Please note that these guidelines are subject to change.
General information before submitting
PaleorXiv accepts all types of manuscript, including but not limited to systematic reviews, hypotheses, ‘negative’ results, and data and methods papers.
We publish two major types of article:
Preprints of articles in parallel to traditional journal submissions.
Previously published articles that you wish to make Open Access.
Please check the Journal Policies page for further details on self-archiving options.
We encourage submissions from all domains of Paleontology and Paleobiology, including, but not limited to: Vertebrate paleontology; Invertebrate paleontology; Micropaleontology; Paleobotany; Paleoecology; Paleoclimatology; Paleogeography; Paleoceanography; Paleohistology; Paleobiogegraphy; and Biostratigraphy.
We do not accept letters or blog posts, or those which do not pass the normal community standards for submission.
Note that preprint publication does not replace publishing with journals, and we recommend authors to use the SHERPA/RoMEO service to check journal preprint policies. A Paleontology-specific and revised version of this database is maintained here.
How to share an article on paleorXiv
To prepare your manuscript for submission (either as a text or PDF file) please use either a standard text editor, or the Overleaf submission template.
Before submitting, it is recommended to add a note to the front page stating “This is a preprint that has been submitted to journal XXX” where applicable. When updating to the postprint or accepted author manuscript, please change to “This is a postprint that has been peer reviewed and accepted at journal XXX.” A template for this is available here.
Once your manuscript is ready, please go to the submission portal to share your article.
Here, you will have to choices: To share either a new manuscript, or to connect to an existing project on the OSF. To upload a new manuscript, simply drag and drop the file from your desktop, and then click save to begin the upload. To connect to an existing project, search for the project title and hit enter once you have found it.
Select any relevant disciplines from paleorXiv's customised taxonomy. Add as many as you feel are necessary.
If you are sharing a version of an article that has been previously published, please add the article DOI here to link them through. Also you can add any article key words, the date of publication, and the abstract here.
To add co-authors, please check first to see if they are existing OSF users. If not, please add them by email, and arrange the author order as needed.
Submit your paper! Articles will undergo a quick moderation check for compliance, and then published online immediately.
Your submissions
All submissions will go through a basic moderation process to check for conformation with these guidelines.
All published articles will be granted a CC BY 4.0 license and a DOI. All articles are indexed in Google Scholar.
Submissions that do not meet these guidelines will not be published, and the authors notified.
As common courtesy, please make sure that all co-authors are aware of, and have agreed to, submission. They will be notified upon submission of preprints.
All preprints can be updated with the postprint version or author-accepted manuscript. Please check for journal compliance and embargo periods where needed.
Using paleorXiv articles
Please note that preprints are not formally peer reviewed. When re-using them, and especially when citing, this status should be clearly marked.
Please exercise the same care and judgment you would use for any research output when it comes to the re-use of preprints.
We strongly encourage community interaction through commenting and sharing of preprints.
Taxonomic submissions
When submitting taxonomic papers that identify new genera or species, please omit the name and replace with 'gen et. sp. nov.', as appropriate.
For newly named higher level taxa, recombinations, referrals, synonymisations, and phylogenetic definitions, we strongly advise that these be fully redacted too prior to submission.
For manuscripts that include a lot of taxonomic and systematic work, authors are advised to carefully consider the taxonomic implications before publishing.
PaleorXiv accepts papers at any stage of the publication process. We moderate papers before they appear publicly, which is called “pre-moderation” on the Open Science Framework platform. To learn more about how this moderation works on our system, visit this page from our hosts. Subject to volume demands, we expect to post papers submitted for moderation within 1-3 business days.
The paleorXiv moderation process accepts papers that:
Are scholarly content. This includes original research, reviews, essays, critiques and comments on other work, systematic reviews, hypotheses, ‘negative’ results, and data and methods papers. Work on paleorXiv is either research or engages with research.
Are in a research area that we support. We accept work from across all domains of Paleontology and Paleobiology, including, but not limited to: Vertebrate paleontology; Invertebrate paleontology; Micropaleontology; Paleobotany; Paleoecology; Paleoclimatology; Paleogeography; Paleoceanography; Paleohistology; Paleobiogegraphy; and Biostratigraphy..
Are plausibly categorized. We allow authors to select their own categories from our subject taxonomy, but check whether there are obvious errors or categorizations that lack plausibility.
Are correctly attributed. We do a simple Internet search to see if someone else has publicly claimed authorship of the work.
Are in languages that we can moderate. We welcome work submitted in any language, provided we have a moderator that can review it adequately according to our policy. Papers submitted in non-English languages will be held in the moderation queue until we can get them verified.
Copyright compliance
Moderation does include verification of copyright status, which we assess based on individual journal policies. Where we are uncertain, we check with submitting authors to verify their status. We seek to accept only papers that comply with copyright law. We ask that authors share only that work they have the right to share. Actively affirming this is part of the submission process for each paper uploaded. Please contact us if you are uncertain about this part of the procedure.
Claims of copyright infringement should be sent to the Center for Open Science in accordance with their policy, which is here.
Procedure
Work will be reviewed by a moderator before appearing publicly on paleorXiv. If a paper is not accepted, the moderator will include a description of the reason. Work that does not pass moderation will remain on the OSF platform but will not be identified as part of paleorXiv. Authors are free to resubmit such work after addressing the issues raised by the moderator. Authors also may contact us to discuss or appeal a moderation decision.
Please note: At present we do not have the capacity to query authors during the moderation process. If a paper does not pass moderation we will specify reasons, but we can’t discuss the reasons with the author prior to making a decision. Please don’t be discouraged by negative moderation decisions, and feel free to contact us with any questions.
