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Instructions to Authors
Please read the guidelines and follow the instructions carefully; doing so will ensure that the publication of your manuscript is as rapid and efficient as possible. The Editorial Board reserves the right to return manuscripts without review that are not prepared in accordance with these guidelines.
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JTAS, JST, JSSH
Authors should prepare manuscripts according to the guidelines of Pertanika.
Manuscript Preparation
Pertanika accepts submission of mainly four types of manuscripts. Each manuscript is classified as regular or original articles, short communications, reviews, and proposals for special issues. Articles must be in English and they must be competently written and argued in clear and concise grammatical English. Acceptable English usage and syntax are expected. Do not use slang, jargon, or obscure abbreviations or phrasing. Metric measurement is preferred; equivalent English measurement may be included in parentheses. Always provide the complete form of an acronym/abbreviation the first time it is presented in the text. Contributors are strongly recommended to have the manuscript checked by a colleague with ample experience in writing English manuscripts or an English language editor.
Linguistically hopeless manuscripts will be rejected straightaway (e.g., when the language is so poor that one cannot be sure of what the authors really mean). This process, taken by authors before submission, will greatly facilitate reviewing, and thus publication if the content is acceptable.
The instructions for authors must be followed. Manuscripts not adhering to the instructions will be returned for revision without review. Authors should prepare manuscripts according to the guidelines of Pertanika.
1. Regular article
Definition: Full-length original empirical investigations, consisting of introduction, materials and methods, results and discussion, conclusions. Original work must provide references and an explanation on research findings that contain new and significant findings.
Size: Should not exceed 5000 words or 8-10 printed pages (excluding the abstract, references, tables and/or figures). One printed page is roughly equivalent to 3 type-written pages.
2. Short communications
Definition: Significant new information to readers of the Journal in a short but complete form. It is suitable for the publication of technical advance, bioinformatics or insightful findings of plant and animal development and function.
Size: Should not exceed 2000 words or 4 printed pages, is intended for rapid publication. They are not intended for publishing preliminary results or to be a reduced version of Regular Papers or Rapid Papers.
3. Review article
Definition: Critical evaluation of materials about current research that had already been published by organizing, integrating, and evaluating previously published materials. Re-analyses as meta-analysis and systemic reviews are encouraged. Review articles should aim to provide systemic overviews, evaluations and interpretations of research in a given field.
Size: Should not exceed 4000 words or 7-8 printed pages.
4. Special issues
Definition: Usually papers from research presented at a conference, seminar, congress or a symposium.
Size: Should not exceed 5000 words or 8-10 printed pages.
5. Others
Definition: Brief reports, case studies, comments, Letters to the Editor, and replies on previously published articles may be considered.
Size: Should not exceed 2000 words or up to 4 printed pages.
With few exceptions, original manuscripts should not exceed the recommended length of 6 printed pages (about 18 typed pages, double-spaced and in 12-point font, tables and figures included). Printing is expensive, and, for the Journal, postage doubles when an issue exceeds 80 pages. You can understand then that there is little room for flexibility.
Long articles reduce the Journal's possibility to accept other high-quality contributions because of its 80-page restriction. We would like to publish as many good studies as possible, not only a few lengthy ones. (And, who reads overly long articles anyway?) Therefore, in our competition, short and concise manuscripts have a definite advantage.
Manuscript FormatThe paper should be formatted in one column format with at least 4cm margins and 1.5 line spacing throughout. Authors are advised to use Times New Roman 12-point font. Be especially careful when you are inserting special characters, as those inserted in different fonts may be replaced by different characters when converted to PDF files. It is well known that 'µ' will be replaced by other characters when fonts such as 'Symbol' or 'Mincho' are used.
A maximum of eight keywords should be indicated below the abstract to describe the contents of the manuscript. Leave a blank line between each paragraph and between each entry in the list of bibliographic references. Tables should preferably be placed in the same electronic file as the text. Authors should consult a recent issue of the Journal for table layout.
Every page of the manuscript, including the title page, references, tables, etc. should be numbered. However, no reference should be made to page numbers in the text; if necessary, one may refer to sections. Underline words that should be in italics, and do not underline any other words.
We recommend that authors prepare the text as a Microsoft Word file.
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Manuscripts in general should be organised in the following order:
| ο | Page 1: Running title. (Not to exceed 60 characters, counting letters and spaces). This page should only contain the running title of your paper. The running title is an abbreviated title used as the running head on every page of the manuscript.
In addition, the Subject areas most relevant to the study must be indicated on this page. Select the appropriate subject areas from the Scope of the Journals provided in the Manuscript Submission Guide.
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| ο | A list of number of black and white / colour figures and tables should also be indicated on this page. Figures submitted in color will be printed in colour. See "5. Figures & Photographs" for details.
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| ο | Page 2: Author(s) and Corresponding author information. This page should contain the full title of your paper with name(s) of all the authors, institutions and corresponding author's name, institution and full address (Street address, telephone number (including extension), hand phone number, fax number and e-mail address) for editorial correspondence. The names of the authors must be abbreviated following the international naming convention. e.g. Salleh, A.B., Tan, S.G., or Sapuan, S.M.
Authors' addresses. Multiple authors with different addresses must indicate their respective addresses separately by superscript numbers:
George Swan1 and Nayan Kanwal2
1Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA.
2Office of the Deputy Vice Chancellor (R&I), Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia.
