Ghana Journal of Agricultural Science
Journal / Ghana Journal of Agricultural Science / Submissions

 

Ghana Journal of Agricultural Science (GJAS) (ISSN 0855-0042) is a national scientific journal that is published by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research to serve as an outlet for papers concerning West African agriculture and related disciplines. The Journal welcomes the submission of manuscripts that meet the general criteria of significance and scientific excellence.

Electronic submission of manuscripts is encouraged. Text, tables, and figures should be in a single Microsoft Word file (preferably in Times New Roman Font size 12). Regardless of the source of word-processing tool used, Word (.doc, .docx, .rtf) files of manuscripts can be submitted as email attachments to the editorial office at ghjournalofsciences@gmail.com. A cover letter should accompany each manuscript. The cover letter should include the corresponding author’s full name, address and telephone number sent to the editor.  The cover letter should also contain the article type (original, provisional, review, etc.), brief background of your study and the research question you sought to answer, principle findings and significance to scientific community, statement that your paper has not been previously published and is not currently under consideration by another journal and that all authors have approved of and have agreed to submit the manuscript to this journal. A letter of acknowledgement of receipt with a manuscript reference number will be mailed to the corresponding author the same day or within 72 hours of receipt of a manuscript.

Contributions are accepted for consideration on the understanding that they are not concurrently being offered elsewhere, in the same or similar form; that the author states the name of the organisation in which he works and the position he holds, or his independent status; that each paper commences with the author's own summary of up to 200 words; and that the author states in which of the following categories he wishes his papers to be assessed.

Types of Article

1. Original scientific paper. Written in such a way that a qualified research worker, specializing in the same branch of science, is able, simply on the basis of the information given, 

1. to reproduce the experiment and secure the results described with equal accuracy or within the limits of experimental error specified by the author; or  
2. to check the accuracy of the analyses and deductions on which the author's findings are based; or 
3. to repeat the author's observations and judge his findings.

E.g.: Ashrif, M.I. & Thornton, I. (1965) Effects of grass mulch on groundnuts in the Gambia, Experimental Agriculture 1, 145 – 152.

Manshard, W. (1961) Land use patterns and agricultural migrations in central Ghana (western Gonja). Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie 52, 255 – 230.

1. Provisional communication. Contains one or more novel items of scientific information, but is insufficiently detailed to allow readers to check the said information in the ways provided in (a), (b) and (c) above.

E.g.: Brunt, A.A. & Wharton, A.L. (1962) Calonectria rigidiuscu-lar (Berk. and Br.) Sacc., the cause of a gall disease in cocoa in Ghana. Nature, London 193, 903 – 904.

Ayensu, E.S. (1965) Notes on the anatomy of the Dioscoraeceae. Ghana Journal of Science 5, 10 – 23.

1.  Subject review article. A survey of one particular subject in which information already published is assembled, analysed, and discussed.

E.g.: Curtis, D.L. (1965) Sorghum in West Africa. Field Crop Abstracts. 18, 145 – 152.

Evans, D.C.P. (1963) A review of past and present work connected with grassland, pasture and fodder problems in Ghana. Ghana Fmr 7, 28 – 37.

If, after refereeing, papers are assessed as not being acceptable in any of these categories, contributors will normally be invited either to shorten their papers for submission as Research and Development Notes or to withdraw them.

Review process

All manuscripts are peer-reviewed by members of the Editorial Board or qualified reviewers. Decisions will be made as rapidly as possible. The Technical Editors will edit manuscripts to conform to the editorial style of the GJAS.

Regular articles

Manuscripts must be typed, at 11/2 or double spacing, on one side of the paper only. 

The Corresponding Author handles all correspondence regarding the paper from submission to decision and/or publication. The corresponding author attests to the fact that any others named as co-authors have seen the final version of the manuscript and have agreed to its submission for publication. The corresponding author will receive an acknowledgement email once the Editorial Office verifies that the manuscript is worth reviewing.  Corresponding Authors who do not receive an acknowledgement receipt within 20 days should make suitable inquiries.

In assessment, preference will be given to authors who write briefly and whose papers are precise and logically planned. The names of referees are not normally disclosed unless there is a special reason for arranging direct correspondence between a referee and an author

The Title should be a brief phrase describing the contents of the paper. The Title Page should include the authors’ full name and affiliation, the name of the corresponding author along with present address, phone number, fax and email information.

Keywords: Kindly provide five to six keywords that best describe your paper.

Generally, the present tense is used except in the materials and methods or in describing the experiment where the past tense is preferred.

