Oceanography

For Authors

Submit Manuscript

Article Types

FEATURE ARTICLES. (7,000 words, max 7 figures) The Feature Articles section provides an outlet for making significant advances in oceanography accessible to a broad readership. While these papers should be thought-provoking for professional oceanographers, they should also be written to engage the educated non-experts. Feature articles can include review papers that summarize the current state of knowledge of a particular topic, synthesis papers that discuss new findings and how they significantly revise our thinking about a topic, and more traditional scientific research papers from across the full spectrum of oceanography and marine technology.

SPECIAL ISSUE ARTICLES. Oceanography regularly publishes special issues that are sponsored by outside organizations. Submission of special issue manuscripts is by invitation only. If you have any questions about your invited special issue manuscript, please contact one of the guest editors (https://tos.org/oceanography/upcoming-issues) for that special issue.

BREAKING WAVES. (3,500 words, max 4 figures) The purpose of the Breaking Waves section is to provide an outlet for peer-reviewed papers that describe novel approaches to multidisciplinary problems in oceanography. These papers may be provocative or may present findings that synthesize past conflicts, but must have the potential to move the field of oceanography forward or in new directions. Multidisciplinary papers are welcomed. Authors may submit a brief email to the Breaking Waves Editor Alistair Hobday (Alistair.Hobday@csiro.au) to seek feedback on proposed submissions or directly submit as with other manuscript categories..

OCEAN EDUCATION. (3,500 words, max 4 figures) These peer-reviewed articles should inspire teachers in higher education to try new active, student-centered instruction (ranging from short activities to curricula) and provide ideas/materials to do so. Articles should include a description of the activity (location of activity, education level targeted, number of participants), an evaluation and critical discussion, and recommendations for other instructors based on the lessons learned. Including student perspectives and/or sustainability aspects is encouraged.

DIY OCEANOGRAPHY. (3,500 words, max 4 figures) In this Oceanography section, contributing authors share all of the relevant information on a homemade sensor, instrument, or software tool(s) so that others can build, or build upon, it. These short articles also showcase how this technology was used successfully in the field.

MEETING/WORKSHOP/CONFERENCE REPORTS. (3,500 words, max 4 figures) We welcome short articles that describe the goals, activities, and accomplishments of meetings/workshops/conferences in all aspects of ocean science. Articles should not include agendas, programs, and attendance, but rather focus on consensus products and recommendations for future work.

OCEAN POLICY. (3,500 words, max 4 figures) We seek provocative articles that start a community discussion on future directions of ocean science.

COMMENTARIES AND PERSPECTIVES. (3,500 words, max 4 figures) Commentaries present analyses of issue of interest to Oceanography readers, written by experts in the field. Unsolicited manuscripts are welcome. Perspectives articles should add a dimension to a newly published Oceanography Feature Article and not just a summary of that article’s content. Perspectives are usually invited.

RIP CURRENT – NEWS IN OCEANOGRAPHY. (1,500 words, 2 figures) We seek short articles that describe newsworthy items in the field of oceanography.

THE OCEANOGRAPHY CLASSROOM. (1,500 words, 2 figures) This recurring column provides guidance and insights into teaching undergraduate and graduate classes in the ocean sciences. The columns can be opinion pieces or convery general ideas in education applied to oceanography.

CAREER PROFILES. (1,500 words, 1 photo) This recurring column highlights marine scientists who have pursued successful and fulfilling careers outside of academia. These profiles are intended to advise ocean sciences graduate students about all marine science career options, not just teaching and/or research in a university setting.

Preparing Your Manuscript

Manuscript Format

For new manuscript submissions, authors should provide one complete file in MS Word or PDF format that contains text, figures, and tables. For LaTeX users, please submit a PDF. Any supporting information should be provided in a separate file(s) for review purposes.

In addition to meeting the requirements outlined below, all authors are expected to adhere to The Oceanography Society’s Policy on Professional Integrity, Ethics, and Conduct (https://tos.org/pdfs/TOS_Publications_Policy_Approved 12.13.18.pdf) when submitting a manuscript.

When submitting your manuscript, please be sure to include:

ARTICLE TYPE. Oceanography publishes many different types of articles (e.g., Feature Article, Breaking Waves, DIY Oceanography). Please select a category for your article or the upcoming special issue to which you are submitting. See the above section on Manuscript Categories.

SUGGESTED REVIEWERS. Please provide three or more suggested reviewers who do not have any real or perceived conflicts of interest, including personal or competitive relationships.

TITLE PAGE. Your title page should include the title; authors, organizational affiliations, state/province, and country. Please include contact information for the corresponding author, including email address.

ABSTRACT. Your abstract should not exceed 200 words.

