Author Instructions

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Author Instructions

Research and Reviews in Biotechnology and Biosciences is an open access journal devoted to publish research papers from all areas of plant science to share advances to a wider audience. The journal publishes research and review papers and is indexed in Google Scholar and many other . The journal invites submission of manuscripts that meet the general criteria of significance and scientific excellence, and will publish as per following sections.

SECTIONS

1. Editorial

Editorial article written by one of the senior Editors

2. General Articles

General articles discuss current trends in research in a field that would be of interest to readers outside the field. These include interdisciplinary topics, science policy and science administration, some aspects of the application of science and technology to human needs or the impact of science and technology on society/ecosystems/life. The articles should include an abstract, introductory paragraph, brief subheads at appropriate places, illustrations that will help a general reader, and references.

3. Review Articles

Review articles are expected to survey and discuss current developments in a field. They should be well focused and organized, and avoid a general ‘textbook’ style.

4. Research Articles

Research articles report research results of major significance. They should include an abstract, an introductory paragraph, and brief subheads.

5. Research communications

Research communications contain important new findings that are novel and of fairly broad interest. They should include a brief abstract and an introductory paragraph. Text should may or may not be broken up under subheads.

6. Research Data

7. Correspondence

Correspondence includes letters that are of general interest to botanical scientists and technical comments, including those on articles or communications published in RRBB within the previous six months. Short letters are preferred. Letters may be reviewed and edited.

8. News

News (not exceeding 1000 words) can cover important scientific events or any other news of interest to scientists in general.

9. Meeting Reports

Meeting reports (less than 1500 words) deal with highlights/technical contents of a conference/ symposium/discussion-meeting, etc. conveying to readers the significance of important advances. Reports must avoid merely listing brief accounts of topics discussed.

10. Book Reviews

Book reviews (not exceeding 1500 words). Although Book Reviews are generally solicited/commissioned, unsolicited reviews will also be considered. Reviews must not merely ‘list’ brief descriptions of the contents of a book.

11. Opinion

Your opinion or thoughts on any matter related to plant science

12. Mini Reviews

Under Mini Reviews, short review articles of max. 5 printed pages including references can be published.

PUBLICATION FREQUENCY

The RRBB Journal will be published 2 volumes each year (june and Dec). However, to avoid delay in publishing, the accepted manuscripts will be published as soon as they are ready by adding them to the "current" issue's Table of Contents.

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.

• Submission file should be a Text Document (Microsoft Office, Open Office, LibreOffice, MacWrite, etc). Abstract (about 200 words) and keywords (followed by semicolons) have to be provided in the manuscript. Tables and Figures 'must' be inserted after References.

• The manuscript may be prepared in the following order:

• Title of the article, list of authors and affiliations 

• Abstract 

• Keywords

• Introduction

• Materials and methods

• Results

• Discussion

• Conclusion

• Acknowledgements (include funding sources, if any)

• Author's contribution

• Competing interest statement

• Ethical statement

• References

• Tables

• Figures

FORMATTING

Manuscripts does not require formatting in journal's style at the time of submission. Provide names of all authors, their affiliations, email ids and short biography at the time of submission (in the first page of the manuscript main text file).

Manuscripts of all categories are to be submitted online.

Declarations to be made regarding ethical issues

Manuscripts that deal with clinical findings should be enclosed with a statement on informed consent of the patients under study.

If humans and animals are the subject of a clinical study, it is essential for the study to have been carried out in accordance with the ethical standards of the country/countries where the research described in the article has been conducted. A declaration to that effect must accompany the manuscript.

Supplementary material

Detailed tables can be submitted as supplementary material. Any details and queries regarding supplementary material should be addressed to the corresponding author of the paper. The published material cannot be reproduced without permission from the author.

Author's declaration

Authors must acknowledge the organizations that have provided financial support for their work in the manuscript.  

Competing Interests

Plant Science Today requires authors to declare all competing interests in relation to their work. All submitted manuscripts must accompany ‘competing interests’ statement listing all competing interests. 

You must read and agree all Editorial Policies before you submit your manuscript.

AUTHOR GUIDELINES FOR FORMATTING MANUSCRIPTS

Follow the instructions carefully to format your manuscript in accordance with RRBB policies.

For proper referring and fast publication all manuscript should be grammatically correct.

The manuscript should be prepared in English using "MS Word" or similar work processing software. “Times New Roman” or similar font (size 12) should be used; single line spacing may be used.

Title: Centered, Bold font.

Names of Author(s): Centered.

