Journal of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences (JAES)
A. Journal Policy and Operation
- Cover page of the Journal
The logo of the university will appear on the top of the cover page. The remaining details of the cover page shall be designed in such a way that it shows the various agriculture and environment related problems that exist in the country and elsewhere. Best practices or technologies also shall be included to indicate that the problems can be solved using the efforts of the people.
- Editor-in-Chief
The editor-in-chief is responsible for the overall operation of the journal, selecting qualified reviewers for the articles and deciding the fate of articles to be published or not in each issue of the journal. The editor-in-chief seeks advise from the editors that have expertise in different disciplines on technical as well as editorial matters. The editor-in-chief is responsible to ensure that quality standards are maintained in the journal. The editor-in-chief shall be appointed by the academic council of the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences. The editor- in-chief should have a minimum academic rank of assistant professor with sufficient research and publication experience.
- Associate Editors
Associate editors will have the responsibility of advising the editor-in-chief on identifying reviewers, deciding the fate of each submitted article in their areas of expertise. They also check that the comments provided by reviewers were addressed by the authors of the manuscript following the guideline of the journal. Once they check all this, they pass the corrected manuscripts to the editor-in-chief. The editorial committee shall contain professionals drawn from disciplines, but not limited to, including plant science, natural resources management, disaster risk management, animal science, fisheries and wetland management, veterinary medicine, socio economics and GIS. The candidates for the positions of editors shall be identified by the editor-in-chief and will be approved by the academic council of the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences. The editors should have a minimum academic rank of assistant professor with sufficient research and publication experience.
- Managing editor
The managing editor is responsible for handling the routine editorial processes including bringing all manuscripts together as a single issue, checking the formats based on the guideline, preparing the final draft and submitting the final version to the editor-in-chief for printing. The candidate for the position of managing editor shall be identified by the editor-in-chief and will be approved by the academic council of the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences. The managing editor should have a minimum of academic rank of lecturer with proven computer skills and endurance to routine editorial and formatting works.
- Language editor
The language editor is responsible for ensuring the grammatical correctness of the manuscripts published in this journal. The candidate for the position of language editor shall be identified by the editor-in-chief and will be approved by the academic council of the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences. The language editor should have a minimum of academic rank of assistant professor in English Language.
- Advisory board
The advisory board will include senior staff available abroad and in country who have accumulated sufficient experience and knowledge on agricultural sciences and related fields. They will receive copy of each issue of the journal on which they send their feed backs on how to improve the journal and maintain high standards.
- Publisher
The publisher of the journal will be the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, Bahir Dar University.
- Frequency of appearance and articles per issue
The journal will be a bi-annual journal. The two issues of each volume will be published in April and October of each year. Each issue will contain articles not less than ten.
- Copy right
Once a manuscript is accepted and published by the Journal of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences (JAES), copy right belongs to the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences. However, since the publication is a public good, the information published in this journal can be used for further research, teaching and development with proper citation.
- Scope
The journal will address full length research articles and short communications based on research outputs and literature review in agriculture and environment related fields.
- ISSN
The journal will seek ISSN for the print and online versions from ISSN international center.
- B.Guideline of the Journal
- General Issues
1.1.Submission of Manuscript
An electronic copy containing manuscript in Microsoft Word only should be submitted to the editorial office along with a cover letter. The corresponding author's full address, including E-mail and telephone numbers should be indicated in the cover letter.
Receipt of all articles will be acknowledged. All contributions must be submitted in English. A manuscript number will be e-mailed to the corresponding author within 48 hours of submission. All submitted original research articles, reviews or short communications will be reviewed by specialists in the respective fields.
1.2. Submission declaration
Submission of an article implies that the work described must be original and has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture note or academic thesis or as an electronic preprint), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere including electronically in the same form, in English or in any other language.
1.3.Article types
Three types of manuscripts may be submitted:
Regular articles: These are complete descriptions of current original research findings, and experimental procedures that should be given in sufficient detail for others to verify the work.
Short Communications: A Short Communication is a concise, but independent report suitable for recording the results of complete small investigations including the reporting of additional controls and confirmatory results in other settings, as well as negative results. The style of main sections need not conform to that of full-length papers.
Review: Review articles do not cover original research but rather accumulate the results of various articles on a particular subject into a coherent narrative about the state of the art in that field. Review articles provide information about the topic and also provide journal references to the original research. Submissions of reviews and perspectives covering topics of current interest are welcome and encouraged.
