Author Guidelines:
About
The Journal of Maize Research and Development (JMRD) is a peer reviewed open access scientific journal published biannually in June and December by National Maize Research Program, Rampur, Chitwan, Nepal. Manuscripts of any research and review articles on maize breeding, genetics, agronomy, entomology, pathology, post harvest, soil science, ecology, botany, physiology, biochemistry, genomics, conservation agriculture and climate change effect on maize, maize economics, extension, statistics, up-scaling research on maize and plant biotechnological approaches for maize improvement are considered for publication. The work must demonstrate novelty and relevance to the field of research. Papers published or offered for publication elsewhere will not be considered, but the publication of an abstract does not preclude the publication of the full paper in this journal. The major goal of JMRD is to serve as a platform for the international scholars, academicians, researchers, and extensionists to share the innovative research findings in maize.
Criteria for publication
The primary criteria for judging the acceptability of a manuscript are: its originality, scientific importance and interest to a general agriculture audience. See our Editorial Policy for more details.
Publication Formats
Journal of Maize Research and Development considers submissions of: Research Articles, Critical review papers, Research notes , Review Articles.
Electronic Submission
All manuscripts must be submitted via Editorial Office at: http://nmrp.gov.np/journal-of-maize-research-and-development/submission-2/
Manuscripts submitted under multiple authorship are reviewed on the assumption that all listed authors concur in the submission and are responsible for its content; they must have agreed to its publication and have given the corresponding author the authority to act on their behalf in all matters pertaining to publication. The corresponding author is responsible for informing the coauthors of the manuscript status throughout the submission, review, and production process.
Electronic Formats Allowed
We accept submission of text, tables and figures as separate files or as a composite file. For your initial submission, we recommend you upload your entire manuscript, including tables and figures, as a single PDF file. If you are invited to submit a revised manuscript, please provide us with individual files: an editable text and publication-quality figures. Text files can be submitted in the following formats: MS Word – standard DOCUMENT (.DOC).
Tables should be submitted as MS Word. Please note that a straight Excel file is not an acceptable format. Graphics files can be submitted in any of the following graphic formats: JPG; TIFF; GIF. Please note that Powerpoint and PDF files are not accepted. Post-acceptance, text files of the revised manuscript and tables are required for use in the production. Authors should clearly indicate the location(s) of tables and figures in the text if these elements are given separately or at the end of the manuscript. If this information is not provided to the editorial office, we will assume that they should be left at the end of the text.
First-time Submission of Manuscript
It is important that authors include a cover letter with their manuscript. Please explain why you consider your manuscript to be suitable for publication in Journal of Maize Research and Development, why your paper will inspire the other members of your field, and how will it drive research forward.
The letter should contain all important details such as: your full name (submitted by) full title of article and short title full list of authors with affiliations e-mail of the corresponding author contact address, telephone/fax numbers of the corresponding author number of attached files, if there is more than one status: new, reviewed or accepted (with reference ID if reviewed or accepted).
Corresponding author must mention ORCID (visit this site for getting this ID, https://orcid.org/) as for example http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7848-5824 just after email address.
The cover letter should explicitly state that the manuscript (or one with substantially the same content, by any of the authors) has not been previously published in any language anywhere and that it is not under simultaneous consideration or in press by another journal. If related work has been submitted, then we may require a preprint to be made available. Reviewers will be asked to comment on the overlap between the related submissions. Manuscripts that have been previously rejected, or withdrawn after being returned for modification, may be resubmitted if the major criticisms have been addressed. The cover letter must state that the manuscript is a resubmission, and the former manuscript number should be provided. To ensure fair and objective decision-making, authors must declare any associations that pose a conflict of interest in connection with evaluated manuscripts (see Editorial Policy for details). Authors may suggest up to two referees not to use, and in such cases additional justification should be provided in the cover letter. Authors are encouraged to recommend up to five reviewers who are not members of their institution(s) and have never been associated with them or their laboratory(ies); please provide contact information for suggested reviewers. The Editors reserve the right to select expert reviewers at their discretion.
The corresponding author must signed ⇓ License to publish Agreement form at the time of submission of his/her manuscript.
Submission of Revised Articles
Resubmitted manuscripts should be accompanied by a letter outlining a point-by-point response to Journal Editor’s and reviewers’ comments and detailing the changes made to the manuscript. A copy of the original manuscript should be included for comparison if the Journal Editor requests one. If it is the first revision, authors need to return the revised manuscript within 30 days; if it is the second revision, authors need to return the revised manuscript within 15 days. Additional time for resubmission must be requested in advance. If the above mentioned deadlines are not met, the manuscript will be treated as a new submission. For resubmitted manuscripts, please provide us with an editable text and publication-quality figures: Tables also need to be included within an editable article file or be submitted separately as editable files. JMRD Supply any figures as separate high-resolution, print-ready digital versions. In addition to the editorial remarks, authors are asked to take care that they have prepared the revised version according to the Journal’s style. Please adopt numbered citation (citation-sequence) style referencing.
