Submissions

Author Guidelines

Journal of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences (JAFES)

 Peer-reviewed online Journal published twice per year

 

AUTHOR GUIDELINES PDF

 

 GENERAL REMARKS

• Manuscript must be original unpublished work, based on original research and contain novel findings, which have not been previously published elsewhere (except as abstracts, theses, short reports). It is recommendable that manuscripts address the problems relevant for agriculture of a temperate climate zone. The contributions must present recent research data adequately statistically validated and followed by a comprehensive discussion of factors affecting results. Results reported in manuscripts must be based on repeated trials or experiments. Review articles are also considered, but generally upon invitation by the Editors.

• Manuscripts must be written in clear, concise and grammatically correct English using simple declarative sentences. English spelling and grammar should follow standard British English usage. Authors are strongly advised to have papers reviewed linguistically prior to submission. Authors are responsible for submitting well-written manuscripts.

• The manuscript should be prepared as Microsoft Word document, in English language, on numbered pages of A4 format, Times New Roman font 12pt, with 1.5 line spacing, justified, and standard margins (2.54 cm) at all sides of every page. Paragraph should have 1 cm indentation, with no spaces between paragraphs in the text.

• The text should be organized into clearly defined sections. TITLE of the article and headings (ABSTRACT, INTRODUCTION, MATERIALS AND METHODS, RESULTS AND DISCUSSION, CONCLUSIONS, REFERENCES).

• The headings and subheadings for section titles in the text should be aligned left. HEADINGS are in capitalized letters and bold type. First order subheadings are in Sentence Case Bold, Normal, and Second order subheadings are in Sentence Case, Italic. Include an empty line before each heading and subheading.

• The International System of Units (SI) should be used.

• A manuscript should not exceed 6000 words. Exceptions can be made if the content and quality of the paper justify it (at the discretion of the Editor).

• Suitability of the articles for this journal is approved, and its contents are arranged by the Editorial Board members, representing the key areas and branches of agriculture, food and environmental sciences. Manuscripts may be rejected without peer-review by the Editor if they do not meet the author guidelines, or do not fall within the scope of the journal.

• Manuscripts are organized in two documents (submissions): cover page and manuscript.

 

COVER PAGE

• The cover page contains the title of the paper, authors and affiliations.

• TITLE. Concise and informative, reflecting the subject of the manuscript (recommended not more than 100 characters, including spaces). The title should be written in bold uppercase letters size 14 pts and placed central in the upper half of the page. 

• Author(s) name(s). The author(s) name(s) should be placed bellow the title, first names and surnames (do not use initials for names). The corresponding author should be indicated with an asterisk^*.

• Affiliations. Name and address of author(s) institution, use numbers in superscripts. Include e-mail address of the author(s).

 

MANUSCRIPT

• TITLE. Put the title at the beginning of the manuscript. The title should be written in bold uppercase letters size 14 pts and placed central in the upper half of the page. 

• ABSTRACT. Each article is to be preceded by a succinct abstract, from 150 to 250 words, that highlights the objectives, methods, results, and conclusions of the paper.

• KEY WORDS. To identify the subjects under which the article may be indexed, 4 to 6 key words should be provided in alphabetical order below the abstract, using commas between the words and end the list with a period.

• INTRODUCTION. This section should include background information, the relevant literature on the subject, the proposed approach or solution, and the aims of the manuscript. Background and significance of the problem by using the most recent publications should be provided. Prior work based on the same project and/or data must be referenced, and the unique contribution of the new submission must be stated explicitly. The aim of the study should be clearly stated at the end of introduction.

• MATERIAL AND METHODS. Authors should provide a concise description of experimental site, design, materials and analytical methods and statistical procedures used. This part should be as clear as possible to enable other scientists to repeat the research presented. Only new procedures should be described in detail, while previously published procedures should be cited. Material and methods should provide detailed description of the experimental or sampling design, as well as a clear description of instruments and equipment.