The introduction should provide a clear statement of the problem, the relevant literature on the subject, and the proposed approach or solution. It should be understandable to colleagues from a broad range of scientific disciplines. 

Materials and Methods should be complete enough to allow experiments to be reproduced. However, only truly new procedures should be described in detail; previously published procedures should be cited, and important modifications of published procedures should be mentioned briefly. Capitalize trade names and include the manufacturer’s name and address. Subheadings should be used. Methods in general use should not be described in detail

Results and Discussion should be presented with clarity and precision. The results should be written in the past tense when describing findings in the authors’ experiments. Previously published findings should be written in the present tense. Results should be explained, but largely without referring to the literature. The Discussion should interpret the findings in view of the results obtained in this and in past studies on this topic. State the conclusions in a few sentences at the end of the paper. The Results and The acknowledgment of people, grants, funds, sponsors, etc. should be brief. 

Conclusions and Recommendations should interpret the findings or results of an investigation. Recommendations follow conclusions and are opinions supported by the report’s findings. The recommendation(s) should be concise, precise and realistic.

Illustrations may be submitted in the form of photographs or of line diagrams or both. Number all illustrations Fig. 1, Fig. 2, etc. (Note the word 'Plate' is not required). 

Photographs: Please note that the journal is printed in 'black and white'. Therefore, kindly make all modifications to figures that rely on colour in their descriptions to be equally identifiable when printed in 'black and white’. Articles can however be published in colour online.

Tables, whatever their length, should be numbered 1, 2, 3, etc. Complicated tables are best submitted on separate sheets of paper and, because it is not always possible to place them immediately adjacent to the relevant text, tables similarly require mention by number in the passage to which they refer. ALWAYS check the typed numerals in tables very carefully against your original data.

Headings must be consistently arranged in a logical sequence of diminishing importance for each main section of a paper, e.g.

Center and each word capitalized (for a first-value heading)

Side heading with italicized lower case (second value heading)

Side heading with italicized lower case (third value heading)

Consistency in spelling, numeration, and abbreviation should be checked before the manuscript is typed. Follow the Oxford English Dictionary and precede all units of measurement with an Arabic numeral, but spell out up to nine elsewhere, e.g. write 3 cm, 87 g and 109 s, spell out three experiments but write 87 observations and 109 specimens. All units of measurement must as far as possible be in metric form. Where the use of non-metric units is unavoidable, metric equivalents should be given. Use standard abbreviations throughout.

Latin names of plants, animals, pathogens, and pests should be used in preference to local common names on the first mention, but the latter may be used thereafter. Authors should themselves decide in which papers it is necessary to quote authorities. The rule-of-thumb procedure is that authorities need not be quoted if the text is descriptive, but that they must be quoted if any degree of precision is required in the identification of species, sub-species, and varieties. In the latter case, quote authorities on first mention only.

Proofs: Authors will normally be told in advance when proofs are expected (though such notice cannot be guaranteed). A period of 2 weeks is assumed to be adequate for their inspection, and authors who fail to return their proofs to the Editor's desk will forfeit the right to make corrections. Only minimal amendment to the original wording is permitted, and the Editors reserve the right to levy a charge per corrected line when excessive amendment is requested by the author. Please use standard proof correcting marks.

The Galley proof is sent to the corresponding author who is responsible for collating the corrections provided by the co-author(s), and the proof which he/she returns is the one that will be forwarded to the printer.

Digital Object Identifiers (DOI) are assigned to each article by GJAS. GJAS publishes online on Africa Journals Online (AJOL) - https://www.ajol.info/index.php/gjas/ and referenced articles will be included in the reference sections for articles cited by authors. The DOI global system will work to its full capacity if the DOI’s are properly cited by authors. 

Copyright Statement

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).

GJAS is an Open Access Journal and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons (CC) License [CC BY 4.0] or http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0. This is in place to protect the content and guide readers as to what they can do with the information found in the Journal’s articles. CC BY 4.0 allows others to distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon Author’s work, even commercially, as long as they credit the Author for the original creation. 

Article Processing Charges

This journal does not charge a fee to the author. Currently, it is free to submit and publish your article.

Subscription rates Subscription services are available, but the rates are subject to review from time to time.

Communication and other editorial materials should be directed to:
The Technical Editor
Ghana Journal of Agricultural Science
Science Publishing Section
CSIR - Institute for Scientific and Technological Information
P.O. Box M.32 
ACCRA-GHANA.
Email: ghjournalofsciences@gmail.com