- 2.Format
2.1. Font and size of manuscript
Authors are required to use MS Word 98 and above, Times New Roman font. The title of the manuscript should have font size of 14, bold, title case (The Effect of Compost on Yield of Mango Fruits); the first level headers of the manuscript (Abstract, Key words, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion, Conclusions and Recommendations, Acknowledgement and References) will have font size of 12, bold, title case (eg. 2. Materials and Methods); second level headers will have font size of 11, bond, title case (eg. 2.1 Data Collection and Analysis); and third level headers will have font size of 11, italicized, title case (eg 2.1.1 Data Analysis). Headers below the third level are not allowed and all headings shall be left aligned. All the texts under each heading shall have normal font face with size of 11. However, captions of tables shall have bold font face with font size of 11. Footnotes under the tables or figures will have normal font face with font size of 10.
The manuscript should be written with double spacing and 2.5 cm (1 inch) margins in all sides. The length of the manuscript submitted should not be more 15 pages for regular articles and reviews, and 9 pages for short communications.
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2.2. Title and Authorship Information
The “title page” should start with the type of manuscript (Research, Review Article, Short Communications, etc). This should be concise, short, specific, and explain the nature of the work. The names of all authors (first name, middle initial, last name) including their departmental and institutional addresses should also be included. The name of the corresponding author along with phone, fax and E-mail should be provided. An asterisk (*) should be added to the right of the corresponding author’s name. The author’s (authors’) affiliation should be indicated by superscripts 1, 2, 3, … placed after each author’s name and before each affiliation.
The title should be in bold with title case format. The title should give the reader what the paper is about. Therefore, it should be brief and informative. Use common names for crops and animals and avoid abbreviations. The usual limit for a title is 12 words without counting “the”, “of”, “and”, etc. Omit all waste words such as "A study of…", "Investigations of ...", "Observations on ...", etc from the title.
2.3. Abstract
The abstract will follow the title and will be presented in the same page with the title up on submission. The abstract must be a single paragraph of no more than 200 words describing the scope, hypothesis or rationale for the work and the main findings. Conclusions and recommendation can be included at the end if any. Abstract should be written in a past tense and presented without subheadings. No reference should be cited in this section. Avoid italicizing except scientific names of animal and plant species.
2.4. Key words
Immediately after the abstract, about 4-7 key words should be provided, which will be used for indexing purposes. Key words should be separated by commas and words from the title should be avoided.
2.5. Introduction
Introduction should be presented in a separate page following the page containing the abstract and keywords. It should be short and precise. It should describe the basic principles of research, earlier background work. Hypothesis to be tested should be specified but summary of the results should be avoided. Extensive discussion of relevant literature should be included that were done in line with the current work. The introduction should at the end indicate objectives of the study.
2.6. Materials and Methods
Only new techniques and modifications to known methods need to be described in detail. Methods already published should be indicated by a reference. Include the name, postal town, code and country of the supplier or manufacturer of any chemical or apparatus not in common use. Appropriate statistical methods should be used and indicate the probability level (P) at which differences were considered significant. If data are presented in the text, state what they represent (e.g. means ± SEM). Indicate whether data were transformed before analysis; and if summary data presented in tables were back transformed show transformation models used. Specify any statistical computer programs used. Therefore, the following sub-headings section could be included in this section: “Description of the Study Area”, “Research Methodology” and "Methods of Data Analysis".
2.7. Results and Discussion
Results should be clear and concise using tables or figures when feasible. The text should elaborate on the tabular data. It should be written in the past tense when describing findings in the authors' experiments. Sufficient data with some index of variation attached should be presented for proper interpretation of the results of the experiment. Tables and figures should not be used at the same time for the same data.
The discussion should follow each result. It should be able to interpret the results clearly and concisely in relation to previous findings, whether in support, against, or simply as added data to provide the reader with a broad base on which to accept or reject the hypotheses tested.
2.8. Conclusions and Recommendations
The significant or unique findings should be highlighted in this section. The conclusion should indicate the results of the objectives set. It should not include any statement that was discussed in the results. Its content should not substantially duplicate the abstract either. Based the conclusions set, specific recommendation might be given for future research or development intervention.
2.9 Acknowledgments
This section is optional. Acknowledgments could be made to people, grants, funding agencies and others who financially or technically supported the research. It should not exceed 5 lines.
2.10. References
Except findings that are accepted as a principle (fact), all information should be supported with sources. The “Reference”must, therefore, include all works cited or referred to for information while writing the article. The section contains all published and unpublished scholarly materials like books, periodicals, documentary materials, pamphlets, yearbooks, statistical abstracts, annual reports, etc which were consulted for relevant information following strictly the rules of scientific references. However, citation of unpublished materials like reports, thesis or dissertation, must be avoided or at least kept to a minimum.
