ISSN 0120-0135
printed version

ISSN 2256-2273
online version

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

• Scope and policy
• Form and preparation of manuscripts
• Publication ethics and publication malpractice statement
• Sending of manuscripts

The Revista de Ciencias Agrícolas publishes original and unedited articles every semester, written in Spanish, English, and Portuguese, on topics related with agrarian sciences. It is addressed towards researchers, extensionists, professionals, technicians, and producers related to this area of knowledge. The Revista de Ciencias Agrícolas publishes scientific, technical, and technological research articles that present their research results in the agrarian sciences in a detailed manner, which are subjected to an evaluation process by national and international peers and to the analysis and approval by the journal's Editorial Committee.

Author Instructions

According the definition by Colciencias, articles are classified as: research and scientific and technological innovation article, review article, reflection article, and scientific note.

Research and scientific and technological innovation article. Document that presents the results of a research process in a detailed manner, based on the scientific method, and which is structured according to a title, introduction, materials and methods, results and discussion, conclusions, and references.

Review article. It presents research results with a robust bibliographical support, which are systematized and analyzed. Additionally, it integrates published or non-published research results, in a scientific or technological area, with development advances and tendencies. Generally, review articles are requested by the Editorial Committee from experts in a given area. Their structure is composed of a title, abstract in Spanish and English, introduction, body of the article, conclusions, and references.

Reflection article. In this case, the author presents research results based on analytical, interpretative, or critical criteria on a specific topic. This type of articles must be in accord with the requirements by Publindex of Colciencias (www.colciencias.gov.co). The structure is composed of a title, abstract in Spanish and English, introduction, reflection, conclusions, and references.

Scientific note. These are short research papers with the objective of communicating important and novel results, obtained in the laboratory as well as in the field; in addition, it can communicate new methodologies or their modifications or experimental techniques. This type of article must contain all the elements of a research article.

Evaluation and Publication

The evaluation and publication process is done according to the following:

1. When a manuscript is submitted for evaluation, the Editorial Committee will perform an initial evaluation of its form and content in order to verify that it adjusts to the journal's topic. If it meets all of the elements mentioned in the author's instruction guidelines, the article will begin the evaluation process. The article must be accompanied by the letter of originality-cession of rights and the authors' resumés.

2. When the manuscript does not meet the minimum publication conditions, according to the Editorial Committee's criteria, it will not be submitted to the evaluation process and the authors will be informed that it will not be published. On the contrary, the authors will be informed of the recommendations in order to continue with the evaluation process.

3. Once the manuscript meets the norms, it will be submitted for evaluation by two anonymous national or international academic peers, whom are chosen based on PUBLINDEX criteria.

4. Afterwards, the manuscript must be revised according to the peers' recommendations, within the timeframe stipulated by the editor. Finally, the Editorial Committee verifies the revisions made by the authors in fulfillment of the peer's observations, and its publication is established.

Manuscript characteristics

Manuscripts must have a maximum extension of 20 letter-size pages, written at 1.5 spacing, Times New Roman 12 point font, 3.0 cm margins, single column. The title must contain no more than 15 words and be located at the head of the manuscript. Tables and figures must be in MS-Word and diagrams (bars and pies) in MS-Excel; table titles must be located above the table, while figure captions must be written below the image. The first word in the columns or rows must be in uppercase. Tables must only contain horizontal lines between the title and the column or row headings. Tables and figures are only accepted in black and white, except in cases where the editor considers color use is necessary and the additional cost must be covered by the authors. Further, figures must be sent independently in image format (jpg), of excellent quality, with a minimum resolution of 580 dpi. For the online version, color figures will be accepted and their publication will have no cost. Cite each figure and table in the text according to the order of appearance, e.g. Table 1 and Figure 1. Scientific names must be written in italics along with the classifier, for example: Physalis peruviana L., only in the first citation; in subsequent citations, it can be abbreviated in the following manner: P. peruviana. The article must have no page numbering. Main titles of each section must be written in uppercase and subtitles must be in lowercase and bold. The metric system and its abbreviations must be used for all measurements (m, kg, km, g, mm, cm), and decimals are used instead of fractions. Unit abbreviations must be singular (e.g. 2 cm). In manuscripts written in Spanish, decimal digits must be separated by a comma (,) and in English by a period (.).

Manuscript Structure

Title and authors. It must be written without abbreviations, of no more than 15 words and with its translation in English; if the title contains scientific names, these will be in italics accompanied by the classifier. Commercial names or brands will not be accepted; instead generic names or active ingredients will be used. Additionally, provide a short title of no more than six words. Beneath the title in English, write the first name, complete last name, and initial of the second last name, in order according to the authors' contribution and preparation of the article. Each author's institutional affiliation, highest academic title, corresponding institution, city, country, and email will be indicated in a footnote.

Summary, abstract, and keywords. The summary must be a single paragraph of no more than 250 words, providing a general view of the article, briefly describing the problem, justification, methodology with its most relevant results, and conclusions. The summary is accompanied by at least three and no more than six keywords in alphabetical order, separated by a semicolon. The keywords must not be contained in the title, and the use of terms, normalized words and descriptors found in the Thesaurus AGROVOC (http://aims.fao.org/es/agrovoc) is recommended. Include the abstract in English and the keywords in the same manner.

Introduction. It consists of a description of the problem, the state of the art with a review of previous related studies, the justification of the research, and proposed objectives; it must be a general description allowing a clear idea of the research's content.

