Exciting changes are afoot in the submission and publication process at Northwest Science, the journal of the Northwest Scientific Association. As part of these changes, the editorial team recently completed work on revisions to the author guidance.

The new author guidance improves clarity, streamlines the manuscript submission process, and provides new preprint options for authors of accepted articles. In addition to a revised guidance manual, new guidance documents include:

• A guide for references
• An optional Word template for manuscript development
• Submission of article key points to improve visibility in literature searches
• A new citation style language (csl) file

If you have visited our Accepted Articles and Notes webpage in recent months, you may have noticed the addition of links to preprint versions of accepted articles that are in the publication pipeline, as well as figures that offer a preview of the content of accepted articles. These preprint options are a new feature of the Northwest Science publication process, available to all authors, and are a great way to get study findings out into the world before the formal publication process has been completed.

With these changes, submission of articles to Northwest Science is simpler and more attractive than ever. So, if Thanksgiving break leaves you with more free time than you know how to fill, our editorial team has provided even more reason to channel your creativity into a Northwest Science manuscript!