• RESULTS AND DISCUSSION. Results and discussion may be combined into a single section, or in two separate sections. Results should be clear and concise, presented in a logical sequence in the text, tables and figures. The numbers from the tables or figures should not be repeated extensively in the text and long explanations of the tables and figures are not acceptable. The same information given in the table should not be repeated in the figure or vice versa. Relevant statistical information should be provided in tables and figures. Statistical significance should be clearly indicated where applicable. Repetition of the same data in different forms should be avoided. The discussion should interpret results in light of what was already known about the subject of the investigation, and explain new understanding of the problem after taking into consideration the results. Interpretation of data, related to previous research, should be clearly presented.

• CONCLUSIONS. The conclusions should present a clear and concise review of the work. Its content should not substantially duplicate the abstract.

• Acknowledgments. If any, the acknowledgments of people, grants, funds, etc. should be brief. Collate acknowledgements only in a separate section at the end of the article, after Conclusions, and do not include them on the title page, as a footnote to the title or otherwise.

• • Tables and Equations. Please submit tables and equations as editable text and not as images. Tables and equations should not be submitted in a format exceeding the A4 page size (in portrait form), using Times New Roman font size 10 pts. Only horizontal lines should be used within a table, to distinguish the column headings from the body of the table, and immediately above and below the table. Please avoid using vertical rules and shading in table cells. All tables should be embedded within the manuscript, and must be captioned and numbered sequentially in Arabic numerals. Tables’ headings should be placed above the tables, justified. Tables should be self-explanatory without reference to the text. Sources and notes should be put right after the table, left justified, in Times New Roman font 10 pt.

• • Figures/Illustrations/Photographs. If your electronic artwork is created in a Microsoft Office application (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) then please supply 'as is' in the native document format. Regardless of the application used other than Microsoft Office, when your electronic artwork is finalized, please 'Save as' or convert the images to TIFF (or JPEG with high resolution, of at least 300-600 dpi). All figures should be embedded within the manuscript, and must be captioned and numbered sequentially. For figures, illustrations or photographs, headings should be placed below them, centered. All illustrative material - drawings, graphs, diagrams, photos, pictures, etc. are called by a common name of figures, e.g., Figure 1. Figure legends should be concise and should give enough information to make the figure understandable. All symbols reported in the figure must be defined and all abbreviations should be explained.

• • Units and nomenclature. All physical units, their names and symbols should meet the requirements of SI system (Système International d'Unités). Soil texture should be indicated according to World Reference Base for soil resources (2014), e.g., Albic Endostagnic Luvisol (Cutanic, Differentic). The rules of WRB should be followed for a detailed description and naming of soils and the Guidelines for Soil Description (2006) should be applied for determining soil particle-size and texture classes.
  • Latin names of plant species, genus, pests, micro-organisms, causal agents of diseases should be written with taxon name, in Italic, e.g., Triticum aestivum (L.), Blumeria graminis (DC.) Speer. The terms and names of plants, biology, entomology, phytopathology, pesticides, agrochemistry and soil must meet the most recent requirements of their international nomenclature, names and spelling.

• • Footnotes. Footnotes should be used sparingly. Number them consecutively throughout the article, in Times New Roman font 10 pts, with single line spacing.

 

• REFERENCES. Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Unpublished results and personal communications are not recommended in the reference list, but may be mentioned in the text. If these references are included in the reference list they should follow the standard reference style of the journal and should include a substitution of the publication date with either 'Unpublished results' or 'Personal communication'. Citation of a reference as 'in press' implies that the item has been accepted for publication.

  • The in-text citation format should be as follows: for one author (Zhu, 2011), for two authors (Hervikand & Hayens, 2011), and for more than two authors (Zhu et al., 2007). Use semicolons to separate multiple citations (Zhu et al., 2007; Hervikand & Hayens, 2011 Multiple citations should be ordered chronologically. Direct quotes shouldinclude page number and place “quotation marks around the direct quote” (Gass & Varonis, 1984, p. 85).

  • A reference list should be supplied at the end of the manuscript. References should be arranged first alphabetically and then further sorted chronologically. More than one reference from the same author(s) in the same year must be identified by the letters 'a', 'b', 'c', etc., placed after the year of publication. All authors should be included in the reference list (et al. is not accepted)

  • The reference list should be based on the seventh edition (2019) of the American Psychological Association (APA) Publication Manual. For further information, please consult the official APA web site (https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references), or try Zotero bib for quick citation (https://zbib.org/). Several examples of common citation formats are provided below.

