2. Second page should contain the Title of the manuscript followed by Abstract and Keywords. To ease the review process, Name(s) and address (es) of the author(s) should not be given on this and subsequent pages of the manuscript.
ABSTRACT
(a) Abstract: A concise and factual abstract must be given after the title page. Write the heading as ABSTRACT (Times New Roman Font, 10 pt size, Bold, Uppercase/All Caps, Double spaced, Centre alignment). The body of the abstract (Times New Roman Font, 9 pt size, Italics, Sentence case, Double spaced, Justify alignment) should state briefly the purpose of the research, the principal results and major conclusions (not exceeding 150 words). An abstract is often presented separately from the article, so it must be able to stand alone. For this reason, references should be avoided, but if extremely essential, then cite the author(s) and year(s) and give the fill reference in the reference section. Also, non-standard or uncommon abbreviations should be avoided, but if essential they must be defined at their first mention in the abstract itself.
(b) Keywords: Start with ‘Keywords:’ (Times New Roman Font, 9 pt size, Bold, Sentence case, Double spaced, Left alignment), followed by 5-6 keywords suitable for indexing in alphabetical order (Times New Roman Font, 9 pt size, Sentence case, Double spaced, Left alignment).
(c) How to cite the article:
Gurung, S., Bhowmick, N., Gurung, S, Thapa, A., and Ghosh, A. 2022. Effect of girdling, etiolation and IBA on sprouting and rooting characteristics of kiwifruit under Eastern Himalayan condition of West Bengal. J. Crop and Weed, Vol(No.): 00-00.
3. INTRODUCTION
A brief introductory paragraph (Times New Roman Font, 10 pt size, Sentence case, Double spaced, Justify alignment, First line of each paragraph should have 0.25 inch indentation) without heading and explaining the rationale and objective of the paper with pertinent review of research work should be provided. No need to write the heading “Introduction”. After keywords, just start writing the introductory paragraph. The introduction should not be too lengthy.
4. MATERIALS AND METHODS
Write the heading as ‘MATERIALS AND METHODS’ (Times New Roman Font, 10 pt size, Bold, Upper case/All Caps, Double spaced, Left alignment). It should provide adequate information on the materials used and techniques followed in sufficient detail to permit the work to be repeated. The year of experimentation, location of experiment (preferably with geographical coordinates and elevation), treatment details, experimental design and statistical methods employed for the collection and analysis of data, etc. should be provided. All information (techniques, analysis protocol, experimental design and statistical methods, etc.) should be supported with references, wherever applicable. Methods that are already published should be summarized and indicated by a reference. If quoting directly from a previously published method, use quotation marks and also cite the source. Any modifications to existing methods should also be described. The body of the Materials and Methods should be written in Times New Roman Font, 10 pt size, Sentence case, Double spaced, Justify alignment and First line of each paragraph should have 0.25 inch indentation. The equations/formulae (if any) should be given using ‘Equation Tab’ or ‘Text Box’ available in MS Word Menu. For more than one equation/formula, each equation/formula should be numbered as ---i, ---ii, ---iii and so on. Please provide the equations/formulae as editable text and not as images. All measurements should be given in SI or SI-derived units. The following examples may be followed: 10 kg ha-1, 2.5 mg ml-1, etc. The scientific name of plants, insects, microbes, etc. should be given on their first mention in the manuscript and wherever necessary. Similarly, the active ingredient of commercial products should be mentioned in this section.
5. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
(a) Results and Discussion: Write the heading as ‘RESULTS AND DISCUSSION’ (Times New Roman Font, 10 pt size, Bold, Upper case/All Caps, Double spaced, Left alignment). Subheadings (if any) should be written in Times New Roman Font, 10 pt size, Bold, Italics, Sentence case, Double spaced, Left alignment. The Results and Discussion part should be combined to avoid repetitions and written in Times New Roman Font, 10 pt size, Sentence case, Double spaced, Justify alignment and First line of each paragraph should have 0.25 inch indentation. This should illustrate the results obtained and the logical explanation for the said results in a clear and crisp language. This section should also explore the significance of the results of the work in relation to other relevant and recently published works. Same data should not be presented in table and figure simultaneously. The article should end with definite conclusion drawn from the results obtained in the light of rationale of the study. The results and discussion should preferably be supported by tables and figures. The number of tables and figures should be clearly mentioned in the relevant section of the text as Table 1, 2…. and Fig. 1, 2….
6. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
If any, a brief acknowledgement may be given. Write the heading as ACKNOWLEDGEMENT (Times New Roman Font, 10 pt size, Bold, Upper case/All Caps, Double spaced, Justify alignment). The acknowledgement should recognize the physical support, funding support, administrative help, analytical service, technical guidance, etc. received by the authors. The body of the acknowledgement should be written in Times New Roman Font, 10 pt size, Sentence case, Double spaced, Justify alignment. This statement is optional.
7. DISCLOSURE STATEMENTS
All authors mandatorily disclose following statements categorically. The statement should be written in Times New Roman Font, 10 pt size, Sentence case, Double spaced, Justify alignment.
Conflict of interest (if any): Should be provided in brief.
A sample disclosure statement is as given below:
“The author(s) declare(s) no known conflict of interests that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.”
Author(s) contribution(s): Should be provided in brief categorically. Read authorship statement for details.
Author(s) statement: All authors read, reviewed, agreed and approved the final manuscript. The manuscript has not been submitted to any other journal for publication.
Note: Written consent must be obtained from all authors prior to publication.
Study area / Sample collection: The study area for the experiment has to be mentioned in brief.
Ethical approval: Should be provided in brief.
8. REFERENCES
(a) Citation in text: All citations in the text should refer to:
- Single author: The author's family name (without initials unless there is ambiguity) and the year of publication [e.g. ….reported by Mitra (2007) or ….with earlier work (Mitra, 2007)].
- Two authors: Both authors' family names and the year of publication [e.g. ….reported by Singh and Kumar (2011) or ….with earlier work (Singh and Kumar, 2011)].
- Three or more authors: first author's family name followed by 'et al.' and the year of publication [e.g. ….reported by Pihur et al. (2008) or ….with earlier work (Pihur et al., 2008)].
- More than one reference from the same author(s) in the same year must be identified by the letters 'a', 'b', 'c', etc., placed after the year of publication [e.g. Sundaram (2015a and 2015b)].
- Groups of references can be listed either first chronologically, and then alphabetically [e.g. …reported by previous workers (Joshi 2001a, 2001b; Sharma and Ali, 2003; Manikandan et al., 2003) or …as demonstrated by Joshi (2001a and 2001b), Sharma and Ali (2003) and Manikandan et al. (2003)].
(b) Reference list: Write the heading as REFERENCES
(Times New Roman Font, 10 pt size, Bold, Upper case/All Caps, Double spaced, Justify alignment). Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). All references should be given as per the recommended style of the journal and written in
Times New Roman Font, 10 pt size, Double spaced, Justify alignment, 0.25 inch hanging indentation. Unpublished results are not recommended in the reference list as well as in the text. An article should not be referred as “in press’’. The reference should be cited in alphabetical order and should not be numbered. For web references, as a minimum, the full URL should be given and mention the date when the website was last accessed. Any further information, if available (e.g. DOI, author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.), may also be given. The journal name should be given in abbreviated form. Please follow the abbreviation style of NLM Catalogue (
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals) or CAS Source Index (
https://cassi.cas.org/no-result.jsp) or UC Berkeley - Library Guides (
https://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/bioscience-journal-abbreviations), wherever possible. The recommended reference styles for various categories of publications are listed below.
Journal
Gurung, B., Dutta, S., Singh, K.N., Lama, A., Vennila, S. and Gurung, B. 2023. The development of a statistical model for forewarning Helicoverpa armigera infestation using beta regression. J. Crop and Weed, 19 (1): 210-15.
Journal with an article number
Van der Geer, J., Hanraads, J.A.J. and Lupton, R.A. 2018. The art of writing a scientific article. Heliyon. 19, e00205.
Book
Kumar, S., Tripathi, A.K., Palsaniya, D.R. and Ghosh, P.K. 2022. A Textbook on Recent Advances in Agronomy. 1st Edn., Kalynai Publishers, New Delhi, 462p.
Chapter in a book
Rodrigues, P.N., Machado, T., Pereira, L.S., Teixeira, J.L., El Amami, H.,Zairi, A. 2003. Feasibility of deficit irrigation with center-pivo to cope with limited water supplies in Alentejo, Portugal. In. Tools for Drought Mitigation in Mediterranean Regions (Eds. Rossi, G., Cancelliere, A., Pereira, L.S., Oweis, T., Shatanawi, M., Zairi, A.), Kluwer: Dordrecht Pub., The Netherlands, pp. 203–22.
