Submissions

Author Guidelines

1. General information

The journal publishes original scientific papers, short communications, up-to-date review articles, and selective book reviews in agriculture and environment related scientific areas.

Some issues contain “News” and “Book review”, therefore, such contributions are also welcome. Papers are published in English. British or American spellings are both accepted, however, consistency in spelling should be observed throughout the manuscript. Every article will be submitted to a blind peer-review by at least two different reviewers. The author(s) are fully responsible for the originality of the paper, its subject and formal accuracy. 

2. Authorship statement

All submissions must be accompanied by an authorship statement signed by all authors. The template for the authorship statement can be downloaded here.

2. Formal requirements

• A4 size paper with 2.5 cm wide margins. Font: 12 pt. Times or Times New Roman. More information at the 2.1. „Basic structure”. Line spacing 1.15 lines.
• Scientific papers should contain minimum 21,000 characters without spaces, maximum 35,000 characters without spaces.
• Tables and figures should be sent in separate files (see 2.2 and 2.3).
• Use of S.I. units are expected, and the use of negative exponent is preferred to fractional sign. Mathematical formulae are expected to be as simple as possible and numbered in parentheses at the right margin. To indicate a decimal number use a decimal point (.)instead of a comma (,) (e.g.: 0.5).
• Submission in the following file formats is accepted:
  • docx (Word 2007 or higher)
  • doc (older Word versions)
  • rtf
  • pdf
  • pages
  • odt
  • tex

2.1. Basic structure

Title: Times or Times New Roman, 14 pt., left-aligned, upper case, bold

Author(s) name: Times or Times New Roman, 12 pt., left-aligned, last name in upper case. Between the names a long dash should be used (e.g. Thomas ANONYMOUS¹ – Richard ANONYMOUS²) .

Maximum 5 authors are allowed.  

Author(s) meta data: Times or Times New Roman, 10 pt., left-aligned.

Affiliation (Institute name and address) should be specified for each Author. Corresponding Author’s e-mail address should be indicated after affiliation.

Abstract: Times or Times New Roman, 10 pt., justified,  no longer than 1,500 characters without spaces

Key words: Times or Times New Roman, 10 pt., left-aligned (maximum 5 words)

Text

• Use a normal, plain font (12-point Times Roman) for text, justified, line spacing 1.15 lines.
• Do not format the text into columns.
• Headings: please use no more than three levels of displayed headings.
• Figure and Table should be indicated in the text without any abbreviation (Figure X; Table X).
• Use italics for emphasis.
• Abbreviations should be defined at first mention and used consistently thereafter.

Recommended (but not required) subdivisions of the text:

• Introduction
• Materials and methods
• Results
• Discussion
• Acknowledgements
• References

2.2. Tables

• The tables should be black and white coloured;
• Use Times or Times New Roman, 10 pt.;
• Tables captions above the tables: tables should be marked by Arabic numbers in italic font style (e.g.: Table 1.) followed by the name/description of the table  with normal font style (e.g.: Table 1. The sample table);
• Additional information about the table (e.g. legend etc.) can be added under the table
• Every table should be sent in separate files in .doc, .docx formats. (e.g.: sample1.doc; sample2.docx)

2.3. Figures

• The figures should be black and white coloured with clear visibility (coloured charts can be used in the online and hardcopy version of the Journal paying an additional fee).
• Figures captions should be placed in the main text file after “References”. Figures should be marked by Arabic number in italic font style followed by the description with normal font style under the figures (e.g.: Figure 1. The sample figure);
• Every figure should be sent in separate files in .jpg, .tiff, .gif, .bmp or .png formats. (e.g.: sample1.jpg; sample2.jpg)
• For basic figures the minimum resolution requirement is 150 DPI with size of 1240x870 pixels, for photos or more complex figures the minimum resolution requirement is 300 DPI with size of 2480x1750 pixels. (Under these resolutions we cannot provide the visibility of the figures!)

2.4 References

Columella uses the author-date citation style (APA style). In-text citations can be parenthetical or narrative. Use parenthetical citations in the following style:

• One author: (Zidane, 1990)
• Two authors: (Buffon & Smith, 1998)
• Three or more authors: (Morata et al., 1995)
• String of parenthetical citations: (Figo, 1991; Buffon & Smith, 1998; Nedved et al., 1999, 2000)
• Parenthetical citations of several papers by the same authors in the same year: (Morata et al., 1995a, b)

Narrative citations are identical to parenthetical citations except for the following:

• only the year is put into parentheses, e.g.: This was disputed by Zidane (1990) who argued that...
• In case of two authors always spell out the word "and", e.g.: This was disputed by Buffon and Smith (1998) who argued that...

All publications cited in the text should be presented in the list of references, arranged in alphabetical order. For an article: name(s) of author(s), year of publication, title of article, name of journal, volume (in bold), number and pages as shown in the example below:

Khan, S., Qureshi, M.I., Alam, K.T., Abdin, M.Z. (2006): Effect of rainfall and fertilization on the yield of winter rye monoculture. Agrokémia és Talajtan. 55(1), 165-174.

For a books: „Sample anonymous author (1998): The handbook of environmental monitoring. Part II. Physiological processes. Apocalypse Academic Publisher Inc., London, New York, Montreal”.

When referring papers published in the same year by the same author, letters a, b, c, etc. should follow the year of publication.

The journal has a DOI number and you can find it in the CrossRef system. Accordingly the Author(s) have to check the DOIs of their every references in the http://search.crossref.org/references site and put the DOI links after the exact reference in the following:

Ayliffe M. A., Lagudah E. S. (2004). Molecular genetics of disease resistance in cereals. Annals of Botany.94: 6. 765-773. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/aob/mch207

Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement

For all parties involved in the act of publishing (the author, the journal editor(s), the peer reviewer and the publisher) it is necessary to agree upon standards of expected ethical behaviour. The ethics statements for our journal are based on the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.

Duties of the Editors-in-Chief

Fair play

Submitted manuscripts are evaluated for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

Confidentiality

The Editor-in-Chief and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an Editor's own research without the explicit written consent of the author(s).

Publication decisions

The handling Editor-in-Chief of the journal is responsible for deciding which of the submitted articles should be published. The Editor-in-Chief may be guided by the policies of the journal's Editorial Board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The Editor-in-Chief may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.

Duties of peer reviewers

Contribution to editorial decisions

Peer review assists the Editor-in-Chief in making editorial decisions and, through the editorial communication with the author, may also assist the author in improving the manuscript.

Promptness

Any invited referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its timely review will be impossible should immediately notify the Editor-in-Chief so that alternative reviewers can be contacted.

Confidentiality

Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except if authorized by the Editor-in-Chief.

Standards of objectivity

Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inacceptable. Referees should express their views clearly with appropriate supporting arguments.

Acknowledgement of sources

Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the Editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published data of which they have personal knowledge.