EXAMPLES:

• Reference to a journal publication:
  • Colla, G., Rouphael, Y., Leonardi, C., & Bie, Z. (2010). Role of grafting in vegetable crops grown under saline conditions. Scientia Horticulturae, 127(2), 147-155.

• Reference to a book:
  • Schabenberger, O., & Gotway, C. A. (2017). Statistical methods for spatial data analysis. Chapman and Hall/CRC.

• Reference to a chapter in an edited book:
  • Ryan, C. D. (2014). Biotechnology communications, mythmaking and the media. In S. J. Smyth, P. W. Phillips, & D. Castle (Eds.), Handbook on agriculture, biotechnology and development (pp. 550-566). Edward Elgar Publishing.

• Reference to an article in magazine:
  • Schaefer, N. K., & Shapiro, B. (2019, September 6). New middle chapter in the story of human evolution. Science, 365(6457), 981–982.

• Reference for proceedings:
  • El Bilali, H., Bottalico, F., Palmisano, G. O., & Capone, R. (2019, September). Information and Communication Technologies for Smart and Sustainable Agriculture. In 30^th Scientific-Experts Conference of Agriculture and Food Industry Proceedings (pp. 321-334). Springer, Cham.

• Reference to a website:
  • Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2019, December 20). The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World. http://www.fao.org/state-of-food-security-nutrition

• Reference for thesis or dissertation:
  • Mosek, E. (2017). Team flow: The missing piece in performance [Doctoral dissertation], Victoria University Research Repository. http://vuir.vu.edu.au/35038/
  • Prculovski, Z. (2019). Vlijanie na brojot na grozdovi vrz prinosot i kvalitetot kaj trpeznoto grozje [Effects of crop load on yield and quality of table grape], Doktorska disertacja, Univerzitet Sv. Kiril i Metodij vo Skopje, Fakultet za zemjodelski nauki i hrana – Skopje.

• Reference to foreign language materials:
  • If original in latin script, provide a translation of the title in square brackets: Piot, I., Boussemart, J. P., Dervaux, B., & Vermersch, D. (1995). Efficacité technique et gains potentiels de productivité des exploitations céréalières françaises [Technical efficiency and potential productivity gains of French grain farms]. Économie & prévision, 117(1), 117-127.
  • If original in non-latin script, titles and names should be transliterated before translating and citing; then provide a translation of the title in square brackets: Mitkova, T., Markoski, M., Blinkov, I., & Dimitrievski, D. (2016). Praktichen vodich i merki za sanacija na pochvite vo poplavenite podrachja [Practical guide and measures for soil remediation in flooded areas]. Federacija na farmerite na RM.

 

SUBMISSION PROCESS

All manuscripts must be submitted electronically through the electronic system:

https://journals.ukim.mk/index.php/jafes/

Manuscripts should be submitted by one of the authors (corresponding author) using online submission. The submitting author takes responsibility for the paper during submission and peer review. Two files are required: cover page and manuscript.

We encourage you to use recommended COVER PAGE TEMPLATE and MANUSCRIPT TEMPLATE.

Manuscript is accepted for evaluation on the understanding that:

• It has not been previously published in any other scientific journals (except as abstracts, theses, short reports).
• It has not being considered for publication simultaneously elsewhere.
• It has not going to be submitted for publication elsewhere.

Authors should certify that manuscripts submitted to JAFES have neither been published before nor are under consideration for publication in another journal. Upon submission of the manuscript to the Editorial Office, the corresponding author guarantees that the material and the major scientific conclusions have not been previously published. The COPYRIGHT RELEASE FORM must be signed by the corresponding author on behalf of all authors and must be sent together with the submitted manuscript. Please see the form for additional copyright details.

 

PLAGIARISM

The use of someone else’s ideas or words in their original form or slightly changed without a proper citation including copying text, images, or data from another source, even from your own publications, without giving the original source is considered as plagiarism and is not acceptable.

Manuscripts are submitted to the plagiarism checking system, which compares the content of the manuscript with vast database of web pages and academic publications. Manuscripts judged to be plagiarised or self-plagiarised, based on any source of information, will not be considered for publication.