Author Guidelines
The authors are requested to prepare their manuscripts as per the instructions/specifications given below. It should be noted that the review process and acceptance of manuscript depend on the quality, significance, and relevance of the work presented in the manuscript. Adhering to instruction to authors as presented below will hasten the peer and editorial review process. Therefore, authors are strongly encouraged to read these instructions carefully before preparing/submitting their manuscript for publication.
Submission of a manuscript to African Journal of Pharmaceutical Research and Development for publication implies that the same work has not been previously published nor under consideration for publication in another journal. Authors, in their cover note to the editor, have to clearly state whether the manuscript shall be considered as a Research Paper, Case Report or Short Communication or Letter to the Editor and also confirm that the manuscript has not been submitted to any other journal for publication. Review Article should be by invitation only. Authors publishing results from in vivo experiments involving animals or humans should clearly indicate, by including a statement to this effect, whether due permission for conduction of such experiments was obtained, from the relevant ethics committees, in the Materials and Methods section. The ethical approval number should be stated.
Manuscript categories
- Original research articles
- Review articles
- Short communications
- Letters to the editor
Manuscript should be submitted online at www.ajopred.com or sent by email to ajopredunn@gmail.com.
Manuscript Preparation
The preferred format of all manuscripts is MS Word. Figures, images (in JPEG, TIFF or SFC format), illustrations and tables should be inserted in the manuscript (or alternatively use “Figure 1 or Table 1 or numbers to indicate the position) at the positions they should appear when finally published in the final version of the manuscript. Manuscripts must be typed, double- spaced on A4 (8.5″ × 11″) paper size with 1 inch margins and should be arranged in the following order: Title, Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Experimental (or Materials and Methods), Results, Discussion (or Results and Discussion), Conclusion, Acknowledgement (if any), References.
- Title Page
It should have Title, Name(s) of author(s) and their affiliations i.e. postal address, phone no., corresponding author’s email address (es). The title must be as brief as possible, comprehensive and descriptive. Each author must provide their full names followed by their address in normal face lower case. The Corresponding Author of the manuscript must be marked with an asterisk. In addition, the corresponding author must include telephone (mobile number, for ready contact during peer review) and e-mail address at the bottom left corner of the title page. If any of the co-authors is from different organizations, their addresses too should be mentioned and indicated using numbers after their names.
- Abstract
The abstract should start on a new page after the title page and should present the reason for the study, the methodology, the main findings, and principal conclusions and should not be more than 300 words. All the three categories, Review Articles, Research papers and Short Communications should have an Abstract.
- Keywords
Keywords (4-6) are to be provided by the authors separated by a ‘coma”.
- Introduction
The introduction section should represent the scope, objective and novelty of the research work. This should start on a new page and should clearly indicate the aim of the study. It should provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.
- Materials and Methods
This section should contain information about the materials and the methods adopted to carry out the research work like animals, chemicals and animal ethical committee permission, software used and procedures followed etc. Chemical compounds should be named according to IUPAC or Chemical Abstracts. The units and dimensions should be expressed according to the metric system and SI units. It should include concise details on the methodology adopted, sufficient to repeat the experiment.
Extracts and/or fractions tested for in vitro or in vivo biological activities should be chemically defined, at least by means of the results of preliminary phytochemical screening. Complete formulation details of all crude drug mixtures and extracts should be mentioned. The plant name should be fully mentioned when cited first, and the authors are asked to add the details regarding its identification, voucher herbarium specimen number and name of the herbarium institution where it has been deposited.
Abbreviations should be preceded by words for which they stand at the first appearance in the manuscript. The statistical method and the level of significance chosen should be clearly stated.
- Results
All results presented in tabular or graphical form shall be described in this section.
Figures (photographs, drawings, diagrams and charts) should be clear, easily legible and cited consecutively using Arabic numerals in the text (Figure 1, Figure 2…etc.). Legends should contain sufficient detail to permit figure interpretation without reference to the text. Tables must be concise and cited consecutively using Arabic numerals in the text (Table 1, Table 2…etc.). Each table should be typed on a separate sheet. The title of the table should clearly indicate the nature of the contents and sufficient detail should be included in the footnote to facilitate interpretation without reference to the text. Use horizontal rules only. All tables and figures must have a title and a legend to make them self-explanatory and they should be numbered.
Identify statistical significance using superscripts (* and **) following the data (*P < 0.05, **P < 0.01).
Results should be clearly separated from the Discussion.
- Discussion and Conclusion
Discussion and conclusions should contain a critical review of the results of the study with the support of relevant literature. It can end with brief conclusions.
- Acknowledgements:
It should contain the information regarding any research grant support or the assistance of colleagues.
- References
References should be referred to by Arabic numerals enclosed in square brackets e.g. [1], [1,3,5] or [1-4]) and should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are mentioned. Use complete name of the journal for non-indexed journals. Information from manuscripts submitted but not accepted should be cited in the text as “unpublished works” with written permission from the source. Avoid citing a “personal communication” unless it provides essential information not available from a public source, in which case the name of the person and date of communication should be cited in parentheses in the text.