Cited literature. The bibliographical citations referenced in the text include the author's last names and year. If the citation is within the body of the text and at the end of the paragraph, the author and year must be in parenthesis; if the citation is at the beginning of the paragraph, only the year goes in parenthesis. E.g.: According to the FAO (1993), corn has three important applications: food, forage, and industrial prime resource. However, in Nariño, the use of the product is solely destined towards food (Benavides, 2005). If there are two authors, these are cited separately, joined by "and", e.g.: (García and Pantoja, 1998). If the author is cited in more than one year, these are separated by commas. E.g. (Criollo, 2001, 2004, and 2006). If there are more than two authors, only the first author's last name is cited, and it is accompanied by the latin expression et al., and the year; all authors will be cited the bibliography list. E.g.: (Lagos et al., 2001) when cited at the end; if the citation appears within the text, it will be cited as: Lagos et al. (2001). If several authors in a paragraph share the same idea, they are separated by (;) according to the year in which the text appeared (Alexopolus, 1963; Sañudo, 2001).

Materials and methods. They include the location and site characteristics of where the experiment was conducted, the properties of the experimental material, the treatments studied, and the proposed experimental design, with the number of repetitions and dimensions of the experimental unit, and useful area. In addition, the evaluated variables and their form of evaluation must be described, along with the statistical model and significance level of the tests used.

Results and discussion. They are the main body of the article. Results must expressed in past tense and supported by the appropriate statistical analyses, in a logical, objective, and sequential manner throughout the text, tables and figures cited in the text. The discussion of the results must be complete and exhaustive. The data is confronted with results from other investigations or with acknowledged and accepted theories, supported by the most accurate literature on the subject matter; results that differ from the proposed hypotheses must be explained. It is important to highlight the importance of the results obtained, such as a practical application, contribution to the knowledge area, or solution to a particular problem.

Conclusions. These are propositions derived from the analysis of the results, which must be coherent with the proposed objectives, adequately proven throughout the development of the applied methodologies and statistically tested.

Acknowledgments. Scientific, technical, or financial supports may be worthy of acknowledgment towards people or institutions, if the author(s) consider(s) it convenient.

Bibliographical references. Only text-cited bibliographical references are listed. References must come from specialized and accurate publications of broad circulation. Bibliographical references are listed in alphabetical order and without indentation, taking the following model examples into consideration:

Books

Author (s). Year. Book title. Edition. Publisher. City, country in case the city is not a capital, pages consulted or total pages.

KRAMER, J. 1989. Relaciones hídricas de suelos y plantas. Primera edición. Harla. México D.C. 538 p.

Book chapters
Author (s). Year. Chapter title, consulted pages (pp. # - #). In: Last names and names of the compilers or editors (eds.). Book title. Edition. Publisher. City, country. Total pages.

SANCHEZ, M.; AGUIRREOLEA, J. 1999. Relaciones hídricas, pp. 3 - 90. In: Azcon-Bieto, J.; Talon, M. Fisiología y Bioquímica vegetal. Primera edición. McGraw-Hill. Madrid, Spain. 581 p.

Journals
Author (s). Year. Article title. Journal. Volume (Issue): pp-pp.

VALLEJO, L.; ORDUZ, S. 1996. Producción de un plaguicida a base de Bacillus thuringiensis, en laboratorio. Rev. Colomb. Entomol. 22(1): 61 - 67.

With DOI.
Author (s). Year. Article title. Journal. Volume (Issue): pp-pp. doi: xx.xxxxxxx.

Presentations in congresses or seminars
Author (s). Year. Presentation Title. Pages. In: Congress or seminar name. City, country.

ZAIDA, L. 2001. Bioseguridad en el cultivo de plantas modificadas con tecnología de genes. pp.9-12. In: Memorias VII Congreso Sociedad Colombiana de Fitomejoramiento y Producción de Cultivos. Ibagué, Colombia.

Internet citation
Author (s). Year. Title. In: Name of electronic publication, web page consulted; date consulted.

JARAMILLO, J. 2006. Asistencia técnica en línea. In: Responde Corpoica, http://www.corpoica.org.co/Foro/vermensaje.asp?id_mensaje=253. consulted: June 2011.

The journal applies good editorial practice in its process and subscribes the guidelines established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (http://publicationethics.org/) in order to guarantee the quality of scientific publications, their transparency, integrity and full compliance with the ethical principles applicable to research.

The author is responsible for verifying if the submitted material is subject to intellectual property rights, for example, photographs, illustrations, and data.

The manuscript must not have been submitted to more than one journal for simultaneous consideration. The manuscript must not have been previously published in part or in its totality, unless it refers to an expansion of a previous work, avoiding reuse of this material ("auto-plagiarism").

To add or remove authors during the evaluation process, a written request must be addressed to the journal director with the corresponding justification and signed by all authors, in order to make the corresponding author modifications.

The author(s) commit to cession of printing and re-printing rights of the material published in the Revista de Ciencias Agrícolas.

The authors must send a letter of originality - cession of rights signed by all authors indicating that the article is unedited, that national and international ethical norms have been applied, and that the authors have no conflict of interests. This letter must be sent along with the authors’ resumés, accompanied by three or four suggested peer evaluators in the article’s topic.

Article reception is permanently open and the journal is published every semester.

The articles must be sent to the email revistafacia@udenar.edu.co, through the platform: http://revistas.udenar.edu.co/index.php/rfacia/login.