The standard length of an article published in Integrative and Comparative Biology is twelve (12) printed pages. Authors will be assessed voluntary page charges for each of the first 12 pages, and mandatory charges for each additional page.

Policy became effective with 12/96 symposia.

BACKGROUND

This change in policy would restore the standard article length to where it was for many years, until it was reduced during the financial crisis of a few years ago. According to Milt Fingerman, the change from 12 pages to 10 pages was made by request of the Treasurer and Business Office to reduce any and all expenditures where possible. It’s the impression of the current Editor (and personal experience) that it is very difficult for authors to do a credible mini-review/synthetic paper in 10 pages, and many are either unwilling or unable to afford the cost of publishing additional pages (at the current rate of $135 each). This has grown to an even bigger issue as outside funding has become harder to obtain. Allowing for 12 pages certainly wouldn’t eliminate such problems, but they would ameliorate them somewhat. FYI, the journal Evolution, which is the same format as ours, recently adopted a standard article length of 12 pages. Five of the six Albuquerque symposia will be published in 1998. If the journal publishes the same number of pages that year as are budgeted for 1997 (ca. 910), then I estimate that this increase in article length will require no increase in the volume size or in the journal’s publication budget (beyond the standard annual inflationary cost increase). This estimate makes provision for other regular journal articles, such as an Introduction to each symposium, book reviews, two or three mini-reviews, etc. Please also remember that this is a conservative cost estimate. If any of the five symposia receive an outside publication subsidy (e.g., from an NSF grant), then we will come in that much more under the annual budget.