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

x 2

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