Article in conference proceedings / Book of abstracts
Hazra, P. 2019. Smart horticulture for livelihood and nutritional security. Proceedings of the International Seminar on Agriskills for Convergence in Research, Industry and Livelihood. Crop and Weed Science Society, 28 November to 1 December, 2019, Kalyani, Nadia, West Bengal, India. pp. 42-45.
Reference to a website
First Advance Estimates of Production of Foodgrains for 2020-21. Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare, Government of India. 2021. https://agricoop.nic.in/sites/default/files/FirstEstimate2020-21.pdf accessed on 30 August, 2021.
9. TABLES AND FIGURES
(a) Table: Each table should be typed in Microsoft-Word Table format and not as image on a separate page at the end of the text (after references), and should be numbered using Arabic numerals. Number tables consecutively in accordance with their presentation in the text and place table notes, if any (for describing the abbreviation, alphabetical notations, etc. used in the table) below the table body. Be sparing in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in them do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article or in the figures. Construct the table in such a way so that it should not occupy much space and can be easily understandable by the readers. Horizontal and vertical lines within the table should not be marked. Avoid shading of table cells. Each table should contain a self-explanatory heading (e.g. Table 1: Effect of different treatments on growth and yield of paddy). The heading should be written in Times New Roman Font, 10 pt size, Bold, Sentence case, Double spaced, Justify alignment. Download an article from journal’s website (https://www.cropandweed.com/) and construct a table accordingly.
(b) Figure: Provide figure either in JPEG or TIFF format. Please do not embed the figures in the text instead place the figures in separate page after the tables. Number the figures consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text. Only original figures and photographs of high resolution should be given. Standard format of graphs should preferably be used and legends (if any) should be given. As far as possible, figure should be constructed in black & white/grayscale mode. Coloured figure should be given if it is absolute necessary. Using 3D bar charts should be avoided if 3D does not add any additional information or clarity. Ensure that each figure has a suitable caption. The caption should comprise a brief title (not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Explain all symbols and abbreviations used (if any) after the title. Symbols and lettering size will be 10 point in Times New Roman. The axis of the graph should be 0.5 point or 1.0 point. Do not draw figures with hairlines. Use black and white, hatched and cross hatched patterns for distinctness. Overlapping of the symbols and data should be avoided. Avoid variations in font size in a single figure. Use zero before a decimal number e.g. 0.3, 0.55 etc. Electronic changes or manipulation of micrographs or other digital figures / images are not allowed. Linear adjustment of contrast and brightness of colour may be applied to the entire image or plate equally. If more than one figures are grouped into a single figure, each sub-figure should be sequentially marked with alphabets as (a), (b), (c)… and described in the figure caption (e.g. Fig. 1: Visualization of the GRN using Cytoscape Software based on different scoring methods (a) Correlation, (b) Partial Least Square, (c) Principal Component Regression, (d) Ridge Regression and (e) Fisher’s weighted method). The figure caption should be written in Times New Roman Font, 10 pt size, Bold, Sentence case, Double spaced, Justify alignment. The artwork (e.g. image, graphics) should be of minimum 300 dpi resolution. Please do not use any artwork which are optimized for screen use (e.g. GIF, BMP, WPG, etc.) and of low resolution. Do not submit any image that are disproportionately large for the content. All maps/satellite images should have a measure of scale (e.g. scale bar), north arrow (or directional grid), and a legend and all print should be legible after 1/4th size reduction. Download an article from journal’s website (https://www.cropandweed.com/) and construct the figures accordingly. If required, journal may ask you to submit editable file of the figures.
10. ETHICAL STATEMENT
This section will start from a new page.
(a) Animal and clinical studies: Investigations using experimental animals must state in the Materials and Methods section that the research was conducted in accordance with the internationally accepted principles for laboratory animal use and care as recommended by the competent authority [e.g. Office of Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision of Experiments on Animal (CPCSEA), Govt. of India] along with Approval No. and Registration No. of approving authority. The editor may reject papers if there is any doubt about the suitability of the animal used.
(b) Biodiversity rights: Each country has its own rights on its biodiversity. Consequently, for studying plants one needs to follow the international, national and institutional rules concerning the biodiversity rights. The author(s) must state that they have not breached any Acts or Rules pertains to Biodiversity rights of any country or state.
The author(s) must declare that, “The study was performed according to the international, national and institutional rules considering animal experiments, clinical studies and biodiversity rights. Necessary approval has been obtained from ___________________ Vide Approval No. ________________ dated ________.”
If the work does not involve any animal experiments or is not related to biodiversity rights, the author(s) should write “Not applicable”.