All references cited in the text must be included in the list of references at the end of the paper and all references listed under reference section must be cited in the text. As a rule, cross-reference is not allowed, if it is to be used due to unfavorable reason, it may not have to be more than two to three citations. In this case, both the original work and the work that referred it should be cited as Yihenew G.Selassie (2002) as cited in Tadele et al. (2011).
2.10.1 Citation in the text
- a. Refer to the author's name (without initial) and year of publication (name-year citation system), followed - if necessary - by a reference. Example: Peterson (1988) has shown that..., This is in agreement with results obtained later (Kramer, 1989).
- b. In cases where articles of the same author are cited, references are listed chronologically. e.g. Abebe Demeke, 2004, 2006, 2007 both in the text and the reference section.
- c. In cases where more than one articles of the same author published in the same year are cited, small letters, a, b, c, etc. are assigned to each article and identified using these letters, e.g. Abebe Demeke, 2004a, Abebe Demeke, 2004b and Abebe Demeke, 2004c both in the text and reference section.
- d. In the case of Ethiopian names, the first name of the author (his/her real name) and his /her father’s name should be written in full; e.g. Kassahun Bekele, 2005, Abebe Zegeye, 2007.
- e. The first author followed by “et al” makes citation of an article co-authored by more than two authors and then the year the article was published. For instance, Alemu Bekele et al. (2005) or (Alemu Bekele et al., 2005). In conditions where foreign author is the first author, his/her surname will be used as Jackson et al. (2009) or (Jackson et al., 2009).
2.10.2 References
- a. References are listed alphabetically by the author’s last names for foreign authors and by the first name for Ethiopian authors.
- b. In the reference section, however, the use of “et al.” is not allowed. Instead, the last names and initials of all co-authors of an article are carefully and correctly entered. But for Ethiopian authors, full names of all authors should be listed.
- c. In the case of publications in any language other than English, the original title is to be retained. However, the titles of publications in non-Latin alphabets should be translated, and a notation such as “(in Amharic)” or “(in Greek, with English abstract)” should be added.
- d. Articles accepted for publication but not yet published should be referred to as “in press”.
- e. References that are published on-line should be given website address given by the digital object identifier (DOI)
- The following are examples of writing references.
- a) Journal articles
- Yihenew Gebreselassie. 2009. Decomposition Dynamics and Inorganic Fertilizer Equivalency of
Compost Prepared from Different Plant Residues. Ethiopian Journal of Natural Resources 11(1): 1-16.
Herweg K. and E. Ludi. 1999. The performance of selected soil and water conservation
measures-case studies from Ethiopia and Eritrea. Catena 36: 99-114.
- b) Proceedings
Tesfaye Feyisa, Tadele Amare, Enyew Adgo and Yihenew G.Selassie. 2007. Symbiotic Blue
Green Algae (Azolla): A Potential Biofertilizer for Low Land Rice Production at Fogera Plain. In: Yihenew G.Selassie (ed.), Proceedings of the 2nd Annual Regional Conference on Completed Natural Resources Management Research Activities, 18-19 September 2007, ARARI, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, pp 1-15. When editors are more than one, it will be eds.
- c) Books
John I. E. 2000. Dairy Cattle Management. The University of Free State, Bloomfontein, 456p.
George T. S. 2005. Oestrous synchronization in Small Ruminants. Oxford University Press,
New York, 350p.
- d) Chapter in a book
- Tanksley T.D. and D.A. Knabe. 1984. Ileal digestibilities of amino acids in pig feeds and their
- use in formulating diets. In: Haresign W. and Cole D.J. (eds.), Recent Advances in Animal Nutrition. Butterworths, London, pp. 75-95.
- e) Thesis/dissertation
- Peel C. 1995. Aspects of Neural Networks for Modelling and Control. PhD Dissertation,
- University of Newcastle, UK, 105p.
- f) Company Reports and Manuals
Mathsoft Inc. 1999. Mathcad 2000 Reference Manual. Cambridge, MA.
- g) Information from the World-Wide-Web (WWW)
Tham M.T. 1997. Distillation: an introduction,
http://lorien.ncl.ac.uk/ming/distil/distil0.htm, retrieved on 30 May 2001.
- h) On-line journals
Tadele Amare, Aemro Terefe, Yihenew G. Selassie, Birru Yitaferu, B. Wolfgramm, and H.
