ISSN 0123-4226
printed version

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

• Scope and policy
• Form and preparation of manuscripts
• Sending of manuscripts

MISSION: The “Revista U.D.C.A Actualidad & Divulgación Científica” has as purpose and project evaluate, publish and disseminate scientific production, mainly from the Ibero-American region, but also from the others tropical and subtropical regions. To extend the dissemination of articles and facilitate access and appropriation, manuscripts in Spanish, English or Portuguese are accepted. Most of the documents published belong to scientific articles, however, it also publishes articles of reflection, reviews, case reports and technical notes.

It is a multidisciplinary journal which covers the following topics:

-Agricultural Sciences: Agroindustry, Agronomy, Food science and technology, Forestry, Agricultural Engineering, Veterinary Medicine, Animal husbandry

-Natural Sciences: Biology, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Conservation of Biodiversity, Environmental Sciences

-Social Sciences: Economic and cultural geography, Social Geography.

TARGET PUBLIC: The Revista U.D.C.A Actualidad & Divulgación Científica is directed to researchers of agricultural and natural sciences of the Ibero-America region.

Types of articles accepted by Revista U.D.C.A Actualidad & Divulgación Científica

The journal accepts for publication the following types of manuscripts either in english, spanish or portuguese:

1. Scientific and technological developmental papers: unpublished, based on original results derived from scientific projects and/or finished research regarding a technological development.

2. Technical, actualization or review papers: studies undertaken to provide a general perspective of a specific topic in science or technology, its evolution through time, pointing out the future perspectives. Authors will demonstrate authority, knowledge and dominion of the topic, discussing the findings of the cited authors, together with proper results. This paper is characterized by containing at least 50 bibliographical references.Note: Per issue a maximum of three review papers are published.

3. Reflection about a problem or particular topic: unpublished documents which reflect results of studies and the analysis of a theoretical or practical problem and relay on original sources.

4. Case report: text that describes a specific, non-reported case, of a particular situation found during the professional work of the author. It includes a brief introduction, presenting where, how and when the case was found; the result corresponds to a clear description of the situation, together with an annotated literature review of analogous cases. Case reports can make reference to the adverse effects of agrochemicals, unexpected occurrence of diseases or pests, presentation, diagnosis and/or management of new or emergent phytosanitary problems, and unexpected events in animal treatments, or pest control, among others. Note: Per issue a maximum of three case reports are published.

5. Technical Note: is a report of a method, a technique, or a new procedure, that is compared with previously employed research techniques, showing the results that have been statistically analyzed. It includes a discussion of the pros and cons of the new technique Note: Per issue a maximum of three technical notes are published.

Guidelines for manuscript preparation and instructions for authors

Manuscripts, written using the third-person, are sent through the OJS system (send your manuscript), along with the ethics statement (download model) and images in tiff or jpg format The manuscript must be in a word processor, Microsoft Word with Arial 12 font, normal space between characters, letter size, double space between lines and between paragraphs, except Abstract, Resumen and References; margins 4x3x3x3cm (left, right, up, down, respectively); indents and spaces -in page layout, paragraph section-, all with zero value (0).

Structure: The structure of the text will depend on the typology of the manuscript:

-Scientific and technological development articles, and articles of original reflections on a particular problem or topic: main title, title translated into English, if the text is in Spanish or translated into Spanish, if the text is in Portuguese or English, short title, authors, abstract, keywords, translated abstract, translated keywords, introduction, materials and methods, results and discussion, and the references. Title, abstract and the keywords must be to English when the text is in Spanish or Spanish when the text is in English or Portuguese. The number of pages should not exceed 25, including references and illustrations. The maximum number of illustrations (tables, charts, figures, graphs, images) is six and each one is placed on a separate page at the end of the text, after the references. Note: With the aim to promote the biodiversity inventories, The Revista U.D.C.A Actualidad & Divulgación Científica can publish one scientific article per issue with a maximum extension of 40 pages, where the list is included as an appendix.

-Technical or update or revision articles: main title, translated title, short title, authors, abstract, keywords, translated abstract, translated keywords, introduction, materials and methods, results and discussion, and references. The number of pages must not be greater than 30, including references and illustrations. The maximum number of illustrations (tables, charts, figures, graphs, images) is six and each one is placed on a separate page at the end of the text, after the references.

