Submissions

Author Guidelines

TYPES OF CONTRIBUTIONS

Research papers: reporting the results of a substantial, completed work, not published elsewhere.

Short communications: is a brief report of a small experiment, but complete; description of an investigation of limited scope.

Review articles: reports novel and critical appraisals of specific topics of current interest (should be topical and not just an overview of the literature). Before submission, please contact the editor.

Book Reviews: will be included in the journal on a range of relevant books, which are not more than two-years old. The editors will usually solicit book reviews, but suggestions for appropriate books for review may be sent to the Editorial Office.

PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPTS

Manuscripts should be typed on A4 size (297 x 210 mm) paper in clear and simple British English in direct style of writing. Please use only standard fonts such as Times, Times New Roman or Arial for text, and Symbol font for Greek letters, to avoid inadvertent character substitutions. Do not use automated or manual hyphenation. Use numbered lines, with wide (3 cm) margins from all sides and double spacing throughout, including abstracts, footnotes and references. Every page of the manuscript, including the title page, references, tables, etc. should be numbered.

Manuscripts in general should be organized in the following order:

• Title

• Name(s) of author(s)

• Authors' complete postal address(es)

• Abstract

• Key words

• Introduction

• Material and Methods

• Results

• Discussion

• Acknowledgement

• References

• Figure captions

• Tables/ Figures

In the case of short communications, bulk of the text should be organized in a continuous form without separate sections such as Introduction, Materials and methods, Results and Discussion. It should, however, include a short Abstract and a list of Keywords at the beginning of the communication, and Acknowledgements (if any) and References at the end. These components are to be prepared in the same format as used for full-length research papers.

Title page

Authors should submit two title pages for Double-Blind Refereeing. First one will contain all details and the second one will be devoid of authors' name(s) and address.

Title should be clear, concise, informative and without abbreviations. Avoid low-impact expressions such as ‘effect of . . .' and ‘study of . . .']. Authorities for Latin names should not be given in the title but should be given at first mention in the text. This rule does not hold for papers related to taxonomy. A short title, not exceeding 50 characters, should be provided for the running headlines.

It should be followed by a list of the authors. Full initials and last names should be mentioned for all the authors. Each name should be separated by a comma, except for the last two which are separated by ‘and '. The list of names should be followed by a list of authors' addresses. The address and author for correspondence should be indicated by superscript letters and symbols where there is more than one author and address. Email, telephone and Fax numbers must be provided for corresponding author.

Abstract

It should be brief (no longer than 200 words) and describe the objective of the study, minimum experimental details (such as year and location), significant results obtained (preferably with quantitative data for key results) and the most important. It should not repeat the wording of the title.

Key words

Include 4 to 6 indexing terms. Exclude the terms used in the title. This will increase citation of your work.

Introduction

This should set the work in context. Present only essential background and include a concise statement of the objectives; a detailed review of the literature is not necessary. Reasons for carrying out the experiments, as well as a clear statement of the objectives should be included.

Material and Methods

Relevant details about the experimental materials and design and the techniques and statistical methods used should be given. It is necessary that the experiments need to be repeated at least twice. Make it explicit so that the reader may be able to repeat it independently, but care should be taken not to trivialize this part.

Results

These should be presented in an orderly fashion, making use of tables and figures where necessary. Material presented in tables should not be repeated in figures. Furthermore, voluminous data gathered from location-specific trials presented as long tables or complicated figures are not acceptable.

Units and quantities: Metric and SI units should be used e.g. kg/ha, mg/l. Use of % should be restricted and used only to describe relative changes in responses.

Discussion

Discussion should preferably be presented separately from results (except in short communication, where these two are combined). It should be noted that simple restatement of results in it does not constitute adequate discussion. The discussion should be focused on the work presented, and its relationship with other relevant published work. It should not digress widely into general discussion of a research area, or into excessive speculation.

Acknowledgement

It will include acknowledgement and any additional information concerning research grants, etc.

References

All publications cited in the text should be presented in a list of references following the text of the manuscript. References should be arranged in alphabetical order in this list. Please ensure that the spelling of author's names and dates are exactly the same in the text as in the reference list.

In the text, the citations should be referred to by author's name and year of publication enclosed in parentheses, e.g.: Kistler (1997); Kistler (1997a, b); Mandal & Das (1980); (Mandal & Das 1980; Kistler 1997); Maiti et al. (in press); (Maiti et al., in press); S. Maiti (unpublished); (S. Maiti, unpublished); S. Samantaray (pers. Comm..); (S. Samantaray, pers. comm..).

