SKUAST Journal of Research

Guidelines To Authors

SKUAST Journal of Research is a quarterly journal that promptly publishes original research papers and short communications related to Agriculture, Horticulture, Forestry, Veterinary Sciences, Animal Husbandry, Fisheries, Sericulture and allied fields. Reviews of paramount importance are also considered in SKUAST Journal of Research.

Manuscript submission

Manuscripts including illustration can be submitted through email at chiefeditor-sjr@skuastkashmir.ac.in or soft copy of the same can be submitted to the office of Editor-in-Chief, SKUAST Journal of Research, SKUAST-Kashmir, Shalimar, Srinagar-190025 (Jammu and Kashmir), India. Manuscripts should be concise and not exceed ten printed pages or 4000 words of the Journal in case of full length paper and four printed pages or 2500 words in case of short communications. The responsibility for statements, whether of fact or opinion lies entirely on the authors thereof.

Copyright

Submission of a manuscript implies that the:

• Work described has neither been published before (except in the form of abstract or as a part of lecture or thesis) nor is under consideration for publication elsewhere.
• Authors have approved the publication, and responsible authorities at the institute where the work was conducted have granted permission for its publication. Corresponding author shall be responsible for producing and submitting the genuine certificate.
• Manuscript, if and when is accepted for publication, the authors agree to transfer the copyright automatically to the publisher.
• Manuscript including tables, figures, or any other part thereof will not be published elsewhere in any language without the consent of the copyright holder.
• Authors have obtained written permission for any materials used from other copyrighted sources, and any costs associated with obtaining this permission will be the sole responsibility of the authors.
• Author line of the manuscript will not be changed after first submission, as the same will be strictly checked by Editor-in-Chief of the journal.

The manuscript submitted for publication should invariably be accompanied by a certificate from authors reflecting the above points. The manuscript without above certificate will not be published in the journal.

Review process

All the manuscripts are first reviewed by the Editorial Board and then undergo blind review process by the qualified reviewers from the concerned field, besides shall be approved by the editorial board before publication.

Format of the paper preparation

Manuscript should be written in English (Times New Roman) and may be organized neatly, typed in single space on A4 size paper. Separate files for photographs/ plates/ figures/ diagrams in JPEG and tables in MS word should be provided with the manuscript.

Title: The title should be short, specific and informative, typed in sentence case (only first letter of the first word should be capitalized) and Latin names italicized. A short title, not exceeding 35 letters, should be typed at the top of the first page.

Authors: The names of authors should be in small letters (capitalize each first word) without any mention of degree, title, etc.

Address: Address of the institution where the work was carried out may be given first followed by the present address (if required). Contact details (email address, name of the department, mobile number) of the corresponding author may also be given.

Each full length paper should be divided into the main headings in following order

Abstract: A brief abstract, not exceeding 250 words, containing one line objective, summary of findings and conclusions of the study should be typed after address in one paragraph.

Key words: Not more than six key words indicating the contents of research may be given in alphabetical order after abstract.

Introduction: It should be brief and limited to the statement of problem with brief review of the literature pertinent to the work and the objectives of the study.

Materials and Methods: It should include relevant details on the nature of material, experimental design, the techniques employed and the statistical methods used. For well-known methods, citation of reference is sufficient.

Results and Discussion: Results and discussion should be combined to avoid any repetition. It should include the important findings discussed briefly with relevant literature support or reasoning. State the conclusions in a few sentences at the end of the paper. Acknowledgment should mention only guidance or assistance received in real terms, and financial grant provided by any agency.

Acknowledgement (if essential): It is mandatory to acknowledge the people who assisted in manuscript preparation, funding for research, facilities for work, etc., and must be precise and placed at the end but prior to references.

References: Text citation as well as listing of references should be given at the end of the article. In running text, the reference citation may be mentioned as Khan (1980), Khan and Ahmad (1980) and Khan et al. (1980) in case of one, two and more than two authors, respectively. Listing of the references should be done in alphabetical order. Author names to be written in normal sequence with surname followed by initials and followed by year of publication. This should be followed by the title of article in sentence case (first letter of the first word should be capitalized only) and journal name in full form with italic font, volume (should be bold and followed by colon) and page number of the journal. In case of book reference, author(s) and year of publication be followed by the book title (in expanded form in first capital), publisher, city and country. Volume or part of serialized books may be given after the title of the paper, followed by a colon and page numbers. This may be followed by the name of the publisher, city and country where from the book/ serial has been published. Text of the references may be given in the same alignment (with further indentation of second line onward). The examples of mentioning of the references are given as under:

Dar, G.H. 1995. Effect of heavy metals (Cu, Cr, Ni and Pb) on soil microbial biomass carbon mineralization and enzyme activities. International Journal of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, 21: 87-95.

Parry, D.A., Molina, R. and Amaranthus, M.P. 1987. Mycorrhizae, mycorrhizosphere and reforestation: Current knowledge and research needs. Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 17: 929-940.