Examples:
Journals:
Author (last name) AB (initials), Author BB. Title of Article. Journal name, volume, year: page numbers.
Examples
Ofokansi KC, Attama AA, Uzor PF, Ani CU, Agbo CP. Phytochemical study and evaluation of the combined antimicrobial activity of Albizia adianthifolia root with two antifungal agents against clinical candida species. World Research Journal of Antimicrobial Agents, 2(1), 2013:34-8. DOI: 10.9735/2320-3390.
Uzor PF, Ebrahim W, Osadebe PO, Nwodo JN, Okoye FB, Müller WEG, Lin W, Liu Z, Proksch P. Metabolites from Combretum dolichopetalum and its associated endophytic fungus Nigrospora oryzae – Evidence for a metabolic partnership. Fitoterapia, 105, 2015: 147–50.
Books: Author AB, Author BB, Author CC. Title of Book, Edition, Volume, Publisher, City, Year.
Example
Uzor PF, Osadebe PO. Stereochemistry: Optical Activity and Drugs. 2nd Ed., University of Nigeria Press Ltd., Nsukka, Nigeria, 2020.
Contribution in a book:
Author AA, Author BB. Title of the Chapter in a Book. In: Author CD, Author MN (editors), Title of Book, Edition, Volume, Publisher, City, Year, Pages.
Example
Okoye TC, Uzor PF, Onyeto CA, Okereke EK. Safe African Medicinal Plants for Clinical Studies. In: Kuete V (editor), Toxicological Survey of African Medicinal Plants, 1st Ed., Elsevier Inc., USA, 2014, pp. 535-55.
Reference to web-resource or electronic articles
Lutgen P, 2019. The strong prophylactic and antimalarial properties of polyunsaturated fatty acids. [Accessed: 11 December, 2019]. Available: https://malariaworld.org/blog/strong-prophylactic-andantimalarial- properties-polyunsaturated-fatty-acids.
Anonymous, 2012. Parallels between tissue repair and embryo morphogenesis: a conceptual framework. Global Health 2006; 16:4. [Accessed: 29 March, 2012]. Available: http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/1/1/14.
Reference to organization as author
WHO, 2015. World Malaria Report 2015, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland.
The editorial board reserves the right to condense or make necessary changes in the length of manuscript.
Plagiarism Policy
It is the policy of the African Journal of Pharmaceutical Research & Development (AJOPRED) Editorial Board to identify plagiarism in articles that are submitted for publication and to take specific actions against plagiarism. A paper with an unsatisfactory outcome from the plagiarism checker will be rejected immediately. The AJOPRED uses TURNITIN to check the similarity index of submitted papers in order to prevent cheating and plagiarism.
Submitted manuscripts shall only be externally evaluated for possible publication if they have a similarity index of 18% or less. There could be cases in which manuscripts have been published and then proven to be plagiarized. In this case, sanctions will be imposed until the manuscript has been withdrawn.
Publication charges
African Journal of Pharmaceutical Research & Development (AJOPRED) is a peer-reviewed, open access journal and is supported by Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Nigeria Nsukka, as well as article processing charges paid by authors and contributors to the journal. There are no printing, subscription or membership charges for any author. For every accepted manuscript, the corresponding author will have to pay a nominal cost of 60 USD (United States Dollars) irrespective of the number of pages. Authors within Nigeria will have to pay a nominal cost N20,000.00 for an accepted manuscript irrespective of the number of pages. This nominal cost represents sustainability cost of manuscript processing, maintenance of published works in secured databases, website maintenance and upgrading, and to meet various overhead expenses.
Suggested Reviewers
Authors may suggest three potential reviewers of their manuscript during the submission of manuscripts (this is optional). Authors present or previous collaborators, or those of the same institutions are excluded. Authors should state the names, affiliations and contact email and phone number of potential reviewers. AJOPRED is not obligated to select reviewers from the list of potential reviewers sent by the authors.
Galley Proof
Proofs will be sent to the corresponding author. The corrected proof should be returned within two days of receipt by email as attachment to ajopredunn@gmail.com
Abstracting and Indexing
The journal is indexed in:
Index Copernicus International (ICI)
Content Aggregators
Digital Archives
Repository policy
Authors are allowed to deposit all versions of their paper (including the submitted version, the accepted version and the final published PDF version) in an institutional or other repository of the author’s choice without any embargo.
Frequency of Publication
Presently, AJOPRED publishes three issues per year, though articles are published online shortly after acceptance.
Authorship
All authors should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the content.
Inquiries may be directed to:
The Managing Editor,
African Journal of Pharmaceutical Research and Development,
C/o Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Nigeria, Nsukka
Nsukka 410001, Enugu State, NIGERIA
E-mail: ajopredunn@gmail.com
Website: www.ajopred.com
Copyright Notice
The authors hold the copyright of articles published in the journal.
