Reviewer Guidelines

”Review for others as you would have others review for you“.- McPeek et al., 2009

Peer review has an important role in ensuring the integrity of the scholarly record and as such it depends to a large extent on trust, and requires that everyone involved behaves responsibly and ethically. Since the Peer reviewers play a central and critical part in the peer review process, our peer reviewers are asked to adhere to “The COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers”, which sets out the basic principles and standards to which all peer reviewers should adhere during the peer review process.

Peer reviewers should agree to review manuscripts for which they have the subject expertise only and should declare if they do not have the subject expertise required to carry out the review. Or if they are able to assess only part of the manuscript, they should outline clearly the areas for which they have the relevant expertise and should not agree to review a manuscript just to gain sight of it with no intention of submitting a review.

Peer reviewers have to carry out a proper assessment and which they can assess in a timely manner. They should only agree to review a manuscript if they are fairly confident that they can return a review within the proposed or mutually agreed time-frame, informing the journal promptly if they require an extension. They should contact the journal if circumstances arise that will prevent them from submitting a timely review, providing an accurate estimate of the time they will need to do a review if still asked to do so. They should not intentionally prolong the review process, either by delaying the submission of their review or by requesting unnecessary additional information from the journal or author.

Peer reviewers should respect the confidentiality of peer review and not reveal any details of a manuscript or its review, during or after the peer-review process, beyond those that are permitted by the journal and should not use information obtained during the peer-review process for their own or any other person’s or organization’s advantage, or to disadvantage or discredit others.

Peer reviewers should not allow their reviews to be influenced by the origins of a manuscript, by the nationality, religious or political beliefs, gender or other characteristics of the authors, or by commercial considerations.

Peer reviewers must be objective and constructive in their reviews, refraining from being hostile or inflammatory and from making libelous or derogatory personal comments.

Peer reviewers should provide journals with personal and professional information that is accurate and a true representation of their expertise and should recognize that impersonation of another individual during the review process is considered serious misconduct.

A potential conflict of interest in reviewing a particular paper when the reviewer has recent or ongoing collaborations with the authors in the past five years, helped the authors on drafts of the manuscript, have direct competition in the same research area, have a history of disputes with the authors or have a financial interest in the outcome. Peer reviewers should declare any potentially conflicting or competing interests (which may, for example, be personal, financial, intellectual, professional, political or religious),and should seek advice from the journal if they are unsure whether something constitutes a relevant interest. Peer reviewers should also notify the journal immediately and seek advice if they discover either a conflicting interest during the review that wasn’t apparent when they agreed to the review or anything that might prevent them providing a fair and unbiased review.

Peer reviewers should inform the journal if: they work at the same institution as any of the authors (or will be joining that institution or are applying for a job there); they are or have been recent (e.g. ithin the past 3 years) mentors, mentees, close collaborators or joint grant holders; they have a close personal relationship with any of the authors.

Peer reviewers should review afresh any manuscript they have previously reviewed for another journal as it may have changed between the two submissions and the journals’ criteria for evaluation and acceptance may be different.

Peer reviewers should ensure suggestions for alternative reviewers are based on suitability and not influenced by personal considerations or made with the intention of the manuscript receiving a specific outcome (either positive or negative).

Peer reviewers should decline to review if they feel unable to provide a fair and unbiased review, if they have been involved with any of the work in the manuscript or its reporting, if asked to review a manuscript that is very similar to one they have in preparation or under consideration at another journal and if they have issues with the peer-review model used by our journal that would either affect their review or cause it to be invalidated because of their inability to comply with the journal’s review policies

Peer reviewers should read the manuscript, ancillary material (e.g. reviewer instructions, required ethics and policy statements, supplemental data files) and journal instructions thoroughly, getting back to the journal if anything is not clear and requesting any missing or incomplete items they need to carry out a full review.

Peer reviewers should not involve anyone else in the review of a manuscript, including junior researchers they are mentoring, without first obtaining permission from the journal; the names of any individuals who have helped them with the review should be included with the returned review so that they are associated with the manuscript in the journal’s records and can also receive due credit for their efforts.