Hurni. 2013. Soil properties and Crop Yields along the Terraces and Toposequece of Anjeni watershed, Central Highlands of Ethiopia. Journal of Agricultural Science 5(2): 134-144. (http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/jas.v5n2p134)
2.11. Tables and Figures
All tables and figures should be clearly explained and cited in the text. Each column of the table must have a heading. The same data should not be presented in both table and graph form or information given in legends should not be repeated in the text. Tables and Figures should be numbered consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text. Arabic numbers should be used for all compound numbers, figures and tables and full stops, but not commas, should be used as decimal points. (e.g Figure 1 and Table 1). The captions of tables and figures will be bold with the same font size with the text but in bold face. The table and figure numbers will be followed with full stops (Table 1. or Figure 1.). The foot notes under the tables and figures will have font size of 11.
Avoid vertical lines to separate the columns of tables. Horizontal lines are used to delineate the headings of the table and column headings, and at the bottom of the table to show the end of the table. Tables should not be drawn from shape lines but should be automatically inserted. Footnotes may be put under tables to elaborate data in tables. Use different number of asterisks (*, **, ***) to describe 10, 5 and 1% level of statistical significance and non-significant (NS) for non-significant mean comparisons. You may also elaborate abbreviations found in the table using the foot note.
In figures, X- and Y- axes of figures should be labeled. Images should be manipulated as little as possible, so as to avoid losing resolution, and always accompany your submission with original format of the file before exporting to other formats such as JPG, JPEG, PNG, TIFF. All figures should be posted in Microsoft Word manuscript file. Graphs made in MS-Excel should be saved in MS-Excel format when saved in MS-Word rather that in photo format such JPG.
A self explanatory caption of all tables and figures should be provided. Captions for tables should appear at the top of the table and captions for figures should appear at the bottom of the figure. The following is an example caption for a table.
Table 3. Effect of conservation measures on grain yield and yield components at the soil
deposition zone
Figure 4. Location of the study area
2.12. Various formatting issues
a) Language
The language of the journal should be in English language of the United States of America.
b) Equations and Symbols
Special characters (e.g, Greek and symbols) should be inserted using the symbols palette available in MS-Word. Complex equations should be entered using Math -Type or an equation editor. Number consecutively any equations that have to be displayed separately from the text.
c) Scientific names
Give the scientific names for plants, animals, microorganisms, with generic names in full at the first mention, e.g. Escherichia coli. Thereafter, abbreviate them in the text, e.g. E coli. However, give them in full in the headings of sections, tables, figures and key words. Where appropriate, cultivars should be specified and should be in italics. Moreover, local names like woreda, belg will written in italics.
d) Units and Numbers
Use SI units for numerical or numerals in expressing any number that immediately precedes a standard unit of measure (abbreviated) like 3 g (not 3 gm), 18 mm, 300 m2, 4 Mg m-3, 2%, 10 mg g-1, 5 g kg-1, 3 km, etc. Please note that space is kept between the number and SI unit, but not between number and %.
Do not begin a sentence with a numeral like “25 seeds were sown in each pot”, rather use “Twenty-five seeds were sown in each pot”. However, if two related numbers occur at the beginning of a sentence, only the first need be spelled out like in “Fifty or 60 seeds were sown in each pot”.
In a sentence containing a series of numbers, use numerals for all like: Breeders of Adet Agricultural Research Center collected 5 genotypes of chickpea, 25 of durum wheat, 19 of faba bean, and 7 of lentil from a village near Debre Tabor.
In writing large number ending in several zeros, either substitute a word for part of the number or add an appropriate prefix to a basic unit of measurement: 1.6 million (NOT 1,600,000), 23 µg (NOT 0.000023 g).
e) Dates and Time
For a date, use the date, month and year system as 4 January 2013 (NOT January 4, 2013). Periods or seasons extending over parts of two successive calendars, years should be indicated by the use of a forward slash: The 1980/81 season, winter of 1979/80, fiscal year of 1992/93.
Use a hyphen to indicate continuing numbers like dates, time, or reference numbers:
1985-92, 9:00-10:00 a.m., April-May 1993, pp. 40-55. However, use “from 1985 to 1992” (NOT from 1985-92) and “between 1985 and 1992” (NOT between 1975-92).
Spell out particular centuries: Twentieth century (NOT 20th century) and use full number for decades: 1960s (NOT 60s or sixties).
JAES
Journal of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences (JAES)
Journal of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences (JAES) Policies and Guideline