Use the following system for arranging references:

a. For periodicals:

Chandel, P., Geetha, K. A. and Maiti, S. 2007. Reproductive biology of Convolvulus microphyllus (Convolvulacea) - A memory stimulating drug plant of Ayurveda. Indian Journal of Genetics and Plant Breeding 67: 257-263.

Kistler, H. C. 1997. Genetic diversity in the plant-pathogenic fungus Fusarium oxysporum. Phytopathology 87: 474-479.

Mandal, G. and Das, A. 1980. Structure of the D-galactan isolated from Aloe barbadensis Miller. Carbohydrate Research 86: 247-257.

b. For books/ book chapters:

Agren, G. I. and Bosatta, E. 1996. Theoretical Ecosystem Ecology: Understanding Element Cycles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Maiti, S., Sridhar, G. and Geetha, K. A. 2008. Medicinal and Aromatic Plants. In Intellectual Property Rights in Horticulture (Eds. Kannaiyan, S. Parthasarathy, V. A. and Prasath, D.), pp. 277-296. New Delhi: Associated Publishing Company.

c. For theses:

Rao, S. N. 1999. Computerisation of meteorological data. PGDCA thesis, Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad, India.

d. For online publications:

Maiti S. and Geetha, K. A. 2007. Medicinal and Aromatic Plants in India. http://nsdl.niscair.res.in/handle/123456789/742 (accessed on 24.12.2008).

In the case of publications in any language other than English, the original title is to be retained. However, the titles of publications in non-Latin alphabets should be transliterated, and a notation such as "(in Russian)" or "(in Greek, with English abstract)" should be added.

Figure captions

Figures should be numbered in a series and referred in the text, e.g. Figure 1, etc. Figure legends should be self explanatory and grouped together on a separate sheet. Subdivisions within figures should be labelled with lower case letters, e.g. a, b and c, etc. and these should also be used in the figure captions and in the text.

Tables/figures

Tables and figures should be placed at the end of the manuscript following the Reference section. Authors should take notice of the limitations set by the size and layout of the journal. Large tables should be avoided. If many data are to be presented, an attempt should be made to divide them over two or more tables. Each table should have a brief and self-explanatory title and be placed on a separate page of the manuscript. In the results section, do not state ‘Table 1 shows the results of a given test'-describe the results of the test and then indicate which table shows them. The description should not repeat the results of the table but can draw attention to particular or general features of them. Any explanation essential to the understanding of the table should be given as a footnote at the bottom of the table. Such explanatory footnotes, identified by superscript letters, should be placed immediately below the table.

Authors are requested to supply the electronic versions of figures in any of the JPEG, EPS, or TIFF format. Where necessary, insert a scale bar in the illustration (not below it), as opposed to giving a magnification factor in the legend. Figures should be saved in separate files without their captions, which should be included with the text of the article. Lines should not be thinner than 0.25pts and in-fill patterns and screens should have a density of at least 10%. Use standard fonts such as Times Roman and Helvetica. The following resolutions are optimal: black-and-white line figures - 600 to 1200 dpi; line figures with some grey or coloured lines - 600 dpi; photographs - 300 dpi. Please try to provide artwork that approximately fits within the typeset area of the journal. Graphs prepared by MS Excel, MS Power Point may be submitted as original file.

Formulae

Leave ample space around the formulae. Subscripts and superscripts should be clear. Take special care to show clearly the difference between zero (0) and the letter ‘O', and between one (1) and the letter ‘l'. Give the meaning of all symbols immediately after the equation in which they are first used. For simple fractions use the solidus (/) instead of a horizontal line. Equations should be numbered serially at the right-hand side in parentheses. In general, only equations explicitly referred to in the text need be numbered. The use of fractional powers instead of root signs is recommended. Also, powers of e are often more conveniently denoted by exp.

Abbreviations

Commonly used abbreviations such as g = gram, mg = milligram, L = litre and additionally following taxonomical abbreviations cv. = cultivar, sp. = species (singular), spp. species (plural), syn. = synonym, var. = variety may be used without any explanation. However, others should follow only after full forms are mentioned at the first instance of use in the text.

Copyright

An author, when quoting from someone else's work or when considering reproducing an illustration or table from a book or journal article, should make sure that he is not infringing a copyright. Material in unpublished letters and manuscripts is also protected and must not be published unless permission has been obtained. A suitable acknowledgement of any borrowed material must always be made.

IMPORTANT GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS

Authors are expected to maintain high standards of scientific ethics and integrity. When a paper is submitted to OAJMAP, it is assumed that the work has not been published elsewhere, nor is it being submitted simultaneously for publication elsewhere. The concurrence of all authors and the institution that sponsored the research programme is necessary. Format for this can be found at Declaration by author(s)/Sponsoring Institutions.