INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS

GENERAL

Journal of Biological & Environmental Sciences is published three times a year in April, August, and December. It accepts research articles, short communications and review articles in various fields of biological and environmental sciences (agricultural, animal, basic medical, biological, environmental, food, and veterinary sciences) written in English. Review articles are published only by invitation from the Editorial Board. Manuscripts must be based on original research and contain novel findings of general significance. Manuscripts submitted to the Journal of Biological & Environmental Sciences must not have been published or not under consideration for publication elsewhere, other than as an abstract of an oral or poster presentation. Manuscripts may be rejected without external peer review if they do not comply with the instructions to authors or are beyond the scope of the journal.

Authors whose native language is not English are advised to have their manuscript checked by native English– speaking scientists or private editing services prior to submission.

The authors may specify names, postal and e-mail addresses of three or more potential international referees for reviewing the manuscript.

 PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPTS

The manuscript file should be in Microsoft Word 6.0 or later versions, and the must be typed in Times New Roman font, 12-point type, double-spaced with 3 cm margins on all sides. The lines in the text should be numbered. Section and sub-section headings should not be numbered.

The body of the manuscript should consist of the following sections in this order: Title Page, Abstract, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgements (if necessary) and References. When the “Results and Discussion” sections are combined, then a “Conclusions” section should be added. The total number of double-spaced pages in manuscripts must not exceed 20 including tables and figures for regular articles and 8 for short communications.

Title Page: The first page should contain a concise and informative title not exceeding 15 words, the full names (not abbreviations) and addresses of the authors and contact details of the corresponding author (postal address, e-mail, and fax and telephone numbers).

Abstract : Abstracts must not exceed 200 words for full articles and reviews and 100 words for short communications. . The Abstract should be as informative as possible and should include why and how the study was conducted, as well as what the results and conclusions were. A maximum of 6 key words must be given at the end of the Abstract, allowing a one-line space.

References: References should be cited in the text by the last name(s) of the author(s) and year of publication, for example, (Elmaci 2003), (Göksoy and Turan 1984) or (Elmaci 2003, Filya 2004). If the citation is the subject of the sentence, then only the date should be given in parentheses, for example, According to Filya (2002) or as suggested by Elmaci and Asal (1998). For citation of references with three or more authors, only the first author’s name followed by “et al.” should be used, for example, (Ipek et al. 2002) or as shown by Ipek et al. (2002). If there is more than one reference in the same year for the same author(s), then please add the letters “a”, “b”, etc. to the year, for example, (Berkel 1970a, b) or (Tosun and Eser 1978a, b, c). Only published papers or papers in press can be mentioned in the manuscript. Papers in preparation or in review can be cited in the text as unpublished data, and should not be included in the References section. References should be listed alphabetically at the end of the text without numbering. References to journal articles, books, proceedings, chapters in books, etc. should be listed as given below: Journal Articles Rozenzvieg D, Elmaci C, Samach A, Lurie S, and Porat R (2004). Isolation of four heat shock protein cDNAs from grapefruit peel tissue and characterization of their expression in response to heat and chilling temperature stresses. Physiol Plant 121: 421-428.

Books

Hartl DL, and Clark AG (1989). Principles of Population Genetics. Sinauer associates, Inc., Sunderland, Massachusetts.

Chapter in Books

Schreiber U, Bilger W, and Neubauer C (1995). Chlorophyll florescence as a nonintrusive indicator for rapid assessment of in vivo photosynthesis. In: Ecophysiology of Photosynthesis, (Eds.: E.D. Schulze and M.M. Caldwell). Springer-Verlag, Berlin, pp. 49-70.

Proceedings

Tyler G (1975). Effect of heavy metal pollution on decomposition and mineralization in forest soils. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Heavy Metals in the Environment, (Eds.: B. Nath and J.P. Robinson). Vol. 2 WHO, Toronto, pp. 217-226.

Thesis

Mwacharo JM (2000). Characterization of the genetic diversity of Kenyan indigenous sheep breeds using blood biochemical polymorphism. M.Sc. Thesis. University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya, 119p

Abbreviations: All non-standard abbreviations should be grouped into an abbreviations list and given at the bottom of the first page of text, allowing a 2-line space.

Figures: All photographs, graphs and diagrams should be referred to as “Figure” and they should be numbered consecutively (1, 2, etc). Multi-part figures ought to be labeled with lowercase letters (a,b,c, etc). Each figure must be given on a separate page. Figure legends should not be attached to the figures and should be supplied on a double-spaced separate page.

Tables: Each table must be given on a separate page with a brief but complete and self-explanatory caption so that the reader can easily understand the results presented in the table.

Units: The journal prefers SI units wherever possible. Please use mg kg -1 or µg kg -1 and not ppm or ppb. Please do not use “/” to indicate “per” in unit designations. Use only a space as given in the following examples: 6 kg P ha -1, mg L -1, N m - 2 , km h-1, etc.

Proofs

All proofs must be corrected and returned to the publisher within 7 days of receipt. If the manuscript is not returned within the allotted time, the editor will proofread the article. Only correction of typographical errors is permitted at the proof stage.

Offprints

Each corresponding author of an article will receive one complete copy of the issue in which the article appears.