Author Guidelines

The submission of the manuscript and all correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, takes place electronically through the website: http://www.nilevalley.edu.sd/nvuj.

The following items should be handled in as printout hard copies and in electronically readable form in either a CD (IBM formatted) or via e-mail:

1. Cover letter:

The cover letter, as a supplement file should include: article title, type of article (full research, review, etc.), scope, author(s) name(s), higher qualification/academic degree(s), affiliations, and e-mail addresses. The name of the corresponding author with contact address, phone number, e-mail and fax number (if available) must be clearly listed. Acknowledgement, if any, could also be represented. Beside any special consideration regarding your submission.

2. Manuscript:

The manuscripts submitted to the journal must conform to all style requirements stated by the Editorial Board.

Types of articles:

Full length original scientific papers: regular scientific papers, should report the results of original research that have not being considered for publication elsewhere. A full research paper should have, in proper order, a Title, Abstract, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion and References. 

Review papers: in which authors should review the up-to-date developments in relevant field of an active current interest. They have to be contemporary and comprehensive. Methods used for locating, selecting, extracting, and synthesizing data should be described. The abstract (250 words) should represent an accurate summary of the article.

Short communication: is a concise, but completely documented, description of a limited research article. The contents should be exceptionally exciting, novel or timely. The maximum length should not exceed 7 pages. These short communications will be peer-reviewed in the same way as full papers.

Regular scientific manuscript formatting

Manuscripts should be kept to a minimum length (the whole article length should not exceed 20 pages. The language of manuscript must be simple and explicit. Times New Roman font style with 12 font size should be used. The whole manuscript should be typed double spaced (except tables), with all margins fixed at 2.5cm. Do not leave lines between paragraphs, but instead, indent the first line of each paragraph with one tab space. All pages should be numbered consecutively in the bottom center. Each heading should appear on its own separate line, aligned to the left and bold. The use of footnotes should be avoided.

Title and author information: The title and author information should be centered across the top of the first page. The title should give a concise designation of the paper topic, typed in 16 font style. Capitalize the first letter of all main words (Latin names in italics). Abbreviations should not be used. This should be followed by the name(s) of the author(s) displayed as first name, middle and last name (with no commas in between). Numbered and listed author’s affiliations will be provided immediately after the authors line flush left. The name of the corresponding author should be underlined.

Abstract: The abstract, for reviews and research articles, as one paragraph, should be rational, informative and succinctly and clearly state the basic contents of the article with special focus on the scope, objectives, methods, and major findings. The abstract must be precisely and consistently briefed, not exceeding 250 words. References and citations to other works should not be included in the abstract.

Keywords: Key words (3-7 non generic words or phrases) should be provided directly below the abstract to express the article content. They should be written left aligned, arranged alphabetically, separated with commas, capitalize only the first letters of proper nouns, and do not end the list with a full stop.

Abstract translation: An abstract translation is to be prepared and assembled below the keywords, or at the beginning of the succeeding page. It should be precise and presents word-by-word translation.

The main text: The main text should be structured into paragraphs in the following order: Introduction including objectives, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, Acknowledgement (if any) and References. Results and discussion could be combined in one paragraph. Each heading should be flush with the left margin and have the first letter of all main words capitalized. All major headings should be separated from the text by 1 line space above.

Introduction: The introduction is a brief review of literature which should supply sufficient background information on the importance of the topic, the research area of the study and the hypotheses tested in the study. The specific aims of the project should be identified along with rationale for the specific experiments and other work performed. All sub-headings, if any, should be left justified, bold and title case. Objectives of the research should be clearly stated.

Materials and Methods: This section must be concise and include sufficient details of the materials, equipment and techniques used. The sources of laboratory procedures should be cited and information on the equipment model, manufacturers name and address should be provided (if recommended). Measurements should be described precisely (all in SI units) and errors of measurements (if any) should also be included. While, previously published procedures may be indicated by a reference, new procedures should be described in details. The statistical procedure used should be stated in this section.

Results – Discussion: They can be presented together (Results and Discussion) or in 2 different sections (Results followed by Discussion). All results obtained should be simply and concisely presented in a logical order in figures, tables, or text. Tables and figures, whether integrated into the main text, or alternatively, printed on separate pages before the reference section, each should be sequentially numbered and titled (above for tables and below for figures). Do not present the same information in both a table and a figure. All printed tables and figures must be referred to in the text. Tabular data, were recommended, could be accompanied by either standard deviation values or standard errors of the means. The number of replicate determinations used for making such calculations must also be included. Sufficient statistical verification should be provided to identify differences in significance.

The results at hand should be concisely discussed in relation to hypotheses advanced in the introduction section and interpreted to previously published works. It must not contain extensive reiteration of the Introduction and Results sections.

Conclusion: The main conclusions of how did the results compare with the expected outcomes and what further predictions can be gleaned from the results should be presented in a short Conclusions section, which may stand alone or form a sub-section of the Discussion section.