Peer reviewers should keep all manuscript and review details confidential and should not contact the authors directly without the permission of the journal. If the Peer reviewer suspects the identity of the author(s), it should be notified to the journal if this knowledge raises any potential conflict of interest.

Peer reviewers should notify the journal immediately if they come across any irregularities, have concerns about ethical aspects of the work, are aware of substantial similarity between the manuscript and a concurrent submission to another journal or a published article, or suspect that misconduct may have occurred during either the research or the writing and submission of the manuscript; reviewers should, however, keep their concerns confidential and not personally investigate further unless the journal asks for further information or advice.

Peer reviewers should ensure their review is based on the merits of the work and not influenced, either positively or negatively, by any personal, financial, or other conflicting considerations or by intellectual biases.

Peer reviewers should bear in mind that the editor is looking to them for subject knowledge, good judgment and an honest and fair assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the work and the manuscript and be objective and constructive in their reviews and provide feedback that will help the authors to improve their manuscript.

Peer reviewers should not make derogatory personal comments or unfounded accusations.

Peer reviewers should be specific in their criticisms, and provide evidence with appropriate references to substantiate their statements to help our editors in their evaluation and decision and in fairness to the authors.

Peer reviewers should remember it is the authors’ paper and not attempt to rewrite it to their own preferred style (suggestions for changes that improve clarity are, however, important) and be aware of the sensitivities surrounding language issues that are due to the authors writing in a language that is not their own, and phrase the feedback appropriately and with due respect.

Peer reviewers should make clear which suggested additional investigations are essential to support claims made in the manuscript under consideration and which will just strengthen or extend the work.

Peer reviewers should not suggest that authors include citations to the reviewer’s (or their associates’) work merely to increase the reviewer’s (or their associates’) citation count or to enhance the visibility of their or their associates’ work; suggestions must be based on valid academic or technological reasons.

Peer reviewers should continue to keep details of the manuscript and its review confidential, respond promptly if contacted by about matters related to their review of a manuscript and provide the information required, contact the journal if anything relevant comes to light after they have submitted their review that might affect their original feedback and recommendations, read the reviews from the other reviewers, if these are provided by the journal, to improve their own understanding of the topic or the decision reached and try to accommodate requests to review revisions or resubmissions of manuscripts they have reviewed.

Reviewers should not disclose their identities to the authors or to other colleagues and one will not take unfair advantage from having seen the paper as a reviewer, or try to steal their ideas.

The peer reviewers should make sure that they make specific useful comments on the writing, organization, methods, and interpretation of the results and provide a constructive review to authors.

The Peer Reviewer should assess the quality of the paper and give a report on the following aspects:

1). Originality of the article and the novelty of the ideas and techniques reported in the manuscript compared to the existing literature. Prevent the publication of bad work – filter out studies that have been poorly conceived, designed or executed. Provide editors with evidence to make judgments as to whether articles meet the selection criteria for their particular publications

2). Scientific Rigour i.e, whether the experiments have been carried out in a scientific way, whether all necessary details of the methods are given in such a way that they can be reproduced, whether the results have been appropriately analysed and discussed including the testability of any theoretical predictions or modeling and the likely impacts of the results presented in the article in the respective field(s). Check that the research reported has been carried out well and there are no flaws in the design or methodology. Ensure that the results are not too preliminary or too speculative, but at the same time do not block innovative new research and theories.

3), Interpretation and conclusions are appropriate and sufficiently derived from/focused on the data and discussed in the light of previous evidence/reports. Ensure that the results presented have been interpreted correctly and all possible interpretations considered. Ensure that the work is reported correctly and unambiguously, with acknowledgement to the existing body of work

4). References are up to date and relevant without any glaring omissions.

5). Abstract/summary/key messages are appropriate about what this paper adds and they accurately reflect what the paper says.

6).Comments on the Documents in the supplemental files as to whether they properly match what is in the manuscript or Do they contain information that should be better reported in the manuscript or raise questions about the work.

7). Clarity of writing of the article and how well the authors have conveyed the information.