Author affiliation needs to be given below author names in order of appearance. Relation between author listing and affiliation needs to be indicated as superscripted numbers to the right of name in author listing and to the left in affiliation. Include Email id of each of the authors.

Abstract: Justified, not less than 200 and maximum 250 words.

Keywords: 4-6 keywords, separated by semi colon (;) should be written after the abstract, which can identify the most important subject of the manuscript.

TEXT: The manuscript text may be devided into:

Introduction: A brief and clear description of the purpose of the investigation relating the previous research and essential arguments should be mentioned.

Materials and Methods: This section should be written well defined to understand the steps of investigation done which allows other researcher to reproduce the result.

Results and Discussion: The findings of the manuscripts should be presented with appropriate evidences and discussions in a single heading or may be presented in separate headings depending on the requirement and need of author(s).

Subsection title: Bold and italics.

Reference: The journal uses Vancouver reference style which is a citation style that uses numbers within the text that refer to numbered entries in the reference list. Your reference list should appear at the end of the manuscript with the entries listed in roman numbers and in the same order that they were cited in the text.

Tables and Figures: Tables need to have title above the table and figures need to have title below the figure.

Place Tables and Figures after References in the manuscript file itself (all text, tables and figures in one file).

Equations need to be left aligned; equation numbers should be right aligned; equations quoted in manuscript need to conform to this form. (Eqn. 1)

Taxonomy manuscripts

Make sure that the names of the author(s) of the plant names are abbreviated as per the "Authors of the Plant Names" by 'Brummit & Powell (1992)' and its subsequent online version of 2010.

Image Raw Files

You may submit original raw files as supplementary material. A raw file is the image as seen by the camera's sensor. You may think of it like unprocessed film. Depending on the camera setting, it may be saved as JPEG, TIFF or other formats. You may submit it as supplementary material or keep it with you for verification by the PST editors/reviewers.

Competing Interests

RRBB requires authors to declare all competing interests in relation to their work. All submitted manuscripts must accompany ‘competing interests’ statement listing all competing interests. Where authors have no competing interests, the statement should read “The author(s) declare(s) that they have no competing interests.

Authors' contributions

Please include an Authors' contributions section before the Acknowledgements.

For the Authors' contributions we suggest the following kind of format (please use initials to refer to each author's contribution): AB carried out the molecular genetic studies, participated in the sequence alignment and drafted the manuscript. JY carried out the immunoassays. MT participated in the sequence alignment. ES participated in the design of the study and performed the statistical analysis. FG conceived of the study, and participated in its design and coordination. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

An "author" is generally considered to be someone who has made substantive intellectual contributions to a published study. To qualify as an author one should 1) have made substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; 2) have been involved in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and 3) have given final approval of the version to be published. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content. Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group, alone, does not justify authorship.

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, writing assistance, or a department chair who provided only general support.

Acknowledgements

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an ‘acknowledgements’ section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, writing assistance, or a department chair who provided only general support.

References:

In the Vancouver Style, a number is assigned to each reference as it is used. Even if the author is named in your text, a number must still be used. The original number assigned to the reference is used each time that reference is cited in the text. The first reference you cite will be numbered 1 in the text, and the second reference you cite will be numbered 2, and so on. If you cite reference number 1 again later in the text, you will cite it using the number 1. References are listed in numerical order in a bibliography at the end of your manuscript. The references in the bibliography must follow a set format: there are examples of this below.

The number can be placed outside the text punctuation to avoid disruption to the flow of the text.

Use numbered citations in your text

Number references consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. Identify references in text, tables and legends by Arabic numerals in parentheses, like this: (1), (2). Do not use [square brackets] and do not make the citations superscript.

If you are citing more than one source at the same point, do this: (1-3), (1, 4)

Journal articles

Stannard W, Rutman A, Wallis C, O'Callaghan C. Central microtubular agenesis causing primary ciliary dyskinesia. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2004;169:634-7.

If the journal is not listed, you should use the full journal title. Do not make up your own abbreviation! 2004 is the year of publication, 169 the volume number and 634-7 the page numbers, that is, pages 634-637 - the second page number can be shortened in this way.

Books

If the book has one author or set of authors throughout:

Thalange N. Essentials of paediatrics. 2nd ed. Oxford: Saunders; 2012.

If the book is an edited book:

Greenwood D, editor. Medical microbiology: A guide to microbial infections : Pathogenesis, immunity, laboratory diagnosis and control. 18th ed. Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone; 2012.

