading. Check the PRISMA website for the latest reporting guidelines for your review as these are being added frequently (http://www.prisma-statement.org/Default.aspx and http://www.prisma-statement.org/Extensions/Default.aspx). If a recommended heading was not used, please indicate with 1-2 sentences why this heading was not relevant in the cover letter. If the authors did not submit the protocol for peer review, and instead are including the protocol as a supplement with submission of the full review, the date the protocol was finalized and the review started must be stated. For protocols, do not modify the protocol after you start the review. Provide the protocol as supplemental material and any 2 modifications that occurred AFTER the date of protocol was finalized should be noted in the manuscript (see PRIMSA for an explanation of this). Certain aspects may not comply fully with the PRISMA checklist for some reviews. The checklist will not be used as a tool for judging the suitability of manuscripts for publication, but is intended as an aid for authors to clearly, completely and transparently let reviewers and readers know how the review was conducted.
Style for systematic review protocols submitted for peer review. The PRISMA-P guidelines should be used to prepare the draft and include each recommended heading (http://systematicreviewsjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/2046-4053-4-1). If a recommended heading was not used, please indicate with 1-2 sentences why this heading was not relevant. Certain aspects may not comply fully with the PRISMA checklist for some protocols. The checklist will not be used as a tool for judging the suitability of manuscripts for publication in the AHRR Systematic Reviews section, but is intended as an aid for authors to clearly, completely and transparently let reviewers and readers know what authors intend to do.
Opinion
These papers will be short (2000 words or less) and adopt a polemical style. They can address controversial issues or take an unorthodox interpretation of recent results. They should be scientific in nature with a critical assessment of research findings and conclusions, but may also address wider concerns such as globalization, economic issues, planning and management of research, education or implementation in areas concerning animal and human health and welfare. They must be well supported by appropriate citations and evidence, be free of libelous or scandalous material, but otherwise should be broad-ranging and aim to stimulate debate.
Arrangement of Papers
Please arrange your paper in the following order.
1. Title page. This should show:
- The article title
- Authors and addresses (include e-mail addresses) - one author should be identified for correspondence
- Competing interest statements for every author
- A running title
- An indicative abstract that should not exceed 300 words
- Keywords
2. The text, divided under appropriate headings
- Clearly differentiate between primary (bold, large font size), secondary (bold, text font size) and tertiary (italics) headings
3. Acknowledgements
4. References
5. Tables (each on a separate sheet)
6. Captions to illustrations (group on a separate sheet or sheets)
7. Illustrations, each on a separate sheet containing no text
Notes about Style
We ask that you follow the instructions below. This will minimize the risk of errors being introduced during the publishing process.
- Use double line spacing and ample margins (at least 2.5 cm) on each side
- Separate each paragraph by a blank line. Do not indent the start of each paragraph.
- Do not underline anything
- Number every page
- Number each line
- Use italics for taxonomic nomenclature and bold for headings
- Use standard abbreviations (e.g. Fig. and Figs) and SI units
- Ensure text figures, line drawings, computer-generated figures and graphs are of sufficient size and quality to allow for reduction
- Avoid the use of grey tints or complex hatching
- Only use halftone photographs where they make a real contribution to the text
- Type Figure captions and numbers on a separate sheet
Technical and Nomenclature standards
All work should use SI units as standard. Anatomical terms can be a mixture of the English vernacular and Latin, depending on current 4 usage. When a Latin term is selected for use then it should correspond with the Nominal Anatomica Veterinaria. Where doubts could arise, then the first time a vernacular term is used, the Latin should be provided in parentheses; thereafter the vernacular can be used alone.
Tables
Tables should be in a simple form. They should not be used if text or illustrations give the same information. They should be submitted on separate sheets at the end of the article. Each table must be accompanied by a clear and concise caption.
Required statements
Acknowledgments
Here you may acknowledge individuals or organizations that provided advice and/or support (non-financial). Formal financial support and funding should be listed in the following section.
Authorship
Please provide a very brief description of the contribution of each author to the research. Their roles in formulating the research question(s), designing the study, carrying out the study, analysing the data, interpreting the findings and writing the article should be stated for each author.
Financial support
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)".
This disclosure is particularly important in the case of research that is supported by industry. Support from industry not only includes direct financial support for the study but also support in kind such as provision of food items, medications, equipment, kits or reagents without charge or at reduced cost and provision of services such as statistical analysis; all such support must be disclosed here. 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."
In addition to the source of financial support, please state whether the funder contributed to the study design, conduct of the study, analysis of samples or data, interpretation of findings or the preparation of the manuscript. If the funder made no such contribution, please provide the following statement: "[Funder's name] had no role in the design, analysis or writing of this article."
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”.
References
Referencing should be by the Harvard system, i.e. the authors and dates should be provided within parentheses in the running text, e.g. "according to Hector and MacFarland (Hector, MacFarland, 1975)".
Your readers will require access to your sources. Please ensure that references are complete and correct, i.e. that they include, where relevant, author / editor name(s), article or book title, volume and issue number, publisher, and page reference. You should use the following conventions when providing the full citations in the reference lists.
Journal articles Shibata I, Mori M, and Uruno K (1997). Experimental infection of maternally immune pigs with porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) virus. Journal of Veterinary and Medical Science 60: 1-13.
Book chapters Sanderson CJ (1999). Cytokines active on eosinophils. In: Makino S and Fukuda T (Eds) Eosinophils: Biological and Clinical Aspects. Boca Raton: CRC Press, pp. 274- 287.
Books Dalton JP (1999). Fasciolosis., p. 57. Walngford: CABI Pubshing. Copyright
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.