The Peer Reviewer should Reject manuscripts that require substantial revision and also reject manuscripts with trivial or insignificant results and minor contributions to the subject area even if they are well written.

In case reviewer reports are received with opposing views, we will send the manuscripts and reports to an editorial board member with relevant expertise to adjudicate. The board member would make a recommendation after considering the reviewer’s comments and then a publication decision would be made.

The authors have the right to appeal against a rejection within four weeks of the original decision by addressing the reviewers’ criticisms in detail in the appeal. Appeals would be sent to the Publication Committee for consideration. If successful, the manuscript would re-enter the peer review processes with new review report collected or further revision required by the Publication Committee. If the appeal is rejected, the original rejection decision is final and the paper would not further be considered.

Peer Reviewers’ reports should unambiguously answer the following questions:

1. Is the article in line with the journal’s scope?. Yes/No (Doubtful since the Editor has accepted it for review. However, contact the Editor for clarification before proceeding.).
2. Does your expertise cover all aspects of the article? If not, describe which sections you can respond to and why?
3. “Mirror” the article. Make a first draft describing the main aim of the article and why it’s innovative.
4. Is the article publishable in principle? Yes/ No. If No, Describe the fatal flaws and submit your review. If Yes, continue with the rest of the questions.
5. Do the Introduction and Abstract clearly identify the need and relevance for this research? Please Specify Major Issues and Minor Issues.
6. Does the Methodology target the main question(s) appropriately? Please Specify Major Issues and Minor Issues.
7. Are the Results clearly and logically presented, and are they justified by the data presented? Are the figures clear and fully described? Please Specify Major Issues and Minor Issues.
8. Do the Conclusions justifiably respond to main questions the author(s) posed? Do the Conclusions go too far or not far enough based on the results? Please Specify Major Issues and Minor Issues.
9. Is the manuscript’s story cohesive and tightly reasoned throughout?If not, where does it deviate from the central argument? Please Specify Major Issues and Minor Issues.
10. How are the grammar and spelling in the manuscript? Please Specify Major Issues and Minor Issues.

Round off your review with a comment about whether you like to peer review a re-submitted version of the paper, or if you look forward to reviewing the next round of edits.

Compile your responses to the points above into a single document. Here is a suggested order for your review: A. Introduction: Mirror the article, and give your opinion whether the paper is publishable or if there are fatal flaws; B. Major issues: C. Minor issues;D. Other itsy-bitsy suggestions.

Comments should be constructive and designed to enhance the manuscript. You should consider yourself the authors’ mentor. Make your comments as complete and detailed as possible. Express your views clearly with supporting arguments and references as necessary. Include clear opinions about the strengths, weaknesses and relevance of the manuscript, its originality and its importance to the field. Specific comments that cite line numbers are most helpful. If you feel unqualified to address certain aspects of the manuscript, please include a statement to identify these areas. Please change text that could be considered rude before you submit!,

The manuscript is to be reviewed within 30 days. All Reviewers should sign a conflict of interest statement. Revised manuscripts received from the authors are usually returned to the initial Reviewers. Reviewers if required, may ask for more than one revision of a manuscript.

Reviewers’ Comments to the Author will be submitted to the Handling Editor and the Editor-in-Chief. They are also communicated to the authors and to the other anonymous reviewers of the manuscript once the editor has made a decision.

The editor-in-chief informs corresponding author about the decision with the detailed comments provided by reviewers. The decision will be either of “Accept”, “Minor revision requiring No re-review”, “Minor revision requiring re-review”, “Major revision required”, or “reject”

Author Guidelines

Author Guidelines

Scientific Transactions in Environment and Technovation

General information

Authors should carefully go through this Guidelines for Authors before preparing manuscripts for submission. Authors should also go through the information given in Editor Guidelines, Reviewer Guidelines, Publication Ethics ,Editorial Workflow, nd Peer Review Policy of the journal before preparing their manuscripts. Furthermore, they should refer papers in the recent issue (also published in internet www.stetjournals.com) for formatting the manuscript. A Model Manuscript can be downloaded from the menu “Submission” of the website. Manuscripts, which do not comply with the guidelines, will be rejected. Authors should see that the English is checked and polished before submission to avoid delay in publication.

