for authors

INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS

Submission form ; Transfer of copyright agreement ; Declaration ; Standard form for contributions ; Types of contributions ; Instructions for authors ; Publication Ethics Statement

The authors are advised to read the Author Guidelines issued by the European Association of Science Editors and available in twenty languages at http://www.ease.org.uk/publications/author-guidelines .

The objective of the journal is to promote the science and development of:

- plant and animal production dddd
- animal health and welfare
- issues of sustainable agriculture
- agriculture technology
- land and water protection
- economy of agriculture and rural development in tropical and subtropical areas.

The scientific journal Agricultura Tropica et Subtropica is dedicated to the publication of Original Research Papers (the first report of the author´s own research) and Review Articles (preferably invited reviews). Short Communications are published, often promoting results of development cooperation activities in developing countries. Book reviews and Letters to the Editor are published occasionally.

Papers are published in English only. The responsibility for the contents and formal correctness of a manuscript rests with the authors. The contributions should present information on original research and must have not been published anywhere else, unless only in the form of abstracts.
A written statement to this effect must accompany the manuscript (document Transfer of copyright agreement).
In case of multiple authorship it is understood that the manuscript has been read and approved by all its authors.

The Editorial Board will decide on suitability for publication, after considering the scientific importance, peer-reviews and overall technical quality of the manuscript and length. All contributions will be reviewed by at least two referees. No plagiarism or any other form of academoic misconduct will be tolerated in manuscripts submitted.

Manuscript layout

The manuscript should be typed on standard A4 paper, double-spaced typescript, type size 12 font, 2.5 cm margins on each edge of the page. Manuscript lines should be numbered throughout the text. Insert kindly the manuscript into our standard form (available on www.agriculturaits.czu.cz).

The original articles should be no longer than 15 typescript pages, including tables, figures and list of references. The communications should be restricted to 5 pages. No page charges are applicable, but prospective authors should condense their text as much as possible.

Please, read carefully the description of TYPES OF CONTRIBUTIONS. The manuscript will not be filed by the editorial office if its layout does not comply with the instructions.

If any abbreviations are used in the main text, they must be explained appropriately when used for the first time. Uncommon abbreviations cannot be used in the paper title. In the abstract the abbreviations can be used only when explained. Tables, graphs, and other material have to be submitted separately from the text. All material to be included in a paper should be referred to in the text. The document must not be formatted in columns, heading styles etc.

Manuscript Submission

Manuscripts must be submitted to the Editorial Office through the Editorial Manager system www.editorialmanager.com/ATS. The articles should meet the criteria of correct English spelling, as accepted for scientific publications. Receipt of the submitted manuscript will be confirmed by e-mail. A revision of a manuscript may be required during the peer-review process. If the deadline for re-submission is missed, the paper will be removed from the reviewing process.

Manuscript sections for Original Research Papers

The manuscript should follow the IMRAD stucture, i.e. consist of the following sections: Title page, Abstract, Key Words, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgments, References, Address of corresponding author, Tables, Figures, Legends to figures.

Title page
It must contain an informative title, complete name(s) of author(s), the name(s) and address(es) of the institution(s) where the work was done. The title should be concise and informative, up to 15 words.

Abstract
It is an abbreviated accurate presentation of the contents of the paper. It should be structured (i.e. present the aim of the study, the materials and approaches used, the main results and their importance for science), self-explanatory and it should not exceed 250 words each for original and review papers, or 150 words for short communications. No references are to be cited in the abstract. It should be written in full sentences, not in form of keynotes, and comprise basic numerical data including statistical significances.

Keywords
They follow the abstract; they should be ranked from general to specific terms, and written in lower case letters and separated by semicolons. A list of up to 10 key words should be supplied, in alphabetical order, suitable for indexing, not repeating words from the title.

The main text should have the following headings:

Introduction
It should consist of a brief review of the literature, consisting of preferably refereed journals and books, and state the objectives of the authors. Citations from grey literature (eg. reports and conference proceedings) should be limited.

