As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.
The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, or RTF document file format.
Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
The text is single-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.
Author Guidelines
All Our Journals are open access journals that provide rapid turnaround in review and publication (monthly) of articles in various subject areas.
We welcome the submission of manuscripts that meets the general criteria of significance and scientific excellence. Papers will be published approximately upon acceptance by our Editors.
Electronic submission of manuscripts is strongly encouraged, provided that the text, tables, and figures are included in a single Microsoft Word (MS-word) file (preferably in Arial font).
Submission of manuscripts: Submission of manuscript can be made via links on the different journal home pages. An Acknowledgement letter with manuscript tracking number will be mailed to the corresponding author immediately.
NB: We will only accept papers submitted Microsoft office word format (.doc and .docx).
Article Types
Types of manuscripts for submission includes:
Regular articles: These should describe new and carefully confirmed findings, and experimental procedures should be given in sufficient detail for others to verify the work. The length of a full paper should be the minimum required to describe and interpret the work clearly.
Short Communications: A Short Communication is suitable for recording the results of complete small investigations or giving details of new models or hypotheses, innovative methods, techniques or apparatus. The style of main sections need not conform to that of full-length papers. Short communications are 2 to 4 printed pages (about 6 to 12 manuscript pages) in length.
Reviews: Submissions of reviews and perspectives covering topics of current interest are welcome and encouraged. Reviews should be concise and no longer than 4-6 printed pages (about 12 to 18 manuscript pages). Reviews are also peer-reviewed.
Critical Reviews, Surveys, Opinions, Commentaries and Essays
Submissions of surveys, opinions, commentaries, essays and perspectives covering topics of current interest are welcome and encouraged.
Review Process
All manuscripts are double blind reviewed by an editor and members of the Editorial Board or qualified peer-reviewers. Decisions will be made as rapidly as possible, and the journal strives to send reviewers' evaluation to authors within 4 weeks. The editorial board will re-evaluate manuscripts that are accepted pending revision. It is the goal of the Journal to publish manuscripts within 8 weeks after submission.
Regular articles
All portions of the manuscript must be typed double-spaced and all pages numbered starting from the title page.
The Title should be a brief phrase describing the contents of the paper. The Title Page should include the authors' full names and affiliations, the name of the corresponding author along with phone, fax and E-mail information. Present addresses of authors should appear as a footnote.
The Abstract should be informative and completely self-explanatory, briefly present the topic, state the scope of the experiments, indicate significant data, and point out major findings and conclusions. The Abstract should be 100 to 200 words in length.. Complete sentences and syntax, active verbs, and the third person should be used, and the abstract should be written in the past tense. Standard nomenclature should be used and abbreviations should be avoided. No literature should be cited.
Following the abstract, about 3 to 10 key words that will provide indexing references should be listed.
A list of non-standard Abbreviations should be added. In general, non-standard abbreviations should be used only when the full term is very long and used often. Each abbreviation should be spelled out and introduced in parentheses the first time it is used in the text. Only recommended SI units should be used. Authors should use the solidus presentation (mg/ml). Standard abbreviations (such as ATP and DNA) need not be defined.
The Introduction should provide a clear statement of the problem, the relevant literature on the subject, and the proposed approach or solution. It should be understandable to colleagues from a broad range of diverse disciplines.
Materials and methods should be complete enough to allow experiments to be reproduced. However, only truly new procedures should be described in detail; previously published procedures should be cited, and important modifications of published procedures should be mentioned briefly. Capitalize trade names and include the manufacturer's name and address. Subheadings should be used. Methods in general use need not be described in detail.
Results should be presented with clarity and precision. The results should be written in the past tense when describing findings in the authors' experiments. Previously published findings should be written in the present tense. Results should be explained, but largely without referring to the literature. Discussion, speculation and detailed interpretation of data should not be included in the Results but should be put into the Discussion section.
The Discussion should interpret the findings in view of the results obtained in this and in past studies on this topic. State the conclusions in a few sentences at the end of the paper. The Results and Discussion sections can include subheadings, and when appropriate, both sections can be combined.
The Acknowledgments of people, grants, funds, etc should be brief.
Tables should be kept to a minimum and be designed to be as simple as possible. Tables are to be typed double-spaced throughout, including headings and footnotes. Each table should be on a separate page, numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals and supplied with a heading and a legend. Tables should be self-explanatory without reference to the text. The details of the methods used in the experiments should preferably be described in the legend instead of in the text. The same data should not be presented in both table and graph form or repeated in the text.
Figure legends should be typed in numerical order on a separate sheet. Graphics should be prepared using applications capable of generating high resolution GIF, TIFF, JPEG or Powerpoint before pasting in the Microsoft Word manuscript file. Tables should be prepared in Microsoft Word. Use Arabic numerals to designate figures and upper case letters for their parts (Figure 1). Begin each legend with a title and include sufficient description so that the figure is understandable without reading the text of the manuscript. Information given in legends should not be repeated in the text.
Permissions
Authors wishing to include figures, tables, or text passages that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) for both the print and online format and to include evidence that such permission has been granted when submitting their papers. Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors.
References
All publications cited in the text should be presented in the list of references. The typescript should be carefully checked to ensure that the spelling of the authors‘ names and dates are exactly the same as in the reference list.
In the text, refer to the author‘s name (without initial) and year of publication. Examples: Peters (1985) has shown that . . .
˜This is in agreement with results obtained later (Kramer, 1984) If reference is made in the text to a publication by three or more authors, the abbreviation et al. should be used. All names should be given in the list of references.