-Case Report and Technical Note: main title, translated title, short title, authors, introduction, materials and methods, results and discussion, and the references. The maximum number of pages allowed is 12, with only two illustrations.

In all types of articles, if the authors decide to give acknowledgments, these should be before the references. The authors should also include: Conflicts of interest (subtitle), for example: "The manuscript was prepared and revised by all authors, who declare the absence of any conflict that jeopardizes the validity of the results. presented" and Financing (subtitle), that is, highlighting the source, such as: "This study was funded by Colciencias and the Universidad de Ciencias Aplicadas y Ambientales, U.D.C.A".

Characteristics of the main chapters

-Main title: Concise and without abbreviations, not exceeding 140 characters, including spaces, punctuation marks and scientific names.

-Shorth title: maximum 40 characters, including spaces

-Authors: Authors are presented separated by a semicolon and with a numerical superscript that allows to link the information of each author. It is recommended authors write their names in the same way as they have done it in other publications and if this is the first time they contribute to science, we suggest to consult the IraLIS recommendations on this matter: https://www.iralis.org/criterios-de-firma

-Filiation and authors information: Provide imperatively for each author the following information, separated with semicolons and indicating the corresponding number in superscript. All academic degrees and a single institutional affiliation, the complete correspondence address, which includes the city, the department and the country, the institutional electronic address and the ORCID code. If an author does not want the electronic address or other information to be visible in the article, he must inform the editorial board.

-Abstract: simple type, maximum 250 words, in a single paragraph, single spaced; should be clear and concise, awake the reader's interest and give information about the problem, the justification of the study, the objectives, the methodology and the main results obtained. -Keywords: Maximum five; it is recommended to use standard keywords, included in descriptors, listed in, for example: Agrovoc, or CAB Thesaurus, which will allow greater visibility of the article.

-Results and discussion: in this chapter the conclusions and recommendations should be included if justified.

-References: Bibliographical references are placed in alphabetical order and must be numbered, avoiding automatic numbering; the second line of each reference starts at 1.5cm. When there are references of the same author (s), they must be in chronological order and if they correspond to the same year, they must be differentiated with lowercase letters. Example. Duarte, W. 2006a ..., Duarte, W. 2006b ... Note: Summaries of congresses and personal communications that rest in office archives, as well as the degree work, thesis and doctoral dissertations are not accepted as references.

Bibliographic references: The structure of each reference will depend on the source consulted and is detailed below:

-Articles in journals: author or authors in capital letters, if they are several authors, all must be mentioned and must be separated by semicolons; in the case the author is an institution, the institution should be written in extensive and the abbreviation is used in the citation. Year of publication. Article title. Name of the journal, indicating the country of origin of the journal, in parentheses, as long as it is not included in the title. Volume, number in parentheses and pages. Identifier of the digital document if presented. Example: GALINDO LÓPEZ, F.; PINZÓN SANDOVAL, E.; QUINTANA BLANCO, W.; SERRANO, P.; GALÁN, M. 2018. Evaluation of a thermophosphate in the growth and production of strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa Duch.) Cv. 'Albion'. Rev. U.D.C.A Act. & Div. Cient. (Colombia). 21(1):61-69. https://doi.org/10.31910/rudca.v21.n1.2018.663

-Book: the author or authors in capital letters, if there are several authors, all must be mentioned and must be separated by semicolons; in the case of being an institutional author, the institution should be written in extensive and the abbreviation used in the citation. Year of publication. Title, Editorial. Place of printing. Pages. Example: MARGALEFF, R. 1988. Ecology. Ed. Omega (Spain). 951p.; Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar, ICBF. 2005. Encuesta Nacional de Situación Nutricional. Bogotá. 466p.

-Book Chapter: author (s) of the chapter in capital letter, year of publication. Title of the chapter. Book editors in lowercase. Title of the book. Editorial. Place of printing Pages of the chapter. Example: ARÉVALO, J. 1999. Organochlorinated in agriculture. In: Posada, J.G.; Bermúdez, F.G. (eds) Current and future of pesticides for agricultural use. Ed. McGraw Hill (New York). p.28-53.

