Instructions for Authors
Capeia is a web-based open-access science magazine that is committed to communicating science to a non-expert audience. Science communication by scientists themselves is gaining momentum for three main reasons:
- Firstly, a truly instructive and insightful article for the public will draw on the critical faculty and in-depth experience that the author has accumulated over a career in academic research.
- Secondly, while decision makers and stakeholders in research and public health management, funding agencies, foundations, media, investment firms, and political boards are all experts in their own right, the chances of them being your peers are quite low. Finding a way to reach out to these people and communicate the significance of your work will help to promote your research agenda.
- Thirdly, an article that is easier to grasp than a technical report but nevertheless contains all relevant information concerning your subject will serve as an appetizer to students. In fact, when drafting such an article you will probably come to realize that this is actually more difficult than writing a technical piece!
We do not publish original research articles or academic reviews. Our hallmark is opinionated writing and articles are consequently subject to editing, but not peer reviewed. A good article will raise awareness and explain the relevance of a particular research topic; it will report on and interpret recent developments in a particular scientific field in such a way that it is both intelligible and interesting to non-experts. Capeia is an original source of information and therefore does not republish any material.
We publish two types of articles: essays and News & Views (N&V) articles.
Our fields of interest are: Brain & Nerves, Medical Research, Zoology, Paleobiology, Planetary Science, and Cosmology.
We usually publish articles by invitation only, but if you think you have an interesting topic, please feel free to contact us at editor@capeia.com. The minimum requirement for authors is a valid academic affiliation and a PhD or MD degree, or equivalent.
Please note that good science is about telling an interesting story, which not only requires relevant content but also a skillful, captivating style of writing. This statement should not be taken to imply that we do not publish articles from non-native speakers of the English language, but rather that we appreciate accuracy, fluency, and richness of expression in the English language.
Having said that, here is some more technical information about writing for, and publishing in, Capeia:
Types of articles
Essays
An essay should cover a topic in depth. It should provide a thorough introduction and address the key aspects of the subject at sufficient length. An essay should be divided into distinct sections using appropriate subheadings and conclude with a summary and an outlook section.
News and Views
An N&V article should place a focus on a specific recent development in a scientific field such as an exciting new research paper or conference news. It may well cover mainstream news items but we expect you to provide an extra touch, for example by providing additional background information, by putting recent news into a historical context, or by pointing out inconsistencies with current views or hypotheses.
Length of articles
The ideal length for essays is between 2,000 and 5,000 words and for N&V contributions between 500 and 1,000 words.
Images
Striking images, figures, or GIFs are essential to catch attention of non-experts. As a rule of thumb there should be at least one image or figure per 1,000 words. If necessary, Capeia can assist you with organizing images for your article. If you are not the copyright holder of the image please make sure that you have permission to use it. Please do not forget to include image captions and to also indicate image credits, even if you are the copyright holder. We prefer not to label individual figures or images (i.e. Fig.1, Fig.2, etc.) but if you think such labeling will improve the clarity of the article we are prepared to be flexible in this respect.
Videos
Capeia encourages authors to make use of high-quality videos (“high quality” in both technical and conceptual terms) by simply placing the video URL into the text. We currently support videos hosted on YouTube and Vimeo.
References
Please restrict the number of references to just a handful of key references. Insert citations in the text, where appropriate, and provide the full reference at the end of the article. References should be given in the order in which they appear in the text. We would also encourage you to list a small number of academic review articles or books for those readers who would like to delve deeper into the research topic (“Further reading on this topic”).
Annotations and Links
To improve the intelligibility of your article without interrupting the general flow of your writing, we offer an annotation box for terms and phrases that a non-expert reader might not be familiar with. To make use of this feature, simply put the explanatory text into square brackets within the main text. You are also free to hyperlink to other websites, both academic and non-academic (but please observe our Community Guidelines, which also apply to authors).
Format
We currently accept manuscripts as either DOC or DOCX files. Manuscript texts should be double-spaced. Abbreviations should be defined on their first appearance in the text. For units of measurement use only SI units (such as meter, square kilometer, gram, ton, etc.). All text should be submitted as a single file; images and figures should be sent as separate files, either as TIFFs or JPEGs.
Licenses and copyright
Capeia is an open access magazine and all articles are published under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0). By submitting your manuscript for publication in Capeia you agree to have the CC BY-SA 4.0 license applied to your work. Under this license the article’s use, distribution and reproduction in other forums is permitted provided both the original author(s) and Capeia are accredited, and the licensing remains unchanged. This CC BY-SA 4.0 license applies not only to the text but also to all other content used in an article including photographs, graphical depictions, artwork, videos, audio files, etc., unless otherwise indicated; if any third-party material is not covered under a Creative Commons license you need to obtain permission from the license holder before it can be reproduced. In this context it is critical to remember that this also applies to any content that you have already published elsewhere. You do not necessarily still hold the copyright for your published material or have the right to freely re-use such material - it depends on the license covering the other publication. Some publishers allow free and unrestricted re-use of article content but others impose more restrictive licenses that may require you to obtain written permission before you can re-use any of the content elsewhere. You should in any case always clearly state the credits for any content that you would like to include in your article for Capeia, even if you are the copyright holder.
Social media promotion
Capeia is committed to spreading the information and ideas that are expressed on this website into the depths of the World Wide Web. So much so that we provide an extra crowdfunding scheme to collect funds with which to provide a reward on a monthly basis for the scientist whose contribution attracts the most attention (see our Author of the Month scheme). To foster dissemination we provide each article with a number of social media links including Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, Google+, Pinterest, and email. Authors are encouraged to use their own social media channels to spread information concerning articles published on Capeia and we currently support links to an author’s profile on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Vimeo.
Electronic reprints and printouts
Publication of articles in Capeia is free but we charge a fee of USD $3,49 for an electronic offprint in the form of a PDF download. Professional printouts of an article at traditional reprint quality can be ordered on request. Offering high-quality printouts of your Capeia article when giving a general talk or when presenting your work to an audience of decision makers or stakeholders, in particular outside academia, is an excellent way to promote your research agenda.