Instructions to Authors

Article Types

Three types of manuscripts may be submitted:

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.

Review: 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 manuscripts are also peer-reviewed.

Review Process

All manuscripts are reviewed by an editor and members of the Editorial Board or qualified outside reviewers. Decisions will be made as rapidly as possible, and the journal strives to return reviewers’ comments to authors within 1 weeks. The editorial board will re-review manuscripts that are accepted pending revision. It is the goal of the IJCAR to publish manuscripts within 1weeks 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.

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, 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.

Following the abstract, about 3 to 10 key words that will provide indexing references to should be listed.

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 scientific 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.

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 Acknowledgment 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 Microsoft Word manuscript file. Tables should be prepared in Microsoft Word. Use Arabic numerals to designate figures and upper case letters for their parts (Fig 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.

References: In the text, a reference identified by means of an author‘s name should be followed by the date of the reference in parentheses. When there are more than two authors, only the first author‘s name should be mentioned, followed by ’et al‘. In the event that an author cited has had two or more works published during the same year, the reference, both in the text and in the reference list, should be identified by a lower case letter like ’a‘ and ’b‘ after the date to distinguish the works.

Examples:

Smith (2000), (Steddy et al., 2003), (Kelebeni, 1983), (Singh and Chandra, 1992), (Chege, 1998; Gold, 1987a,b; Blake, 1993, 1995).

References should be listed at the end of the paper in alphabetical order. Articles in preparation or articles submitted for publication, unpublished observations, personal communications, etc. should not be included in the reference list but should only be mentioned in the article text (e.g., A. Kingori, University of Nairobi, Kenya, personal communication). Journal names are abbreviated according to Chemical Abstracts. Authors are fully responsible for the accuracy of the references.

Examples:

Li XQ, Tan, A., Voegtline, M., Bekele, S., Chen, C.S. and Aroian, R.V. 2008. Expression of Cry5B protein from Bacillus thuringiensis in plant roots confers resistance to root-knot nematode. Biol. Control., 47: 97-102.

Pandey, R. and  Kalra, A. 2003. Root knot disease of ashwagandha Withania somnifera and its ecofriendly cost effective management. J. Mycol. Pl. Pathol., 33(2): 240-245.

Charnley, A.K. 1992. Mechanisms of fungal pathogenesis in insects with particular reference to locusts. In: Lomer CJ, Prior C (eds) Biological Controls of Locusts and Grasshoppers: Proceedings of an international workshop held at Cotonou, Benin. Oxford: CAB International, pp. 181-190.

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,  Reprints and manuscript charges: 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 IJCAR will be published online, authors will have free electronic access to the full text (PDF) of the article. Authors can freely download the PDF file from which they can print unlimited copies of their articles.There is no charge for the processing of paper but author(s) of each accepted paper is required to pay the publication charge which is very nominal fees. The fees depends upon the number of pages, number of authors, images etc. Before the accepted paper is published we will intimate the fees in the acceptance letter.

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.