Preparation of Manuscripts
It is essential that contributors prepare their manuscripts according to the instructions and specifications presented below. General rules for writing The work must demonstrate its novelty, importance to the field of animal migration and its interest to biologists in general. Conclusions must be justified by the study; please make your argumentation complete and be self-critical as you review your drafts. The Journal encourages the submission of both substantial full-length bodies of work and shorter manuscripts that report novel findings that might be based on a more limited range of experiments. There are no specific length restrictions for the overall manuscript or individual sections; however, we urge the authors to present and discuss their findings in a concise and accessible manner. Use simple, declarative sentences and commonly understood terms; avoid long sentences and idle words. Please use active voice while writing your manuscript; e.g. ‘we measured snout-vent length’ rather than ‘snout-vent length was measured. We recommend that for clarity you use the past tense to narrate particular events in the past, including the procedures, observations, and data of the study that you are reporting. Use the present tense for your own general conclusions, the conclusions of previous researchers, and generally accepted facts. Thus, most of the Abstract, Methods, and Results should be in the past tense, and most of the Introduction and some of the Discussion should be in the present tense. Editors may make suggestions for how to improve clarity and readability, as well as to strengthen the argument.
Organization of the Manuscript
All contents in article must be written in English. Papers must be an original work and should not be submitted elsewhere for the publication. Before submission, manuscripts should be reviewed critically by two peer reviewers and revised accordingly. Manuscript should be neatly typed, single spaced (along with tables, figures and references) on A4 paper with 1 inch margin at the top, bottom and left side. Manuscripts should generally be organized in the following order of Title and contact information, Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Materials and Methods (or Methodology), Results and Discussion, Conclusion, Acknowledgments and finally References. The maximum length of the paper must be limited to 20 pages, including tables, graphs and references. The whole manuscript should be in 12 font size (except title of paper, abstract, tables and figures). The font should be in New Times Roman. The manuscript should be submitted to the Editors-in-Chief of the Journal.
Title of the paper: The title of the paper should be clear, descriptive and informative. The first page should contain the full title in sentence case not exceeding 16 words. The authors’ identification should include the author’s name (do not use abbreviations), title or designation, organization, address, telephone, fax and email Id. The font size of title is 16 and font is Times New Roman. The font size of author name is 12, and font is Times New Roman. The affiliation, organization, address, telephone, fax, email Id, ORCID ID, copyright, licensing information should be in 11 font size and font is Times New Roman .
Abstract: The abstract should be clear, descriptive and not longer than 250 words. It should be citation free and should concisely state the major objective, methodology, major findings and conclusion but should not include diagram, footnotes, equations, or any parenthetical references. The font size of abstract is 10 and font is Times New Roman.
Key words:Key words should normally 4-6 keywords. The font size of abstract is 12 and font is Times New Roman.
Introduction:The introduction should be should be succinct and with no subheadings. In this section background information, relevant review of literature and objective of the research should be given. Statements must be supported by citations whenever possible. It should give appropriate background and explain the things that are proposed. It should include short introduction to justify the research and relevant reviews and state the objectives clearly.
Materials and Methods: Detail information on relevant materials and methods used including sampling methods, experimental design, treatments, plot size and any other techniques used in research as well as the year and place of conducting the research should be provided. The statistical methods and tools used in study should be clearly mentioned.
Results and Discussion:Results should be presented with clarity and precision. It should be written in the past tense when describing findings in the authors’ experiments. Previously published findings should be written in the present tense.
Discussion should interpret the findings in view of the results obtained in this and past studies on the topic. The results and discussion sections can include subheadings. When appropriate, the two sections can be combined.
Conclusion: All relevant items achieved in the researched area should be mentioned in the conclusion. The conclusion should be given after the results and discussion section
Acknowledgements: Acknowledgements, if any, should be given to funding agencies, organization and key person.
Reference Citation:The references should be arranged alphabetically and should follow the American Psychological Association (APA) style. References should also indicate the differences in styles for books, journals, newspapers and other published and unpublished materials. The references should be cited within in the body of paper; otherwise, these references must not come under the reference list. For detailed information, please see the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Sixth Edition (2010); http://www.apastyle.org/ and http://blog.apastyle.org/.Visit the link for APA referencing style: i) Taylor and Francis Standard Reference Style:APA, ii) Referencing guides.Users of Mendeley Desktop can easily install the reference style for this journal by clicking the following link:
http://open.mendeley.com/use-citation-style/journal-of-maize-resea-nepal/
When preparing manuscript, the author will be able to select this style using the Mendeley plug-ins for Microsoft Word or LibreOffice.