Materials and Methods
All materials, experiments conducted, their extent, conditions and course should be described in detail in this section. The description of experimental procedures should be sufficient to allow replication. All original procedures that were used for the processing of experimental material and all analytical methods used for evaluation should also be detailed. Only original method should be described, in other cases it is sufficient to cite the author of the used method and to explain modifications of this method. Methods of statistical processing including the software used should also be given.
(In case of animal studies, the breed, age, sex, numbers of animals, health state and feeding regimen should be given along with the statement of the Ethics Committee. Animals must be treated in consent with animal care and use regulations of the respective country and unnecessary suffering, and pain must be prevented. Methods of anaesthesia or euthanasia must be reported.)
Abbreviations can be used if necessary; first use of an abbreviation should be just after its complete name or description. The International System of Units (SI) and their abbreviations should be used. If non-SI units are used, the SI equivalents should be added in parentheses on first mention. Use the minus index (m, l, h, ha) except in such cases as "per plant", "per head" etc. Standard chemical symbols and abbreviations for chemical names may be used if they are widely accepted. The complete scientific names (genus, species, breed, cultivar etc.) must be cited for every organism on first mention and written in italics.

Results and Discussion (either in two parts or under one heading)
It should be presented clearly and concisely. The results obtained in the experiments including their statistical evaluation should be presented graphically or in tables in this section, and explained/commented . Tables, figures and graphs should be used where necessary with statistically significant differences indicated by symbols.

Discussion
It should interpret the results, without unnecessary repetition. The authors should compare their own results with data published by other authors, whose names and year of publication are to be cited by including them in the text directly, e.g.:

… as published by Payne (1987), Welsh and McClelland (2001) found…

or citing authors and years of publication in parentheses, e.g.:

…(Payne 1987; Spetsov et al. 1997; Welsh and McClelland 2000).

Diacritical signs of national Latin-based alphabets should be preserved. Names in non-Latin alphabets should be transcribed according to international standards. The manuscript should be carefully checked to ensure that the spellings of authors' names and publication years are exactly the same in the text as in the reference list. The citations should be limited to items really needed for placing the paper into a proper context.

Acknowledgments
They should briefly identify all funding sources, and should follow the main text and precede the references.

References
There should be a list of citations preferably from refereed periodicals including only publications quoted in the text. These should be in alphabetical order by to the surname of the first author, citing all authors, year (in brackets), full title of the article, full title of the periodical, volume number, first and last page numbers. In the case of a book or proceedings the title should be followed by the name of the publisher and the place of publication. Names of authors should be separated by commas, not by & or and. The list of references should be arranged alphabetically by authors' names, and chronologically per author.
Literary sources should be cited in English. If English is not the original language, the original language should be mentioned at the end of the citation (e.g.: in Czech).

For correct citations of different formats, please consult the document named Example References available at www.agriculturaits.czu.cz

Contact Address
It should include the postal address, telephone, fax numbers and e-mail address of the corresponding author.

Tables and Figures
These should be enclosed separately. Each of them must be referred to in the text.

Word editor should be used to create tables; each item should be placed into a separate cell. Tables are to be numbered with Arabic numerals in the order in which they are referred to in the text, and have a brief self-explanatory title. Explanatory footnotes to tables can be included. Abbreviations or symbols used in the tables must be explained either in the table title or as a footnote. For explanation of abbreviations or symbols used in tables it is not possible to refer to the main text.

Figures should be restricted to material essential for documentation and understanding. Duplicate presentation of data both in tables and figures is not acceptable. All illustrative material must be of publishable quality. Both line drawings and photographs are referred to as figures. Each figure should be accompanied by a concise, descriptive legend. Electronic versions of your figures in optimal resolutions (300 dpi.) must be supplied, preferably in black and white format. Photos and diagrams should be submitted in TIFF or JPG format.

Graphs should be provided in MS Excel and they should be stored with original data. Centered captions, parallel to axes, are used to indicate the measured attributes and their dimensions (in brackets).

Tables should be on separate sheets following the text, figures and graphs should be supplied as separate documents, preferably as jpg. and identified properly, eg. Smith_Fig.1.