TEXT. Please ensure that your manuscript contains continuous line numbering throughout. Line spacing should be 1.5–2. Manuscripts should be prepared according Oceanography’s language style, follow Oceanography’s style conventions provided in our Style Guide (https://tos.org/oceanography/style-guide), and meet the word count limitations. If your manuscript is associated with a special issue, the guest editors may provide a different word count.

FIGURES/TABLES. Figures and tables must have captions and must be called out in the text. See our Manuscript Guide to determine how many tables and figures your article may include (if your manuscript is associated with a special issue, the guest editors may provide a figure/table count that differs from the one in our Manuscript Guide). Authors are responsible for obtaining copyright permissions, if required.

REFERENCES. All references included in the bibliography must be cited in the main text. References should be formatted according to Oceanography’s Style Guide. The Oceanography reference style is also available for download for use in EndNote (search for “Oceanography”). All articles cited must be available publicly online or in print before a paper can be accepted; there should be no “submitted” or “in prep” references. Exceptions are considered by the editor.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. Your acknowledgments section should include the following items:
• All funding information from each author pertaining to this work
• Any conflicts of interest for any author that are not apparent from their affiliations or funding
• Any additional information on author contributions

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS. Additional figures and data tables will be accepted if directly relevant to the article but cannot be accommodated in the print version. Audio and video clips and animations that are called out in the article and that enhance understanding of the article are also acceptable supplementary materials. Supplementary materials should be submitted as part of the article for peer review.

Additional Required Files
At the time of manuscirpt submission, authors need to include a cover letter that discloses any potential conflicts of interest, whether the article has been submitted previously to another journal and has been rejected, or any other information pertient to the submission that the editors should know about.

Editorial and Peer Review Process

Unsolicited manuscripts will be reviewed for style, relevance to The Oceanography Society’s mission, content, and quality by the Editor or Associate Editors upon receipt. All manuscripts will be given unbiased consideration by the editors. In additon, all manuscripts are checked for plagiarism upon receipt. If signifcant overlap with other published manuscripts is identified, the manuscript will either be desk rejected or the authors will be asked to correct the identified issues. If the manuscript passes initial internal review, a minimum of two external reviewers will be sought. Consistent with our effort to publish papers on rapidly advancing topics in oceanography, all submissions will move expeditiously through the peer-review and publishing process. Our goal is to publish papers no more than two issues (i.e., six months) after submission.

Submitting Final Files

Upon acceptance of a manuscript for publication, you will need to submit the final text and individual graphics files in publishing-compatible electronic formats.

TEXT. Text (including references and captions) should be submitted in .doc, .docx, .txt, or .rtf format. If you are a LaTeX user, please submit your article in .pdf format. Tables and graphics must be submitted as separate files as indicated below.

FIGURE FILES.
• Acceptable figure formats include eps, ai, pdf, jpg, tiff, png
• For best results, rasterized artwork should be at least 300 dpi resolution

If there is a problem with any file, we will contact you for a revised file. The Editor reserves the right to reject poor-quality graphics. Graphics embedded in Microsoft Word are not acceptable.

TABLES FILES.
• All tables must be in an editable format (.doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, and .csv)
• Tables should be set up to fit within a standard 8.5 x 11 inch page
• Text font size should be no smaller than 7 pts

FLIPBOOK ASSETS. Additional assets may be embedded in the flipbook version of the issue. Acceptable assets include the following:

• Videos
– We recommend that videos not exceed a few minutes in length.
– Videos must be in mp4 format and no larger than 100 MB.

• Animated GIFS
– GIFS must be no larger than 5 MB.

• Audio
– Audio files must be in MP3 format and no larger than 100 MB.

• Photo Galleries
-– Photos for a gallery musts be in jpg or png format and no larger than 5 MB per photo.

Early Online Releases

Most Oceanography articles will be published as early online releases in a short time after authors have reviewed proofs and the articles are finalized. Invited articles that will appear in special issue sections may be exceptions to this general rule.

Once Published

Low-resolution PDFs of each article will be available from the Oceanography Archive (https://tos.org/oceanography/volume) immediately upon issue publication.

TOS Policy on Publication

As part of the "TOS Policy on Professional Integrity, Ethics, and Conduct, and Guidelines on Implementation,” Section 3 includes the TOS Policy on Publication (https://tos.org/pdfs/TOS_Ethics_Policy_approved revisions 12_16_2019.pdf). In this document, you can read about the obligations of editors, authors and contributors, and reviewers of manuscripts, and who may be consdered an author, among other important information.

Oceanography makes articles available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). The Contributing Author(s) retain the all rights in the article, including all copyright rights in the article, subject to the grant of rights to The Oceanography Society provided in the License to Publish form, signed by all authors.