All authors should include the DOIs of article while writing references in articles for JMRD Journal.
Tables: Tables should be self-explanatory. Every table must have a descriptive title and if numerical measurements are given, the units should be included in the column heading. Tables should be created using the table function. Tables are to be typed single-spaced throughout, numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals and supplied with a title and footnotes. The same data should not be presented in both a table and a graph or repeated in the text. Symbol like single asterisk and double asterisks (**) should be used to indicate statistical significance and have priority in this order to show 5 and 1% levels of significance, respectively. Do not repeat information in the text presented in charts or graph. It is preferable to use 10 font size and bold table heading. The title of Table and Figure should be in 12 font, the contents within title should be in 10 font and Times New Roman.
Figure legends:Figures should be typed in numerical and Arabic numerals should be used to designate figure numbers and upper-case letters for their parts (Figure 1A). Begin each legend with a title and include sufficient description so that the figure is understandable without reference to the text of the manuscript. Graphics should be prepared with applications capable of generating high-resolution JPEG before pasting into the Microsoft Word manuscript file.Do not repeat data both in table and figures. Either use table, or graph or figure. Each Figure and/or graph with a number and the proper title heading should be drawn or prepared below the graph/figure.
Others:Heading: Center and capitalize the main heading of the paper. Sub heading should be on separate line and capitalize the first letter of the first word.
Scientific names:The scientific name must be given in italic and given with authority. The first letter of the word of cultivar must be capitalized
Trade or brand names: The first letter of trade or brand names should be capitalized.
Abbreviations and Units of measurement:
Visit below PDF link to see list of abbreviations and units of measurement for this journal
⇓ Abbreviations & Units of measurement
Periods:Do not put periods after title and key words. Periods are necessary at the end of table and figure heading.
Formulae: All formulae and equations in the paper should be worked out by means of the programme ‘WORD Equation’. The meaning of all symbols should be given immediately after the equation where these symbols are first used. Equations should be numbered by Arabic numerals, serially in brackets, at the right-hand side. Each equation must be mentioned in the text as Eq. (1), Eq. (2), etc.
Page setup: Font: Times New Roman, Size: 12 points, Paper: A4 size, Margin: width at 2.54 cm. Spacing:Single, Text Size: Not exceeding 5000 words
The author’s address:
On a separate sheet of paper, the author should include full name (co-authors’ full names), including all academic and scientific degrees and detailed address of the institution with postcode, phone, fax numbers and e-mail address. The author who is responsible for any correspondence with the journal has to be indicated clearly.
Supplemental Materials
We encourage authors to submit essential supplementary files that additionally support the authors’ conclusions along with their manuscripts (the principal conclusions should be fully supported without referral to the supplemental material). Supplemental material will always remain associated with its article and is not subject to any modifications after publication. The decision to publish the material with the article if it is accepted will be made by the Editor. Supporting files of no more than 10 MB in may be submitted in a variety of formats, but should be publication-ready, as these files will be published exactly as supplied. Material must be restricted to large or complex data sets or results that cannot be readily displayed because of space or technical limitations. Material that has been published previously is not acceptable for posting as supplemental material. Supporting files should fall into one of the following categories: Dataset Additional Figure or Table Text Protocol Multimedia – Audio/Video/Animations (AVI, MPEG, WAV, Quicktime, animated GIF or Flash) If the software required for users to view/use the supplemental material is not embedded in the file, you are urged to use shareware or generally available/easily accessible programs. To prevent any misunderstandings, we request that authors submit a text file (instruction.txt) containing a brief instruction on how to use the files supplied. All supporting information should be referred to in the manuscript, with titles (and, if desired, legends) for all files listed under the heading ‘Supporting Information’.
Offprints:
Every author will receive a free electronic offprint in portable document format (PDF), sent via e-mail as an attachment. Free reprints are also available on the website http://nmrp.gov.np/journal-of-maize-research-and-development/.
Compliance with these instructions is obligatory for all authors. If a manuscript does not comply exactly with the above requirements, the Editorial Office will not accept it and will return it to the authors without reviewing.
Articles Retraction Procedure:
Articles are retracted in proven cases of scientific misconduct, major errors – including honest – and various forms of publishing malfeasance listed below. Retractions are not about punishing authors. Retractions are first and foremost about correcting the scientific literature and ensuring the integrity of published research.