A chapter in an edited book needs details of authors and title of chapter and editors and title of book:

Peiris JSM. Coronaviruses. In: Greenwood D, editor. Medical microbiology: a guide to microbial infections : pathogenesis, immunity, laboratory diagnosis and control. 18th ed. Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone; 2012. p. 587-93.

Include the first six authors or editors. You may find, if you have imported the book details from the Library, that only the first three authors or editors are present.

Websites

Medecins sans Frontieres. South Sudan: bringing diabetes treatment home [Internet].; [cited 27th February 2017]. Available from: http://www.msf.org/en/article/south-sudan-bringing-diabetes-treatment-home.

Images, tables, figures

If you have used an image, table or figure, you must cite a reference so that your readers know where you obtained it from. Add a caption, for example:

Figure 1. The clavicle, from Nockels, 2015 (1)

Table 1. Length of stay by patient age, adapted from Briggs, 2015 (2)

Numbering your figures and tables makes it easier to refer to them in your text. You can right click on the image and use Word’s “Insert Caption”.

Please note that there may be a problem inserting the citation if the caption is in a text box. Citations may be numbered out of order. To avoid the problem, put the caption outside the text box.

If you need to include a page number in your citation, see “Adding page numbers to citations” above.

DOI FOR REFERENCES

Kindly put the DOI of each referred article at the end of each references.

REVISION OF A MANUSCRIPT 

Microsoft Word's Track Changes Under Tools in the menu bar, the feature Track Changes enables the copy editor to make insertions (text appears in color) and deletions (text appears crossed out in color or in the margins as deleted). The copy editor can posit queries to both the author (Author Queries) and to the editor (Editor Queries) by inserting these queries in square brackets. The copyedited version is then uploaded, and the editor is notified. The editor then reviews the text and notifies the author. The editor and author should leave those changes with which they are satisfied. If further changes are necessary, the editor and author can make changes to the initial insertions or deletions, as well as make new insertions or deletions elsewhere in the text. Authors and editors should respond to each of the queries addressed to them, with responses placed inside the square brackets. After the text has been reviewed by editor and author, the copy editor will make a final pass over the text accepting the changes in preparation for the layout and galley stage.

After acceptance
Upon acceptance of your article you will receive a link to the special Author Query Application to indicate whether you wish to order OpenChoice, offprints, or printing of figures in color.Once the Author Query Application has been completed, your article will be processed and you will receive the proofs.

Offprints
Offprints can be ordered by the corresponding author.

Color illustrations
Online publication of color illustrations is free of charge. For color in the print version, authors will be expected to make a contribution towards the extra costs.

Proof reading
The purpose of the proof is to check for typesetting or conversion errors and the completeness and accuracy of the text, tables and figures. Substantial changes in content, e.g., new results, corrected values, title and authorship, are not allowed without the approval of the Editor.
After online publication, further changes can only be made in the form of an Erratum, which will be hyperlinked to the article.

Online First
The article will be published online after receipt of the corrected proofs. This is the official first publication citable with the DOI. After release of the printed version, the paper can also be cited by issue and page numbers.

Research Data Policy
A submission to the journal implies that materials described in the manuscript, including all relevant raw data, will be freely available to any researcher wishing to use them for non-commercial purposes, without breaching participant confidentiality.

Research Data Policy
A submission to the journal implies that materials described in the manuscript, including all relevant raw data, will be freely available to any researcher wishing to use them for non-commercial purposes, without breaching participant confidentiality.
The journal strongly encourages that all datasets on which the conclusions of the paper rely should be available to readers. We encourage authors to ensure that their datasets are either deposited in publicly available repositories (where available and appropriate) or presented in the main manuscript or additional supporting files whenever possible.
General repositories - for all types of research data - such as figshare and Dryad may be used where appropriate.
Datasets that are assigned digital object identifiers (DOIs) by a data repository may be cited in the reference list. Data citations should include the minimum information recommended by DataCite: authors, title, publisher (repository name), identifier.