Write the heading as ETHICAL STATEMENT (Times New Roman Font, 10 pt size, Bold, Upper case/All Caps, Double spaced, Left alignment). The statement should be written in Times New Roman Font, 10 pt size, Sentence case, Double spaced, Justify alignment.
11. COPYRIGHT STATEMENT FOR USING THIRD-PARTY MATERIAL
The author(s) must obtain the necessary permission to reuse third-party material in the article. The use of short extracts of text citing the original authors is usually permitted for writing prior art or discussion. However, if author(s) wants to include any other material (e.g. tables, figures, dataset, artwork/photographs, diagram, design, etc.) in the paper which is protected by copyrights, they have to mandatorily obtain written permission from the copyright owner prior to submission and the source of the materials used should be indicated in the article.
The author(s) must declare that “The article contains copyrights protected material and necessary permission has been obtained from the copyright holder”.
In such cases, the journal may request you to submit a copy of the permission letter.
If the work does not use any copyrighted material, the author(s) should mention “The article does not contain any copyrights protected material”.
Write the heading as COPYRIGHT STATEMENT (Times New Roman Font, 10 pt size, Bold, Upper case/All Caps, Double spaced, Left alignment). The statement should be written in Times New Roman Font, 10 pt size, Sentence case, Double spaced, Justify alignment.
12. AUTHORSHIP STATEMENT
For transparency, we encourage authors to submit an authorship statement file outlining their individual contributions to the paper using the relevant roles: Conceptualization; Data acquisition; Data analysis; Fund acquisition; Investigation; Methodology; Project administration; Resources; Software; Supervision; Validation; Visualization; Literature survey; Manuscript writing, Manuscript editing; etc. Write the heading as AUTHORSHIP STATEMENT (Times New Roman Font, 10 pt size, Bold, Upper case/All Caps, Double spaced, Left alignment). The statement should be written in Times New Roman Font, 10 pt size, Sentence case, Double spaced, Justify alignment. The statement may be written as follows.
Name of Author A: Idea conceptualization, experimentation and manuscript writing
Name of Author B: Data analysis
Name of Author C: Literature survey and manuscript editing
Name of Author D: …….
13. LIST OF ABBREVIATION
If any abbreviations (other than standard abbreviations) or short name of chemicals/ formulations, etc. are used in the article, the author(s) should provide a list of all such abbreviation along with their expanded form to facilitate the reviewers. All such non-standard abbreviation must be defined at their first mention in the article itself. If the article does not contain any such abbreviation, the author(s) should mention “Not applicable”. Write the heading as LIST OF ABBREVIATION (Times New Roman Font, 10 pt size, Bold, Upper case/All Caps, Double spaced, Left alignment). The list of abbreviation should be written in Times New Roman Font, 10 pt size, Sentence case, Double spaced, Left alignment.
14. SUBMISSION DECLARATION
Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract, a published lecture or an academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, including electronically without the written consent of the Journal of Crop and Weed. A sample Submission Declaration is as given below.
“I/We hereby declare that
- the article is an original work carried out by the authors,
- the work is done within the previous five years of the submission,
- the work is in no way contravenes the publication ethics of the Journal of Crop and Weed,
- while preparing the manuscript, copying and or plagiarizing has been avoided,
- the article, in part or full, has not been previously published and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere,
- the article has been approved by all authors for submission to the Journal,
- there is no conflict of interest among the authors or any other individual or organisation etc.,
- if accepted, the article will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, including electronically without the written consent of the Journal of Crop and Weed,
- all persons/establishments who have contributed to the said work in terms of financial/intellectual and other helps have been duly acknowledged,
- copyright of the article (if published) will be vested on the Crop and Weed Science Society, and
- the article can be published in Journal’s website as open access.”
Write the heading as SUBMISSION DECLARATION (Times New Roman Font, 10 pt size, Bold, Upper case/All Caps, Double spaced, Left alignment). The statement should be written in Times New Roman Font, 10 pt size, Sentence case, Double spaced, Left alignment. To verify originality, your article will be checked by the plagiarism detection software, failing which the article will be rejected.
15. LIST OF POTENTIAL REVIEWERS
The author(s) are requested to provide a list of minimum four potential reviewers. However, it is not an indication that your paper will be sent to the same reviewers. The list of reviewers should be furnished in the following format.
S.N. | Name | Designation | Institute | Specialization | Email ID |
1. | | | | | |
2. | | | | | |
3. | | | | | |
4. | | | | | |