Jhingran, V.A. 1975. Fish and Fisheries of India. Hindustan Publication, New Delhi, India, p 203.

Nayayan, N.S. and Madhyashta, M.N. 1985. Heavy metal pollution in India - A review, pp. 272-284. In: Current Pollution Research in India (Eds. R.K. Trivedi and P.K. Goel), Environmental Publications, Karad, India.

Table: Each table should be given on separate page with a heading, stating its contents clearly and concisely. All weights and measures should be in standard international units. Tables should be typed with only first letter capital. Table number be mentioned in Arabic numerical followed by heading.

Figures: Only good quality figures that are essential to clear understanding of the paper shall be accepted. The information in illustrations should not be repeated in tables and vice versa. The figures and illustrations with legends should be of good quality (no online screen prints will be accepted). Only original art work/ photographs will be accepted (if necessary), each on separate page of the paper.

Photographs: The photographs (if any) should be of good quality with high contrast for publication on a separate page with figure number printed and legend given below.

Equations: All the equations should be computerized. Mathematical notations should be simple and suitable for multi-disciplinary audience. Meaning of all the symbols used should be given immediately after the equation at first use. All the data should be in metric units with a maximum of two decimals and must be statistically analyzed.

Units: The international system of units (SI) and internationally accepted rules should be followed.

Nomenclature: Generic and species names should be italicized and the first mention of any generic/species name should be accompanied by the authority.

Ethical Consent: All authors have to follow the ethical guidelines for journal publication. All the manuscripts reporting the findings of experimental study involving human/ animal subjects should provide a statement confirming that each subject or subject's guardian obtains an informed consent, after the approval of experimental protocol by the ethics committee or IRB. Authors have to state in the manuscript that the work presented has been conducted in accordance with The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for Experiments Involving Humans [http://www.wma.net/ en/30publications/10policies/b3/index.html]; EU Directive 2010/63/ EU for Animal Experiments [http://ec.europa.eu/environment/chemicals/labanimals/legislation_en.htm]; Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals [http://www.icmje.org]. While reporting the experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether the institutional and national guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals was followed or not. Needless cruelty in animal experimentations is not acceptable to the journal.

Open Access (OA) policy: The journal has an Open Access (OA) policy to promote OA of the publishing contents so that readers can have free unrestricted online access to the research output. The open access content/ articles are open to all without any accessing or subscription charges/fees and are freely available online to researchers, students, readers, scholars, and any layperson from anywhere and anytime, immediately after their publication via Innovative Open Access (OA) Policy.

Plagiarism: The Editorial Board of the journal checks the plagiarism using appropriate software and holds no responsibility for plagiarism. If a published paper is found later to be extensively plagiarized and is found to be a duplicate or redundant publication, a note of retraction will be published, and copies of the correspondence will be sent to the author's Head of the Institute/University.

Conflict of interest: Authors must reveal the conflicts of interest at the end of manuscript and must disclose the financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work.

Contributors: Each author is required to affirm his or her individual contribution to the article: all authors must have materially participated in the research and/or article preparation, so the roles for all authors should be described. The statement that all authors have approved the final article should be true and disclosed.

Authorship issue: All authors must have substantially contributed to the concept and design of study or in data collection, analysis and interpretation or in critical write up of the manuscript. Authors are expected to carefully list and order the authors prior to manuscript submission. Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship is discouraged by the journal, unless and until proper reasons for the act is provided by the corresponding authors along with written confirmation (e-mail, letter) from all authors, including the affected ones, that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. Only in rare cases the journal considers such changes in authorship.

Please observe the following criteria prior to submission of manuscript:

• Include the text file and separate table and illustration files, if available.
• The file should follow the general instructions on style/ arrangement and, in particular, the references style of this journal as given in the “guidelines to authors”.
• The file should be single spaced and should use the wrap-around end-of-line feature i.e. no returns at the end of each line. All textural elements should begin flush left. Place two returns after every element such as title heading, paragraphs, figures and table call-outs.
• Keep a back-up disk for reference and safety.

Galley proof: The Editorial Board will send the galley proof of the accepted paper to the corresponding author through e-mail for final proofreading. It will be responsibility of the corresponding author to return the galley proof appropriately corrected through e-mail or soft copy in case of any network issue within the stipulated time. Authors will be asked to check any typographical or minor clerical errors in the manuscript at this stage. No major changes in the manuscript shall be permitted.

Open Access (OA) charges: The journal has decided to have an Open Access (OA) publishing policy hence the authors shall have to bear the nominal OA charges for publication. Open Access charges levied on authors are only source of income that is utilized to meet the print, administrative and online management of the journal. The nominal OA charges of the papers received from India is ? 1000/- per paper and the papers received from other countries is US$ 25/- per paper. The authors interested in purchasing re-prints should send their request at the time of submission of the revised manuscript.

Disclaimer: The manuscripts of research articles or review papers, short communications and short notes published by the journal (SKUAST Journal of Research) represents the only opinion of their authors. The publisher bears no accountability or responsibility whatever for the use or misuse of the information published by the journal.