1. Use active voice whenever feasible, and write in first person.
2. Use British spelling and grammar conventions throughout, except in non - British quotations and references.
3. Research theses/reports are usually not written in a style suitable for publication      in Scientific Transactions in Environment and Technovation. Chapters from theses/reports will therefore normally need to be condensed, reformatted and revised substantially before being submitted as manuscripts.
4. Prior to submission, inexperienced authors are especially advised to give the manuscript to friends and colleagues for comment and for English correction and/or use English language correction services.

File formats

Authors should submit their manuscripts through online or by hard copy in triplicate (computer printouts) and an electronic copy in CD). Submit the whole manuscript including text, tables, figures (graphs and pictures) as a single file using Microsoft programme either as word (.doc) or Rich Text (.RTF) format. In the final stage the figures and pictures should be supplied as TIFF, GIF, JPEG, The graphs should be submitted as Excel graphs with respective data in the Excel file.

Copyright

1. Papers are accepted on the understanding that they are subject to editorial revision and that they are contributed only to this journal. Copyright in the article, including the right to reproduce the article in all forms and media, shall be assigned exclusively to the journal. The transfer of copyright to the journal takes effect when the manuscript is accepted for publication.
2. The publisher will send the author a copyright transfer agreement and offprint order form by email shortly before the proofs are ready. The author must complete these forms and return them to the publisher via mail. Authors will be given an electronic version of their article, which may be posted in the personal and/or institutional web pages after it has been published in the journal.

Proofs

The author will receive a proof of their article by email and should be returned immediately after carrying out the corrections

Disclaimer

The publisher is not liable for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions or ideas contained in the papers of the journal.

Cover Letter

A cover letter by the corresponding author must accompany the manuscript and should provide the following information.

1. An undertaking that this material has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere and all co - authors know that this manuscript has been submitted for publication in Scientific transactions in Environment and Technovation.
2. An explanation of overlap with other articles (published or in press in journals, books or conference proceedings, or in preparation) should be included in the cover letter accompanying this manuscript.
3. Furthermore authors are advised to suggest names of at least four potential referees (complete postal address and email address) for their papers; however, the Editor reserves the right to choose referees other than, or in addition to, those suggested.

Animal Welfare

In cases of use of animals in research, an undertaking should be given by the author(s) that the ethical consideration for the usage of animals in research are scrupulously followed and proper permissions have been obtained for the use of animals in research from the concerned authorities.

Formatting of Text

1. Type the manuscript with double line spacing and aligned left, including the abstract, figure legends and tables.
2. Use Times New Roman’ font and font size of 12 or larger
3. Print pages on one side only for editing purposes.
4. Manuscript should have continuous line numbers, page numbers and wide margins (at least 2 cm in all sides) throughout (including the abstract, references, tables and figures).
5. Separate each new paragraph and heading with a line space and do not indent any paragraph.
6. Use consistent punctuation; insert only a single space between words and after punctuation.
7. Type text without end - of - line hyphenation, except for compound words.
8. Use initial capitals only for proper names (e.g. names of people, places, etc.).
9. Use capital letters for vernacular name such as Short - eared Owl, Red - winged Grey Warbler, and if it is a group then use small letters such as but owls,warblers.
10. Do not use lower - case I (el) for ‘1’ (one) or O (oh) for 0 (zero); they have different typesetting values.
11. Refer papers in the recent issue for formatting methods.

Headings

Headings in the body of the manuscript should be brief. The usual main headings for Research Articles are; Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgments and References. Papers should be fit into this pattern with headings in capitals on a separate line and left align them on the page and on a separate line, and begin the main words with a capital letter. Start sub - subheadings on a new line, aligned full left, and italicize them. Start the text on a new line after subheadings and sub - subheadings. Further sub - headings need to be attached with the paragraph and it should be started with capital letter, bolded and italicized and finished with a colon. Try to keep headings and sub - headings short enough to fit within a Single column.