Generally a retraction will be used to correct errors in submission or publication.
- Notices of retraction should mention the reasons and basis for the retraction, to distinguish cases of misconduct from those of honest error; they should also specify who is retracting the article. They should be published in all versions of the journal (ie, print and/or electronic). It is helpful to include the authors and title of the retracted article in the retraction heading.
- Retracted articles should be clearly identified as such in all electronic sources (eg, on the journal Web site and any bibliographic databases). Editors are responsible for ensuring that retractions are labeled in such a way that they are identified by bibliographic databases (which should also include a link to the retracted article). The retraction should appear on all electronic searches for the retracted publication. Journals and publishers should ensure that retracted articles are clearly marked on their own Web sites.
- Retracted articles should not be removed from printed copies of the journal (eg, in libraries) nor from electronic archives but their retracted status should be indicated as clearly as possible.
This journal considers the following reasons for concern and potential retraction:
- Clear evidence that findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (e.g. data fabrication) or honest error (e.g. miscalculation or experimental error)
- Findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper attribution, permission or justification (i.e. cases of redundant publication)
- Major plagiarism
- The reporting of unethical research, the publication of an article that did not have the required ethics committee approval
- Legal issues pertaining to the content of the article e.g. libellous content
- Major authorship issues i.e. proven or strongly suspected cases of ghostwriting or sold (‘gift’) authorship
- The singling out of individuals or organisations for attack
- Faith issues (e.g. intelligent design)
- Papers that have made extraordinary claims without concomitant scientific or statistical evidence (e.g. pseudoscience)
Retraction statements should be public and linked to the original, retracted article.
Plagiarism policy:
Manuscripts submitted to Journal of Maize Research and Development should be original and must not be plagiarized. Every submitted article is checked for plagiarism through ithenticate software. If Similarity Index (SI) of the article is above (excluding references list) 15%, it is sent back to the corresponding author to revise it and bring its SI below 15%, failure of which will result in rejection of article at very first step. If plagiarism is proved after publication of the article, that article will be immediately withdrawn and removed from the website and the concerned authors will be considered ineligible for publication of their articles in this journal for five years.
Publication Fees: Currently this journal is published by National Maize Research Program, Rampur, Chitwan, Nepal ( Nepal Government Agricultural Research Organization) and it offers authors no publishing charges, no proofreading charges, no page charges and fast publication times. The partnership publisher may charge for article processing and subscription of the journal.
Publication Criteria:
Contributions falling into the following categories will be considered for publication and are accepted on the understanding that they have not been published previously, nor are under consideration for publication in any other journal. This policy on redundant publication extends to overlapping or incremental submissions (salami publication) where data from essentially the same experiment is spread across numerous papers: the practice is discouraged, and such submissions are unlikely to be considered for publication.
The criteria for an article to be accepted and published are:
- The article should be written in standard English.
- The article should be written following the “guidelines for manuscript.”
- The article should be written in correlation with its title and abstract.
- The results should be supported with adequate and appropriate discussion.
- Conclusions are presented in an appropriate fashion.
- The article has not been published elsewhere.
- The article should be of interest to the broad community.
- The article should be original research and scientifically effective.
- The article contents must not be plagiarized.
Submission of undertaking: The all concerned authors are bound to submit an undertaking duly signed by them, which shows that this paper was not submitted elsewhere and was also not plagiarized.
Please see the Copyright section for copyright information and the license to publish agreement required for all submissions.
Submission Preparation Checklist
As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission’s compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.
- The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
- The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, RTF, or WordPerfect document file format.
- Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
- The text is single-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
- The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines, which is found in About the Journal.
- If submitting to a peer-reviewed section of the journal, the instructions in Ensuring a Blind Review have been followed.
Submission of Paper: When submitting the paper,the authors should provide the contact details (names, affiliations and e-mail addresses) of at least three potential reviewers. The reviewers should be experts in the corresponding field of research, and should be able to provide an objective assessment of the paper. The peer reviewers should not be from the same institutions as the authors of the paper. The submitting author is responsible for ensuring that the article’s publication has been approved by all the other coauthors. Authors should take responsibility for ensuring that the articles derived from a particular institution are submitted with the approval of the necessary institution. The corresponding authors should submit their manuscript along with cover letter. ⇓ Cover letter. The paper must be submitted electronically to the following address
National Maize Research Program (NMRP), Rampur, Chitwan,Nepal.
Fax :+977-56-592548, Phone : +977-56-591001, Cell phone : +977 9845052780
Email : nmrp@narc.gov.np, mail@nmrp.gov.np
Website: http://nmrp.gov.np/
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