-Electronic Resources: the author or authors in capital letters, if there are several authors, all must be mentioned and must be separated by semicolons; in the case of being an institutional author, the institution should be written in extensive and the abbreviation used in the citation. Year of publication. Page title. Followed by the expression: Available from Internet in: the uniform locator of URL resources and finally indicate the date of consultation. Example. DE PRINS, J.; DE PRINS, W. 2018. Global Taxonomic Database of Gracillariidae (Lepidoptera). World Wide Web electronic publication. Available from Internet in: http://www.gracillariidae.net (with access on 07/12/2018).

-Laws and regulations: institutional author, the institution should be written in extensive and the abbreviation used in the citation, year of publication. Title of the law or the norm. Publication place. Pages. Example: Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, MADR. 2006. Resolution number 187 of 2006, by which the regulation is adopted for the primary production, processing, packaging, labeling, storage, certification, import, commercialization and the control system of ecological agricultural products is established. Bogotá D.C. 14p.

Bibliographic citations

For bibliographic references within the text the system (author[s], year) is used. When the cited publication has one author, the last name of the author must be mentioned, followed by a comma and finally the year. Example: (Suárez, 2018). In the case that the cited publication has two authors, the surname of the two authors must be mentioned, separated by the symbol &, followed by a comma and finally the year. Example: (Pérez & Serna, 2018); for the case of three authors or more, the surname of the first author, accompanied by the latin expression et al. in italics and then the year. Example (Alava et al. 2003). When there are several citations for the same topic, they are organized chronologically. Example: (Zuluaga, 1998; Duarte, 2000; Estupiñan, 2005; 2006). To differentiate citations published in the same year by an author, they are distinguished by the lowercase letters a, b, c ... Example: Malagón, 2018a; Malagón, 2018b.

Specifications tables, charts and figures

The journal takes as a table the information presented in numerical data, as a chart the information arranged in text, and figures for all the illustrations, including photos, diagrams, maps and graphs. Tables, charts and figures should be in the word file at the end of the text, after the bibliography, on a separate page with the title at the top for tables and charts, and at the bottom for the figures. The information presented in the different elements, together with the title must be sufficiently clear, to allow the reader to interpret the information presented, without making it necessary to refer back to the text. Tables, charts and illustrations should be cited in the text as follows: when they are included in the text, they are presented in full without parenthesis and in lowercase. Example: as seen in figure 1; On the other hand, when it is not included in the text it is presented in full, in parentheses and the initial capitalized. Example: a larger population of S. frugiperda was present in the buds (Table 1). It is important to avoid to repeat data in the tables, charts, images and text.

The figures must be included in low resolution in the text and sent in .jpg or .tiff format , and comply with the following characteristics:

-Color images: resolution 300pixels / inch and minimum width of 1417 pixels (12cm) -Grey-scale images: resolution between 300 and 600pixels / inch and minimum width of 1417 pixels (12cm)

-line art images: resolution between 600 and 1200 and minimum width of 2835 pixels (12cm)

-Vector graphics: maximum 17cm wide and 24cm high

In the case that they are composed images, each image must be sent separately to be able to adjust it to the style of the journal.

System of Units, acronyms and style

The system of units adopted by the journal is the Metric Decimal System (SI), therefore the texts in Spanish and Portuguese must present the decimals separated by a comma and not leave space between the number and the unit. Example. 12,5%; 36,5g. Multiplication followed by negative superscript can be used only with SI units, for example kg ha-1. The oblique bar (/) is a sign of mathematical operation whose strict sense is "divided into"; in science it is used as a substitute for the word "by" and is used to show reasons, proportions or rates. Use the bar to connect units of the SI with units that are not (for example: 30°C/h or 50mL/pot).

When acronyms are used, these should be named extensively for the first time, then with the following methods: when the acronyms are composed of less than four letters it must be capitalized. Example. Entomological Society of America, ESA; when the acronyms are composed of more than five letters, the initial letter must be uppercase and the letters must be lowercase. Example. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Aphis; when they are acronyms that consist of two words in the plural they are written with double initials. Example. Military Forces, FFMM The journal reserves the use of italics for Latin expressions.

Manuscripts, written using the third-person, are sent through the OJS system (send your manuscript), along with the ethics statement (download model) and images in tiff or jpg format following the guidelines for manuscript preparation and instructions for authors (Click here).