For Example

Main heading: METHODS Subheading: Study area Sub - subheading: Habitats

Further sub heading: Scrub jungle: Area contained......

Arrangement of the Manuscript

Arrange manuscripts in the following order: title page, abstract, keywords, text, acknowledgments, references, appendices, tables, and figures.

First page

The first page must include the following information.

1. Title: This should be concise and informative and avoid abbreviations.
2. Running headline: Provide a short title that does not exceed 6-7 words.
3. Authors: Add authors’ names below the title and provide complete postal address which includes street, box number, city name postal (zip) code and country.
4. Correspondence: At the bottom of the page, give the full postal address, contact  telephone number with area and country codes (both land line and mobile/cell numbers), fax number and email address of the corresponding author.
5. Count: A word count for the text which includes the whole text except table(s) and figure(s).

Abstract

The Abstract should describe the purpose of the  study, outline the major findings and state the main conclusions. It should be concise, informative, explicit and intelligible without reference to the text. Abstracts should usually be limited to 200 words. Use both common and scientific names of animals at first mention in the Abstract unless they are given in the title. Avoid using references in the abstract.

Keywords

An alphabetical list of up to 6 keywords should be provided below the abstract.

Introduction

The Introduction should be brief and less than two manuscript pages. It should explicitly state the reason for doing the work and place it within the context of existing work. Keep reference to a minimum and appropriate.

Materials and Methods

The methods should be sufficiently detailed to allow someone else to replicate the study. Give the names and addresses of companies providing trademarked products. Always state sample sizes. If the research is on animals include the age, sex, breed/strain and source of animals, if captive animals were used, include details of housing conditions such as cage size and type, bedding, group size and composition, lighting, temperature, ambient noise conditions and diet maintenance. The methods section may also contain a description of data analysis and statistics used.

Results

This section should include only results that are relevant to the aims and hypotheses outlined in the Introduction and considered in the Discussion. The text should complement material given in Tables or Figures but should not directly repeat it. Give full details of statistical analysis, samples, degrees of freedom and significance level either in the text or in Tables or Figure legends. Number Tables and Figures in the order to which they are referred in the text.

Discussion

Each paper should have a separate discussion section and this section should not be incorporated with results section. It is often helpful to begin the Discussion with a summary of the main results. The main purpose of the Discussion, however, is to comment on the significance of the results and set them in the context of previous work. The Discussion should be concise and not excessively speculative, and references should be kept to a minimum by citing review articles as much as possible.

References

For references in the text, give full surnames for papers by one or two authors, but only the surname of the first author, followed by et al. for three or more and et al., should be italicized. Check that all references in the text are in the reference list and vice versa, that their dates and spellings match, and that complete bibliographical details are given, including page numbers, names of editors, name of publisher and full place of publication if the article is published in a book.

Cite references in the text as, for example, Nagarajan and Thiyagesan (1996) or, if in parenthesis, as (Dhivaharan, 2003). Use lower case letters to distinguish between two papers by the same authors in the same year (e.g. Currey, 1977a). List multiple citations in chronological order (e.g. Harris, 1990; Goss-Custard, 1996; Zwarts et al., 1996; Dhivaharan, 2003; Swanson et al.,2004), using a semicolon to separate each reference, Cite references in the reference section in alphabetical, and then chronological, order according to the authors surname and date (year).

Format references in the following ways from a book

Harris, V.A. 1990. Sessile Animals of the Seashore. Chapman and Hall, London.

Goss- Custard, J. D. (Ed.). 1996 . The Oystercatchers: From Individuals to Populations. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford.

From a book chapter

Zwarts, L., Cayford, J., Hulscher, T., Kersten, J.B., Meire, M. and Triplet, P.M. 1996. Prey size selection and intake rate. In: Goss-Custard,J.D. (Ed.,) The Oystercatchers From Individuals to Population. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford. P. 30-55.

From book/ manual published by Organizations

(IPI) Indian Poultry Industry. 1994. Poultry Industry in India. Fact sheet, Year Book, 10th Annual Edition. Priyadarshini Vihar, New Delhi.