References cited together in the text should be arranged chronologically. The list of references should be arranged alphabetically by authors surname(s) and chronologically by author. If an author in the list is also mentioned with co-authors the following order should be used: publications by the single author, arranged according to publication dates; publications of the same author with co-authors. Publications by the same author(s) in the same year should be listed as 1986a, 1986b, etc.
Use the following system for arranging each reference in the list:
For journal articles:
Ahl, A.S., (1986): The role of vibrissae in behaviour: a status review. Veterinary Research Communications.,10, 245--268
For a paper in published symposia proceedings or a chapter in multi-author books:
Lowe, K.F. and Hamilton, B.A., (1986): Dairy pastures in the Australian tropics and subtropics. In: G.T. Murtagh and R.M. Jones (eds), Proceedings of the 3rd Australian conference on tropical pastures, Rockhampton, 1985, (Tropical Grassland Society of Australia, St. Lucia; Occasional Publication 3), 68--79
Short Communications Short Communications are limited to a maximum of two figures and one table. They should present a complete study that is more limited in scope than is found in full-length papers. The items of manuscript preparation listed above apply to Short Communications with the following differences: (1) Abstracts are limited to 100 words; (2) instead of a separate Materials and Methods section, experimental procedures may be incorporated into Figure Legends and Table footnotes; (3) Results and Discussion should be combined into a single section.
Proofs and Reprints: Electronic proofs will be sent (e-mail attachment) to the corresponding author as a PDF file. Page proofs are considered to be the final version of the manuscript. With the exception of typographical or minor clerical errors, no changes will be made in the manuscript at the proof stage. Because the accepted paper will be published freely online to attract a wide audience), authors will have free electronic access to the full text (in both HTML and PDF) of the article. Authors can freely download the PDF file from which they can print unlimited copies of their articles.
Copyright: Submission of a manuscript implies: that the work described has not been published before (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture, or thesis) that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere; that if and when the manuscript is accepted for publication, the authors agree to automatic transfer of the copyright to the publisher.
Fees and Charges: Authors are not required to pay any handling fee and/or publication fee.
Copyright Notice
he copyediting stage is intended to improve the flow, clarity, grammar, wording, and formatting of the article. It represents the last chance for the author to make any substantial changes to the text because the next stage is restricted to typos and formatting corrections. The file to be copyedited is in Word or .rtf format and therefore can easily be edited as a word processing document. The set of instructions displayed here proposes two approaches to copyediting. One is based on Microsoft Word's Track Changes feature and requires that the copy editor, editor, and author have access to this program. A second system, which is software independent, has been borrowed, with permission, from the Harvard Educational Review. The journal editor is in a position to modify these instructions, so suggestions can be made to improve the process for this journal.
Copyediting Systems
1. Microsoft Word's Track Changes Under Tools in the menu bar, the feature Track Changes enables the copy editor to make insertions (text appears in color) and deletions (text appears crossed out in color or in the margins as deleted). The copy editor can posit queries to both the author (Author Queries) and to the editor (Editor Queries) by inserting these queries in square brackets. The copyedited version is then uploaded, and the editor is notified. The editor then reviews the text and notifies the author. The editor and author should leave those changes with which they are satisfied. If further changes are necessary, the editor and author can make changes to the initial insertions or deletions, as well as make new insertions or deletions elsewhere in the text. Authors and editors should respond to each of the queries addressed to them, with responses placed inside the square brackets. After the text has been reviewed by editor and author, the copy editor will make a final pass over the text accepting the changes in preparation for the layout and galley stage. 2. Harvard Educational ReviewInstructions for Making Electronic Revisions to the Manuscript Please follow the following protocol for making electronic revisions to your manuscript: Responding to suggested changes. For each of the suggested changes that you accept, unbold the text. For each of the suggested changes that you do not accept, re-enter the original text and bold it. Making additions and deletions. Indicate additions by bolding the new text. Replace deleted sections with: [deleted text]. If you delete one or more sentence, please indicate with a note, e.g., [deleted 2 sentences]. Responding to Queries to the Author (QAs). Keep all QAs intact and bolded within the text. Do not delete them. To reply to a QA, add a comment after it. Comments should be delimited using: [Comment:] e.g., [Comment: Expanded discussion of methodology as you suggested]. Making comments. Use comments to explain organizational changes or major revisions e.g., [Comment: Moved the above paragraph from p. 5 to p. 7]. Note: When referring to page numbers, please use the page numbers from the printed copy of the manuscript that was sent to you. This is important since page numbers may change as a document is revised electronically.
An Illustration of an Electronic Revision
Initial copyedit. The journal copy editor will edit the text to improve flow, clarity, grammar, wording, and formatting, as well as including author queries as necessary. Once the initial edit is complete, the copy editor will upload the revised document through the journal Web site and notify the author that the edited manuscript is available for review.
Author copyedit. Before making dramatic departures from the structure and organization of the edited manuscript, authors must check in with the editors who are co-chairing the piece. Authors should accept/reject any changes made during the initial copyediting, as appropriate, and respond to all author queries. When finished with the revisions, authors should rename the file from AuthorNameQA.doc to AuthorNameQAR.doc (e.g., from LeeQA.doc to LeeQAR.doc) and upload the revised document through the journal Web site as directed.
Final copyedit. The journal copy editor will verify changes made by the author and incorporate the responses to the author queries to create a final manuscript. When finished, the copy editor will upload the final document through the journal Web site and alert the layout editor to complete formatting.