DataCite
Where a widely established research community expectation for data archiving in public repositories exists, submission to a community-endorsed, public repository is mandatory. Persistent identifiers (such as DOIs and accession numbers) for relevant datasets must be provided in the paper
For the following types of data set, submission to a community-endorsed, public repository is mandatory:


Mandatory depositionSuitable repositories
Protein sequencesUniprot
DNA and RNA sequencesGenbank
DNA DataBank of Japan (DDBJ)
EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database (ENA)

DNA and RNA sequencing dataNCBI Trace Archive
NCBI Sequence Read Archive (SRA)

Genetic polymorphismsdbSNP
dbVar
European Variation Archive (EVA)

Linked genotype and phenotype datadbGAP
The European Genome-phenome Archive (EGA)

Mandatory depositionSuitable repositories
Protein sequencesUniprot
DNA and RNA sequencesGenbank
DNA DataBank of Japan (DDBJ)
EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database (ENA)

DNA and RNA sequencing dataNCBI Trace Archive
NCBI Sequence Read Archive (SRA)

Genetic polymorphismsdbSNP
dbVar
European Variation Archive (EVA)

Linked genotype and phenotype datadbGAP
The European Genome-phenome Archive (EGA)

Macromolecular structureWorldwide Protein Data Bank (wwPDB)
Biological Magnetic Resonance Data Bank (BMRB)
Electron Microscopy Data Bank (EMDB)

Microarray data (must be MIAME compliant)Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO)
ArrayExpress

Crystallographic data for small moleculesCambridge Structural Database

Data availability
The journal encourages authors to provide a statement of Data availability in their article. Data availability statements should include information on where data supporting the results reported in the article can be found, including, where applicable, hyperlinks to publicly archived datasets analysed or generated during the study. Data availability statements can also indicate whether data are available on request from the authors and where no data are available, if appropriate.

Data Availability statements can take one of the following forms (or a combination of more than one if required for multiple datasets):

  • The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available in the [NAME] repository, [PERSISTENT WEB LINK TO DATASETS]
  • The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available due [REASON WHY DATA ARE NOT PUBLIC] but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
  • The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
  • Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.
  • All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article [and its supplementary information files].
  • More examples of template data availability statements, which include examples of openly available and restricted access datasets, are available:

Data availability statements 
This service provides advice on research data policy compliance and on finding research data repositories. It is independent of journal, book and conference proceedings editorial offices and does not advise on specific manuscripts.

HUMAN AND ANIMAL RIGHTS

Research involving human subjects, human material, or human data, must have been performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and must have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee. A statement detailing this, including the name of the ethics committee and the reference number where appropriate, must appear in all manuscripts reporting such research.
Experimental research on vertebrates or any regulated invertebrates must comply with institutional, national, or international guidelines, and where available should have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee. The Basel Declaration outlines fundamental principles to adhere to when conducting research in animals and the International Council for Laboratory Animal Science (ICLAS) has also published ethical guidelines.

INFORMED CONSENT
For all research involving human subjects, informed consent to participate in the study should be obtained from participants (or their parent or guardian in the case of children under 16) and a statement to this effect should appear in the manuscript.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an 'acknowledgements' section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, writing assistance, or a head of the department/institution who provided only general support.

CHANGES IN AUTHORSHIP
It requires written confirmation from all authors that they agree with any proposed changes in authorship of submitted manuscripts or published articles. This confirmation must be via direct email from each author. It is the corresponding author’s responsibility to ensure that all authors confirm that they agree with the proposed changes. If there is disagreement amongst the authors concerning authorship and a satisfactory agreement cannot be reached, the authors must contact their institution(s) for a resolution. It is not the Editor’s responsibility to resolve authorship disputes. A change in authorship of a published article can only be amended via publication of an Erratum.

DATA AND MATERIAL RELEASE
Submission of a manuscript to a Plant Science Today implies that readily reproducible materials described in the manuscript, including all relevant raw data, will be freely available to any scientist wishing to use them for non-commercial purposes, without breaching participant confidentiality. Nucleotide/protein sequences should be deposited in an appropriate database in time for the accession number to be included in the published article. In computational studies where the sequence information is unacceptable for inclusion in databases because of lack of experimental validation, the sequences must be published as an additional file with the article.

Algal, fungal, and botanical names
From January 2012, electronic publication of algal, fungal, and botanical names is a valid form of publication. Manuscripts containing new taxon names or other nomenclatural acts must follow guidelines set by the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants.
Authors describing new fungal taxa should register the names with a recognized repository such as Mycobank, and request a unique digital identifier which should be included in the published article.

CORRECTIONS AND RETRACTIONS
Rarely, it may be necessary to publish corrections to, or retractions of, articles published, so as to maintain the integrity of the academic record. Corrections to, or retractions of, published articles will be made by publishing 'Correction' or 'Retraction' article, without altering the original article in any way other than to add a prominent link to the Correction/Retraction article. The original article remains in the public domain and the subsequent Correction or Retraction will be widely indexed. In the exceptional event that material is considered to infringe certain rights or is defamatory we may have to remove that material from our site and archive sites.








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