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| ο | Page 3: This page should repeat the full title of your paper with only the Abstract (the abstract should be less than 250 words for a Regular Paper and up to 100 words for a Short Communication). Keywords must also be provided on this page (Not more than eight keywords in alphabetical order).
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| ο | Page 4 and subsequent pages: This page should begin with the Introduction of your article and the rest of your paper should follow from page 5 onwards.
Abbreviations. Define alphabetically, other than abbreviations that can be used without definition. Words or phrases that are abbreviated in the introduction and following text should be written out in full the first time that they appear in the text, with each abbreviated form in parenthesis. Include the common name or scientific name, or both, of animal and plant materials.
Footnotes. Current addresses of authors if different from heading
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| 2. |
Text. Regular Papers should be prepared with the headings Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion, Conclusions in this order. Short Communications should be prepared according to "8. Short Communications." below. |
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Tables. All tables should be prepared in a form consistent with recent issues of Pertanika and should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals. Explanatory material should be given in the table legends and footnotes. Each table should be prepared on a separate page. (Note that when a manuscript is accepted for publication, tables must be submitted as data - .doc, .rtf, Excel or PowerPoint file- because tables submitted as image data cannot be edited for publication.) |
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Equations and Formulae. These must be set up clearly and should be typed triple spaced. Numbers identifying equations should be in square brackets and placed on the right margin of the text. |
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Figures & Photographs. Submit an original figure or photograph. Line drawings must be clear, with high black and white contrast. Each figure or photograph should be prepared on a separate sheet and numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals. Appropriate sized numbers, letters and symbols should be used, no smaller than 2 mm in size after reduction to single column width (85 mm), 1.5-column width (120 mm) or full 2-column width (175 mm). Failure to comply with these specifications will require new figures and delay in publication. For electronic figures, create your figures using applications that are capable of preparing high resolution TIFF files acceptable for publication. In general, we require 300 dpi or higher resolution for coloured and half-tone artwork and 1200 dpi or higher for line drawings to be submitted in separate electronic files.
For review, you may attach low-resolution figures, which are still clear enough for reviewing, to keep the file of the manuscript under 5 MB. Illustrations may be produced at no extra cost in colour at the discretion of the Publisher; the author could be charged Malaysian Ringgit 50 for each colour page. |
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References. Literature citations in the text should be made by name(s) of author(s) and year. For references with more than two authors, the name of the first author followed by 'et al.' should be used.
Swan and Kanwal (2007) reported that ...
The results have been interpreted (Kanwal et al. 2009).
| ο | References should be listed in alphabetical order, by the authors' last names. For the same author, or for the same set of authors, references should be arranged chronologically. If there is more than one publication in the same year for the same author(s), the letters 'a', 'b', etc., should be added to the year.
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| ο | When the authors are more than 11, list 5 authors and then et al.
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| ο | Do not use indentations in typing References. Use one line of space to separate each reference. The name of the journal should be written in full. For example:
| ▪ | Jalaludin, S. (1997a). Metabolizable energy of some local feeding stuff. Tumbuh, 1, 21-24.
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| ▪ | Jalaludin, S. (1997b). The use of different vegetable oil in chicken ration. Malayan Agriculturist, 11, 29-31.
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| ▪ | Tan, S.G., Omar, M.Y., Mahani, K.W., Rahani, M., & Selvaraj, O.S. (1994). Biochemical genetic studies on wild populations of three species of green leafhoppers Nephotettix from Peninsular Malaysia. Biochemical Genetics, 32, 415 - 422.
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| ο | In case of citing an author(s) who has published more than one paper in the same year, the papers should be distinguished by addition of a small letter as shown above, e.g. Jalaludin (1997a); Jalaludin (1997b).
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| ο | Unpublished data and personal communications should not be cited as literature citations, but given in the text in parentheses. 'In press' articles that have been accepted for publication may be cited in References. Include in the citation the journal in which the 'in press' article will appear and the publication date, if a date is available.
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Examples of other reference citations:
Monographs: Turner, H.N., & Yong, S.S.Y. (2006). Quantitative Genetics in Sheep Breeding. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Chapter in Book: Kanwal, N.D.S. (1999). Role of plantation crops in Papua New Guinea economy. In Angela R. McLean (Ed.), Introduction of livestock in the Enga province PNG (p. 221-250). United Kingdom: Oxford Press.
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Proceedings: Kanwal, N.D.S. (2001). Assessing the visual impact of degraded land management with landscape design software. In Kanwal, N.D.S., & Lecoustre, P. (Eds.), International forum for Urban Landscape Technologies (p. 117-127). Lullier, Geneva, Switzerland: CIRAD Press.
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Short Communications should include Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion, Conclusions in this order. Headings should only be inserted for Materials and Methods. The abstract should be up to 100 words, as stated above. Short Communications must be 5 printed pages or less, including all references, figures and tables. References should be less than 30. A 5 page paper is usually approximately 3000 words plus four figures or tables (if each figure or table is less than 1/4 page).
*Authors should state the total number of words (including the Abstract) in the cover letter. Manuscripts that do not fulfill these criteria will be rejected as Short Communications without review.
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STYLE OF THE MANUSCRIPT
Manuscripts should follow the style of the latest version of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA). The journal uses American or British spelling and authors may follow the latest edition of the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary for British spellings.
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