From a dissertation

Dhivaharan, V.2003. Limnobiotic profile of Thirumeni lake, Tamilnadu, Southern India, with special emphasis on molluscan diversity. Ph.D. dissertation, Bharathidasan Univ., Tiruchirappalli, India.

From the journals

Currey, J. D. 1977. Mechanical properties of mother of pearl in tension. Proc. R.Soc. Lon., B 96: 443-463.

Nagarajan, R. and Thiyagesan, K. 1996. Waterbird population and substrate quality of the  Pichavaram wetlands, Southern India. Ibis138:710-721.

Nagarajan, R., Goss-Custard, J.D. and Lea, S.E.G. 2002b. Oystercatchers use colour preference to achieve longer term optimality. Proc. R.Soc. Lond., B 269: 523-528.

Ghosh, N., Spering, M.Wilshaw, J. and Nagarajan, R.2003. Diurnal activity budgets of breeding Eurasian Oystercatchers Haematopus ostralegus feeding on limpets on rocky shores. Wader Stud, Grp. Bull., 101/102: 81-87.

From the conference proceedings With editor

Mahimairaha, S., Sakthivel, S., Divakaran, J., Naidu, R. and Ramasamy, K. 2000. Extent of contamination around tannery industry. In : Naidu, R., Willett, I.R., Mahimairaja, S., Kookana, R. and Ramasamy, K (Eds.), Proc. PRO088 : Towards Better Management Soils Contaminated by Tannery Waste. Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, Canberra, Australia. P. 75-82.

Without editor

Devarajan, L., Rajaraman, G. and Oblisami, G. 1998. Effect of distillery effluent irrigation on soil properties : yield and quality of oil seed crops. In : Proc. National Seminar on Application of Treated Effluent Irrigation; 1998 March 23; Regional Engineering College,Trichy, India. P. 19-23.

From the conference Abstract

Swanson, T.A., Blair, P. and Madigan, L. 2004. Reduction in medication errors through redesign of the mediation use systems (abstract). In: 39th Midyear meeting; 2004 December 5-9; Orlando. American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, Bethesda.

From the newspaper

Behera, B. and Reddy, V.R. 2002. Environmental and accountability impact of industrial pollution in rural communities. Economic and Political Weekly: 257-265; January 19, 2002.

From the Internet

Avoid referring materials from the internet/world wide web except refereed electronic journals.

Johnson, A. R. 1999. Scent marking in hyaenas: reply to jones. Anim. Behav. 57: F41-F43: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jnlabr/yanbe

For papers that are accepted in the course of publication, use in press to replace the date and give the journal name in the references. Cite unpublished manuscripts such as manuscript under preparation or submitted and talks in the text as unpublished data and personal information. Do not include these in the reference list.

Tables

Keep Tables as simple as possible and make them understandable without reference to the text. Type each table on a separate page. In addition:

1. Use Arabic numerals to number the Tables.
2. Give brief titles above the table with no punctuation at the end.
3. Use footnotes only to add information below the body of a Table.
4. Give extra information (e.g. the results of statistical tests, names and significance level) as a footnote below the table.
5. Tables should not contain vertical rules, and the main body of the table should not contain horizontal rules.
6. Large tables should be narrow (across the page) and long (down the page) rather than wide and short, so that they can be fitted into the column width of the journal.

Figures

1. A figure and its legend should be sufficiently informative that the results can be understood without reference to the text.
2. Figures should be large enough to allow for reproduction but not larger than A4 size, and should be designed with the widths of the columns in the journal in mind.
3. The preferred point symbols are open circle, Open Square, open triangle, filled circle, filled square, filled triangle. The preferred shadings are white, black and bold hatching. Avoid stippling, which does  not reproduce well.
4. Give keys and other explanations either in the legend or on the figure itself.
5. Number figures consecutively in Arabic numerals.
6. Abbreviate Figure to Fig. and to except when starting a sentence.
7. Make sure to use uniform lettering and sizing in original art work.

Numerals

Write numbers of 10 or more as numerals except at the beginning of a sentence.

