Instructions for authors

Central European Forestry Journal publishes original papers of basic and applied research from all fields of forestry and related scientific areas, and review papers. The journal focuses on forestry issues relevant for Europe primarily Central European regions. The research must be focused exclusively on any European region; otherwise, it cannot be submitted for review. Original works and review papers can be submitted only in English language.

The journal does not have article processing charges nor article submission charges.

The corresponding author is responsible for the originality of the submitted manuscript. The manuscript must not be submitted for review or publication elsewhere at the same time.

The content and the format of the submitted papers are peer-reviewed by at least two reviewers. The editor of the journal decides on the acceptance, rejection, or the need for the revision of the paper upon the reviews. If the editor decides that the manuscript needs to be revised, the authors are obliged to prepare a letter, in which they react to fundamental reviewers’ comments.

The authors must submit their papers online via Editorial Manager on the web page: https://www.editorialmanager.com/forestryjournal/Default.aspx

In case of any questions concerning the use of Editorial Manager service, please contact the technical assistance on the following e-mail address: michal.bosela@nlcsk.org.

During formatting of manuscripts the authors can follow the published papers starting from Central European Forestry Journal, Volume 2017, No. 1 or contact the Editorial Office on the following e-mail address: miriam.malova@nlcsk.org.

Formal requirements for the layout of the manuscript are as follows

A4 paper size with 2.5 cm margins on all sides, 1.5 lines spacing, Font 12 Arial in MS Word.
All pages are numbered. Lines are consecutively numbered throughout the entire document.
Abbreviations must be explained at their first use and must be subsequently used in the whole text.
Abbreviations must not be used in the titles of chapters, tables and figures.
Hyphenation at the end of the line should not be used in the text.

At the first submission of the manuscript, all figures and tables should be placed at a particular place in the text. They do not have to be uploaded via Editorial Manager as separate files. The whole paper may be sent as one file in MS Word format.

Upon the acceptance of the manuscript, all source files have to be sent via Editorial Manager as follows

Figures in a printing quality of min. 300 dpi for colour (1,200 dpi in case of black and white format), in tif or jpg formats. Graphs have to be provided in source files of MS Excel.
Diagrams or any figures that include text have to be sent in such a format that the text parts can be edited in a source file of programs such as Corel, Illustrator, etc.

The journal Editorial Office reserves the right to make stylistic and formal adjustments of the manuscript accepted for the publication. Editorially processed texts in pdf format will be sent to authors for proof corrections before printing. The authors should indicate their final changes and corrections as comments inserted directly to pdf file.

A.) Original scientific paper

The original scientific paper must not exceed 15,000 words. The structure of the work must be as follows:

Title – a clear and concise title, which informs about the main goal or the result of the study. The titles using the wording such as “Contribution to the knowledge…”, “Analysis of communities…”, etc. should be avoided.
Contact information – first names and surnames of author(s) without the academic degrees. The authors’ affiliations should be indicated after authors’ names using superscript numbers and should be listed under the list of authors. The corresponding author should be marked with asterisk (*). The affiliation of the corresponding author should include his/her e-mail address and telephone number.
Abstract – a brief description of the paper of maximum 250 words. The abstract must provide the information that explains the context of the study, objectives, methods, main results and conclusions. Abstracts that only indicatively describe the focus of the study are not acceptable.
Key words – 5 – 6 key words, which should not repeat the title of the study. Key words should be separated by a semicolon.
Introduction – The formulation of a scientific problem and the relation of the presented study to previous works dealing with similar issues. Clearly formulated goals of the study, scientific hypotheses and the importance of the proposed solution must be indicated.
Material and methods – Transparent documentation of experimental and background material in such a way that the research can be repeated following the presented description. Insufficient or unclear documentation of used methods and data is a reason for the rejection of the manuscript.
Results – Results are to be presented in the form of coherent, logically organised overviews of new and original knowledge supported by graphs, figures, formulas, tables and other ways of presenting the results of analyses. Discussion aimed at evaluating the results and comparing them with the findings of other authors, etc. must be clearly separated from the results.
Discussion – A critical comparison of the obtained results with other published works. Discussion should comprehensively answer the questions formulated in the introduction. It is advisable to determine the possibilities for the generalisation of the results and the limits of the applied methods.
Conclusion – Factual conclusions from the results of the work, author´s own contribution or view based on the presented results and discussion. Conclusion should not repeat the obtained results, but should represent their extension, i.e. their generalisation and possible utilisation.
Acknowledgement – contains acknowledgements of different types of support during the preparation of the manuscript including the projects and agencies that financially supported the presented research.
Citations in the text and in “References” section

a complete agreement must be between the citations in the text and the list of references (“References” section). Original sources of the presented knowledge or facts need to be cited.

