Livestock Research for Rural Development

2007, Volume 19, Number 9

Notes to Authors: Guide for preparation of papers

Papers and posters should be sent by E-mail to the Senior Editor trpreston@mekarn.org. If acknowledgement is not received within two weeks then authors should send a reminder to the Senior Editor with details of the file names and dates sent.

The papers can be written with the aid of any of the principal word processing software programs and should be sent by e-mail as an attachment and with "LRRD" in the subject line. Email messages with attachments and unknown subject lines are not opened in view of virus risks.  

1.      This reviewer appreciates the pressure put on academics to publish in order to maintain theor positions  This very pressure should, however, encourage authors to be more rigorous in their presentation.  If they evince a lack of interest in accuracy they should not expect that an increasingly frustrated referee, giving freely of his time and experience, should contain his frustration and make the paper accurate for them.

2.      There is only one sure way of guaranteeing that authors present their papers in a carefully prepared and acceptable form – that is to reject those that do not conform to these standards.  My recommendation is that this paper be rejected and the authors advised that future papers submitted by them will not be considered unless they themselves provide an assurance that, as far as possible, these elementary errors have been removed.

 

The principle tools for publishing the journal are now: Open Office 2.1,  Microsoft Office XP, Corel Office 2000 (Word Perfect), Lotus 123.  These are the preferred formats for receiving papers and short communications..

Authors should examine carefully recent papers  in the journal and follow the style currently in use.

Body of Text

- For Page Set up Use: Paper size A4 and Margins 2.5 cm
- Use the font "Times New Roman" 12 pt.
- Do not use full word capitals for titles nor for names of authors.
- Include your e-mail address below your postal address in the Title
- Indicate the Keywords after the Abstract in alphabetical order
- Separate the Titles and associate-titles from the previous and next lines by an empty line, using the ‘return’ or ‘enter’ key
- Separate each paragraph by an empty line, using the ‘return’ or ‘enter’ key
- Make sure the paragraphs are aligned to the left not  “justified”
- Do not use an indent in the beginning of each paragraph

In text and tables:

Ensure that numbers contain only three digits after or before “000... ”
Eg: 234.214 becomes 234
1.2367 becomes 1.24
0.00032176 becomes 0.000322
for R² only two digits after or before “00... ”
eg: R² = 0.677 becomes R² = 0.68

Graphics:

Where possible, please always supply in Excel, Open Office Calc or Lotus 123 the original spreadsheets and data which were used to produce graphics in the papers, since this allows us to produce a uniform look and maintain the quality of the finished journal. Within the graphics Font should be: Arial – Regular – 10 pt.

Tables:

Please format using the Table menu, and not Tabs and Spaces
- when using the tabular format please allot a new cell to each piece of data.
- include the title of the table as well as the notes at the bottom of table inside the Table itself not in the body of the text.

Example:

References:

In the text, do not put a ‘coma’ between the name and the date. Do not put a ‘dot’ after ‘et al’.

Example: (Gueye et al 1998)

They should be set up with minimum punctuation but maximum detail of the actual citation. Abbreviations of journal titles should not be used. In the list of references, citations to "Livestock Research for Rural Development" should include the appropriate "URL" for the article. For example, for papers published prior to 2004, the citations are of the following format.

Guèye E F, Ndiaye A and Branckaert R D S 1998 Prediction of body weight on the basis of body measurements in mature indigenous chickens in Senegal; Livestock Research for Rural Development. (10) 3: http://www.cipav.org.co/lrrd/lrrd10/3/sene103.htm

Beginning in 2004, the format is changed to:

Cerón-Muñoz M F, Tonhati H, Costa C N, Rojas-Sarmiento D and Solarte Portilla C 2004 Variance heterogeneity for milk yield in Brazilian and Colombian Holstein herds. Livestock Research for Rural Development. Volume 16, Article #20 Retrieved June 1, 2004, from http://www.cipav.org.co/lrrd/lrrd16/4/cero16020.htm

Check that this URL is correct and functioning by clicking on it: it should lead you to the Web site.!

PLEASE:

- Use the Spell-Check tool in order to correct any spelling mistake, and

- Ensure that references in the text are in the reference list and vice versa.

An easy way to check this latter point is to print the reference list and then from the beginning of the text to use the "FIND" command and type "19" and then "20". This will locate all the references assuming you have cited correctly the source including the date.

1.      The reviewers appreciate the pressure put on academics to publish in order to maintain their positions  This very pressure should, however, encourage authors to be more rigorous in their presentation.  If they evince a lack of interest in accuracy they should not expect that increasingly frustrated referees, giving freely of their time and experience, should contain their frustrations and make the paper accurate for them.

2.      If authors do not present their papers in a carefully prepared and acceptable form, in accordance with LRRD standards described in this note, the paper will be returned to the authors and will be definitively rejected if no correction is sent within 2 weeks,

Proof reading of papers:

A paper written for LRRD in "html" has a number of supporting files including the "style" of headings and the images of graphs and photos. This creates some difficulties for editors and authors for the final "proof-reading" of the papers when these are sent by E-mail,  as the editors have to ensure that the supporting files are attached along with the paper; and the author, when she / he receives the paper,  has to put all the files in the same folder to be sure that when the paper is opened it will appear complete on the screen.  To avoid these inconveniences, each paper as it is edited is being made available as a provisional "url" which is communicated to authors when the final version of their paper is ready in html format. Authors can then check the paper for possible errors or last minute corrections and inform the editors accordingly. Queries on the proofs made by the editors are indicated in "red" (suggested rejection) or "blue" (suggested additions or changes).

Authors sending corrections to the proofs should send an email to the Chief Editor in the following format:

• data / text to be replaced should be written in "red" font
• new data / text should be written in "blue" font

Do not send a copy of the whole paper as this would require the editors repeating the whole process of conversion to HTML format, which can be quite time-consuming.

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