GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORS
Indian Journal of Ecology [ISSN: xyza-ncde (Print), ISSN: nckd-mcke (Online)] publishes original reviews (by invitation) and full length papers on basic and applied research on various aspects of Agricultural Ecology. Manuscripts should be uploaded online following the link given at end of these guidelines. All the authors should be members of the Indian Ecological Society, PAU campus Ludhiana-141 004, Punjab, India (foreign authors have relaxation).
Manuscripts for considering publication in the journal should be prepared under the headings: TITLE, AFFILIATION, ABSTRACT, KEY-WORDS, INTRODUCTION, MATERIAL AND METHODS, RESULTS AND DISCUSSION, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS, ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS and LITERATURE CITED (capitalize all section headings including the title). All manuscripts submitted for publication will be peer reviewed and assessed for their acceptability and necessary modifications. An already published paper or under consideration for publication, wholly or substantially elsewhere, cannot be accepted. The article submitted for publication in the journal should not have data older than 5 years. The cut-off date will be March 31 for winter (Rabi) crop and September 30 for a summer/ rainy season (Kharif) crop.
Title of the paper, name(s) and address(es) of authors, a short running title of the paper (<50 characters conveying main theme of the article), acknowledgements (if any), and name of all the authors (with e-mail addresses) should be given on separate page (Title page). Identity of authors should not be disclosed/ indicated in any form in the text of the paper as the journal followed double blind system of review. Footnotes should be numbered in plain Arabic superscripts.The manuscript should be typed in Times New Roman with font size of 12.
Title of the paper should be informative but concise and should not contain abbreviation(s). In byline, all the name(s) with initial(s) of the authors should have an Arabic superscript (starting from first author e.g. SK Chauhan1 , AK Singh1 , RL Sharma2 , CP Gupta1 and BR Bhardwaj3 ) which should subsequently mention affiliations and addresses of all the authors.
ABSTRACT should not have reference to literature and tables/ figures and its length should be less than 200 words. An abstract must be self-explanatory and should include the objectives, methodology, important points in the results and a conclusion.
KEY WORDS (3-5) should indicate the most important findings, material and operations in the article.
INTRODUCTION should be brief (less than one typed page) and include justification for undertaking the investigation and a short review of earlier work. Statement of problem, gaps in research, justification of the research work and objectives of the study should be emphasized in this section of MS.
MATERIALS AND METHODS section of the paper should be systematic and elaborative. Arrange write-up under this section into sub-heads if needed. MS Equation facility of MS Word should be used to write formula. Known methods of research/ analysis shouldn’t be explained and a reference should be cited for further clarification for the same.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION should be presented in single section to avoid the repetitions. Results should be discussed at 5% or less level of probability and should be concise and in logical order. Same data shouldn’t be presented in tables as well as figures/ charts. All figures and tables should be cited in text and should have concise and self-explanatory headings. The results should be based on statistical analysis with minimum data. Discussion should be oriented towards explaining the significance and implications of the results obtained and should be well connected with the previous work in this direction. Simple narration of the data presented in tables and figures should be avoided in this section and an effort should be made to relate the flow of information to the objectives of the study with an emphasis on implications of the findings to fellow researchers, policy makers and other beneficiaries of the research. Statements not based on the current study should be supported with references. Results should be written concisely in a logical order. All data must invariably be given in metric and decimal system. Data presented in figures should not be duplicated in tables and vice versa.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS section should crystallise the summary of results and their implications for further research and/ or solving the problem at various levels. Any part of the text in this section shouldn’t be taken verbatim from other section(s) of the paper.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS section should be very brief and should clearly specify the support and contribution (physical, financial and intellectual) of all persons and entities that have directly and indirectly contributed towards accomplishment of the research to be submitted for considering publication in this journal.
LITERATURE CITED shouldn’t be older than 10 years unless the reference is highly important or is a landmark in a particular field. References from standard scientific journals should be preferred for citation and as far as possible the unpublished references shouldn’t be cited. References should be listed alphabetically and then chronologically if the same first author has been cited multiple times.
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IMPORTANT NOTES Due to the high cost of production, only essential information should be included in the paper. Normally the paper should be less than 15 typed pages and 4000 words including tables, figures, references and appendices. However, solicited review papers should be within 6000 words. Manuscripts requiring more than minor corrections will be returned to the authors for revision.
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The citation of reference in the text should be as Dhawan and Chauchan (1985) or (Dhawan and Chauchan 1985), Sharma et al (1991) or (Sharma et al 1991) depending on composition of the sentence. Two or more than two references cited jointly should be arranged chronologically and distinguished from each other by (,) except that the word ‘and’ should be used between the last two references.
Complete scientific name of the insect with its full name of authority must be given on its first mention. The contributors must ensure the authenticity of current scientific name and authority.
SI units: Use SI units; few examples are given below. No dot or full stop is used after the abbreviation of units. Quintal (q) and Acre should not be used. Use kg/ha, or t/ha. Similarly, prefer use of g/ha, mg/kg, mg/l, mg/g, ml/l etc. Do not follow the style kg ha-1 or t ha-1 . Standard symbol for INR/ Rupee/ Rupees (₹) may be used.
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Useful hints: All scientific or technical names as well as all data and facts must be rechecked carefully before submitting the manuscript. Avoid expressing data in ‘lakhs’, instead use ‘thousand’ or ‘million’. Only standard abbreviations should be used and these should invariably be explained at first appearance. Names of plant protection chemicals should not be capitalized, however, the trade names (avoid mentioning trade names unless essential) should be capitalized. Use of unnecessary abbreviations and treatment symbols such as T1, T2 etc. under MATERIALS AND METHODS or tables without actually using these under RESULTS AND DISCUSSION should be avoided. Use % after numbers (not per cent) e.g. 7%. In a series or range of measurements, mention the units only at end, e.g. use 30, 100, 170 and 300cm (not 30cm, 100cm, 170cm and 300cm); 20 or 30% more (not 20% or 30% more). Statistical analysis of data in the standard experimental design should be sound and complete in itself with both SEm± and CD (P=0.05) values given for comparison of treatment means in tables and figures.
REVIEW POLICY: Every article is reviewed by two reviewers and the revised article will have to be submitted within 15 days and any further delay will result in change of date of receipt of article. Articles not in the format of the journal will not be considered for processing for publication. The average time period for conveying decision on the publication in the journal is less than 120 days
DECLARATION: The corresponding author will have to sign following declaration at the end of the paper before submission of the manuscript to this journal: “I hereby certify on behalf of all authors that this research work has not been published before fully or partially (except in the form of an abstract, as part of an unpublished conference presentation or thesis) and it is also not under consideration for publication elsewhere. I further certify that this work will not be submitted to any other publisher for publishing in any form before Indian Journal of Ecology takes decision of not publishing it. I also declare that all authors duly understand that the copyright of this research work will automatically be transferred to the publisher in case the manuscript is accepted for publication.”