Examples of citations in the text

if the name of the author is a part of a sentence, the year of the publication is given after the author´s name in parentheses (round brackets) – …Šmelko (2013). If the name of the author is not mentioned in the text, both the name and the year of the publication are given in parentheses – …(Šmelko 2013).
Citations to works by two authors should always give both authors’ surnames – (Konôpka & Lukac 2012), works by three or more authors should be cited using the surname of the first author only followed by „et al.“ (Hlásny et al. 2010),
Several citations at one place in the text should be separated by a semicolon – …(Šmelko 2010; Konôpka 2012; Bošeľa et al. 2013). The citations should be listed in chronological order starting with the oldest work up to the newest one.

Unpublished works, project reports and works published in regional proceedings in national languages should be used only exceptionally.

The reference list (References section) should be in alphabetical order. If several references of the same author are cited, they should be listed in chronological order according to the year of publication, starting with the oldest work up to the newest one. If the work was written by six or less authors, all authors are listed in the reference. If there are more than six authors, only the names of the first six authors are listed followed by „et al.“ The titles of the works should be written in their original languages, i.e. they should not be translated into English.

Examples of references (in References section)

books: Barna, M., Kulfan, J., Bublinec, E., 2011: Beech and beech ecosystems of Slovakia. Bratislava, Veda, 634 p.
papers in journals: Hlásny, T., Mátyás, C., Seidl, R., Kulla, L., Merganičová, K., Trombik, J. et al., 2014: Climate change increases the drought risk in central European forests: What are the options for adaptation? Lesnícky časopis – Forestry Journal, 60:5–18.
book chapters or papers in proceedings: Longauer, R., Gömöry, D., Pacalaj, M., Krajmerová, D., 2010: Genetic aspects of stress tolerance and adaptability of Norway spruce. In: Hlásny, T., Sitková, Z. (eds.): Spruce forests decline in the Beskids. National Forest Centre – Forest Research Institute Zvolen, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Forestry and Game Management Research Institute Jíloviště Strnady. Zvolen, NLC, p. 131–144.

In case of online documents, the reference must include the information identifying the source with its precise location on internet.

Tables and figures

In the main text, tables are referred to as “Table 1”, figures are referred to as “Fig. 1”. The same term “Table 1” or “Fig. 1” is used in table or figure captions, respectively.

In justified cases, e.g. satellite images, complex graphs, etc., the figures can be colour in the electronic edition (i.e. final pdf format of the paper), and black and white in the print version (free of charge). In such a case, the author is obliged to send both versions of figures, and to indicate this way of publishing in figure description written in red.

B.) Review paper

A review paper is a study that follows the formal guidelines for the original scientific work. The structure can differ from the original scientific paper. A review paper analyses or discusses scientific knowledge published by other authors and only partially presents new results obtained from author´s own experiments. Review papers can have either of two standard forms: literature review papers (present summary information from the most important papers dealing with the particular subject), and systematic review papers (include information from the papers fulfilling undefined criteria and compare their results).

Both types of papers can include an Appendix and/or Supplementary Material. The Appendix is placed after the article and included in the printed version. It should not be longer than five pages. On the other hand, Supplementary Material is provided in a separate file, with a link shown at the end of the article.

New requirements stemming from the European Accessibility Act (EAA) and equivalent US regulations, including the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, establish a legal obligation to ensure that digital publications are accessible to readers with diverse sensory, motor, and cognitive needs.

This means that all tables, images, graphs, diagrams, and non-decorative images must include a concise and meaningful alternative to all text descriptions. Based on this guideline, we ask authors to submit alternative texts with their manuscripts. Author can use a separate file with alternative texts or a clearly marked field in manuscript template (e.g. an additional column in the figure list). The author describes the content and intent of their own figures in 2–3 sentences. Table must have properly marked header rows and should avoid merged or split cells where possible. Tables structured simply and properly. Text must have a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 against the background (3:1 for large text) and information must not be conveyed by color alone – for example, charts and diagrams should also use labels, patterns, or shapes to distinguish data series. Author can check layouts contrast on website:

https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/.

Central European Forestry Journal

The Journal of National Forest Centre

About the journal

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All volumes and issues in this journal

Volume 72 (2026)

Volume 71 (2025)

Volume 70 (2024)

Volume 69 (2023)

Volume 68 (2022)

Volume 67 (2021)

Volume 66 (2020)

Volume 65 (2019)

Volume 64 (2018)

Volume 63 (2017)

Volume 62 (2016)

Volume 61 (2015)

Volume 60 (2014)

Volume 59 (2013)

Volume 58 (2012)

Volume 57 (2011)

Volume 56 (2010)

Volume 55 (2009)

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