Acknowledgments: The source of any financial or technical assistant received for the work being published must be indicated in the Acknowledgments section.

Citations and References

In-text citation: References should be included within the body of the text as they appear.  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. The NJAS in-text citation format is the familiar “author, date” format, e. g. Keunings (2003) or (Keunings, 2003). If the article has two authors, their last names are used, separated by the word “and”, e.g. Gates and Dobraszczyk (2004) or (Gates and Dobraszczyk, 2004). When there are more than two authors, only the first author’s last name should be mentioned, followed by “et al.”, e.g. Liu et al. (2006) or (Liu et al., 2006). Multiple references at a single point in the text are separated by semicolons (Kent and Evers, 1994; McLeish, 2003; Morris et al., 2007 and Singh et al., 2011). In a case where two or more sources cited at a given place shared the last name and date use first author’s last name plus initial(s) (e. g. Zhang, Y., 2001 and Zhang, W., 2001). If the author(s) has had more than one published works cited within the same year, they are then identified by letters 'a', 'b', 'c', etc. placed after the year of publication (e. g. Caballero et al., 2007a and Smith, 1987a, b).

References list: All articles cited in the text should be listed at the end of the manuscript, unnumbered, alphabetized by first author’s last name. Author(s) name(s) are arranged as “last name, initials.”,. Individual authors names should be separated by semicolons. Followed by the year of publication (in brackets), a full stop, title of article, journal name, name of publisher, volume number, a semi colon, specific page numbers (Vol: Start page–End page). If more than one publication by the same author(s) were cited in the list, arrange publica­tions by date, early to late. If more than one publication by the same author(s) published in the same year were listed, use a, b, c, ... to distinguish the articles cited. Type references flush left as separate paragraphs. The second and successive lines of a reference are indented by 1 cm.

          For books include: name of editor(s), edition and publisher. For articles from conference proceedings include: conference proceedings, publisher (if any) date (between brackets), pp. For citation from a thesis include: Thesis title. Degree level, Department, University.

          For electronic citations: Websites are referenced with their URL and access date, and as much other information as is available.

Examples:

Article in a Journal:

Harris, H.; Masri, S.; Pala, M.; Raya, J. and Singh, M. (2007). Rain fed wheat based rotation under Mediterranean condition: Crop sequences, nitrogen fertilization and stubble grazing in relation to grain and straw quality. European Journal of Agronomy, 28(2):12-118.

Book:

Fitter, A.H. and Hay, R.K.M. (2002). Environmental Physiology of Plants. (2^nd Edition), Academic Press, London, pp. 120- 128.

Book chapter:

Jelen, P. (2003). Whey processing. In: Encyclopedia of Dairy Sciences; Roginski, H.; Fuquay, J.W. and Fox, P.F., Eds.; London Academic Press, London, UK, Vol. 4, pp. 2739-2751.

Conference proceedings:

Basu, P.S.; Brajesh, S., Minhas, J.S.; Sing, B.; Khurana, S.M.; Shekhawat, G.S; Pandey, S.K. and Sing, B.P. (2002). Nitrogen nutrition in potato: effect of photosynthesis and carbon partitioning. Proceedings of the Global Conference on Potato, Volume 2 (2002), pp. 857- 860, New Delhi, India.

Tables and Figures: Tables should be self-explanatory and the data they contain must not be duplicated in the text or figures. Tables should be submitted in “Word” format (not in excel file) and should be printed single spaced in the main text (appear where should be cited) in numerical order, or otherwise at the end of the manuscript. Place a descriptive, comprehensive, but precise caption at the top of each table begins with the word “Table” followed by a number and a colon (:). Sufficient experimental details could be added in a legend below the table, if required. If a table is taken from other publication, then the reference is to be given below it.

Figures should be properly sized and cropped so that no unnecessary white space is left bordering the figure. Figures should be cited in the main text (appear where should be cited) in numerical order, or otherwise at the end of the manuscript. Figures should have titles set below the figure begins with the word “Figure or Fig.” followed by a number and a colon(:). Legends with sufficient details could be added. Multipanel figures (figures with parts labeled a, b, c, d, etc.) should be assembled into a composite as their final form. For an illustration taken from other publication, the source is to be cited.

Abbreviations and Units: SI units (metre, kilogram, etc.) should be used. Consistency must be maintained throughout the text in the use of abbreviations and units. Use standard abbreviations, that are accepted and recognized as common scientific terminology (hr, min, sec, etc.) instead of writing complete words. Define all non-standard abbreviations the first time they are used, then subsequently use the abbreviation.

Examples of some common abbreviations: Time: min, hr, sec; Length: km, m, cm, mm; Mass: kg, g, mg, μg; Concentration: g/cm³, g/L, mg/L, μg/L, ppm; Volume: cm³, L, mL, μL