Write the numbers one to nine in words, unless they precede units of measure or are used as designators (for example; two legs, 7F, 3cm, etc.).

Quote times of day using the 24-hour clock without a break of point in the middle and followed by h e.g. 1020 h.

Give years in full; e.g. ‘1991-1992’ and dates as 12 March 2004.

Do not quote decimals with naked points, for example quote 0.01, not .01.

Keep the decimals as few as possible in the text and tables. Also be consistent both in table and text for same data.

Abbreviations

Define abbreviations at their first occurrence in the article - in the abstract as well as in the main text. Ensure consistency of abbreviations throughout the article. Units and abbreviations should conform to the Systeme International d Unites (http://www.bipm.fr/en/si/si_brochure). Botanico - Periodicum - Huntianum (BPH)

Statistical conventions

Means and standard errors/standard deviations (and medians and interquartile ranges/confidence limits), with their associated sample sizes, are given in the format X + S.E. = 15.30 + 2.01 g; n=20

For significance tests, give the name of the test followed by a colon, the test statistic and its value, the degrees of freedom or sample size (whichever is the convention for the test) and the P value. F values should include two degrees of freedom. The different parts of the statistical quotation are separated by a comma.

If the test statistic is conventionally quoted with degrees of freedom, these are presented as a subscript to the test statistic. For example:

ANOVA: F1,11 = 8.87; P 0.05

Kruskal - Wallis test: H11= 439.9; P 0.01

Chi-square test: 2 = 0.21; P 0.05 Paired t test: t12 = 3.32; P 0.05

If the test is conventionally quoted with the sample size, this should follow the test statistic value. For example :

Spearman rank correlation: rs = 0.65; n = 16; P<0.01

Wilcoxon signed-ranks test: T = 9, n = 17; P<0.01

Mann-Whitney U test: U = 56, n1 = n2 = 19; P 0.02

The significance of regressions should be tested with F or t. R2 should be quoted.

P Values for significant outcomes can be quoted as below a threshold significance value (e.g. P 0.05, 0.01, 0.001), but wherever possible should be quoted as an exact probability value. Non-significant outcomes should preferably be indicated with an exact probability value, not as NS or P 0.05.

Where data have been transformed for parametric significance tests, the nature of the transformation and the reason for its selection (e.g. log, x, x2, arcsine) should be stated.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the verbatim copying, near-verbatim copying, or purposely paraphrasing portions of another authors paper is plagiarism. It is the practice of claiming or implying original authorship of (or incorporating material from) someone else written or creative work, in whole or in part, into ones own without adequate acknowledgement. Within academia, plagiarism by students, professors, or researches is considered academic dishonesty or academic fraud and offenders are subject to academic censure. Plagiarism is a rapidly growing problem in many venues today, because it is so easy to locate Internet, where articles appear as electronic text, and the physical act of copying the work of others, simply by copying and pasting text from one web page to another has been made easier. Therefore to avoid plagiarism, you must give credit whenever you use i)another persons idea, opinion, or theory, ii) any facts, statistics, graphs, drawings - any pieces of information - that are not common knowledge, iii)quotations of another persons actual spoken or written words and iv) paraphrase of another persons spoken or written words. Journal of Environment and Technovation will not tolerate plagiarism in submitted manuscripts. Passages quoted or closely paraphrased from other authors (or from the submitting authors own published work) must be identified as quotations or paraphrases, and the sources of the quoted or paraphrased material must be acknowledged. Use of unacknowledged sources will be construed as plagiarism. If any manuscript is found to contain plagiarism material the review process will be halted immediately and will be viewed seriously. Since the plagiarism is unacceptable, it is the responsibility of contributing authors to acknowledge their work as their own.

Submission

Manuscript both online and hard copies with a cover letter including the undertaking should be sent to

Dr.V.Dhivaharan, Executive Editor,

Balavidya Ganapathy Educational and Charitable Trust, 1/31, Main Road, Sundarakkottai, Mannargudi-614 016, Tamil Nadu, India. email: stetjournals@gmail.com

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