Author Guidelines
AIMS AND SCOPE
The Nigerian Agricultural Journal; published by the Agricultural Society of Nigeria is a multidisciplinary open access Journal, publishing scientifically blind peer-reviewed research in all aspects of agriculture including Agric. Economics, Agric. Extension, Agronomy, Soil Science, Food Science, Agric. Engineering, Animal Science, Fisheries and Wild life, Veterinary etc. The Journal help authors share their work across disciplines and with a global audience. Each of our Editors and Reviewers, specialize in their subject area, assess manuscripts objectively and fairly and provide quality, constructive and timely peer review. Rather than accepting manuscripts based on their level of importance or impact, editors assess manuscripts objectively, accepting valid, scientific research which is demand driven, with sound rigorous methodology. Papers also include: full reports of original research not previously elsewhere, research notes which consist of brief or new findings; techniques and equipment of importance to agricultural workers; evaluations of problems and trends in agricultural production; reviews, or announcements of publications and reports of various agricultural interests will be included. Papers in English or French are acceptable.
ELIGIBILITY TO PUBLISH
Publications in Nigerian Agricultural Journal are open to anyone engaged in agriculture in Nigeria and other countries of the world.
LENGTH OF MANUSCRIPTS
Manuscripts should be of reasonable length and should not exceed 15,000 words.
PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPTS
Manuscripts should be double-spaced on one side of the paper only with all pages serially numbered. Footnotes should be designated with familiar symbols below the tables and figures where necessary. Ample margins of at least 2.5cm should be allowed at the top, bottom, left hand and right hand side of each page of the text. Title of paper should be capitalized and not exceed 25 words. Scientific names of general families, orders, etc and the initial letters of all-important words are allowed within the title of the paper. Main headings like Abstract, Introduction, Materials and Methods/Methodology, Results and Discussion, Conclusion and References etc, should all have all initial letters capitalized. Latin or vernacular words, scientific names and expressions, algebraic symbols, legends to tables and figures should be italicized. Chemical elements may be represented by their symbols. All stated quantities should be in figures (e.g., 3kg, 15tonnes, 81.4%). All numbers up to and including ten are generally written in words; 11 and above in figures. Unit of the System International (SI) or revised metric system is preferred: the common unit equivalent may be added in parentheses after SI units, e.g. 10m (11.96 sq yards). Each paper must be accompanied by an abstract (single line spaced) of not more than 250 words and keywords of not more than 10 words. Papers in French should be supplied with English abstracts.
TABLES AND FIGURES
Table should be numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals. Each table should be inserted after the page on which reference to it was first made. Figures including graphs, other line drawings and photographs, should be kept to a minimum and no figure should be used to represent what has already been presented in a table. Coloured photographs will be accepted at an extra cost the author (hard copy publication). All figures should be numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals.
REFERENCES
All lists of references should be presented in alphabetical order of the author’s names following APA style. The author’s name comes first; followed by year of publication (in parentheses); title of paper with initial letter of first word and proper nouns capitalized; full name of the Journal in italics, volume number in Arabic numerals, Journal number if any in Arabic numerals and in parentheses, colon, the first page of paper, hyphen, last page of paper, e.g., Okoye, B. C., Abass, A., Bachwenkizi, B., Asumugha, G., Alenkhe, B., Ranaivoson, R., Randrianarivelo, R., Rabemanantsoa, N. and Ralimanana, I. (2016). Analyses of Labour Productivity among Small-holder Cassava Farmers for Food Security and Empowerment in Central Madagascar. International Journal of Agricultural Management and Development, 6(3): 309-318.
For the citation of books, the author’s name comes first followed by year of publication in parentheses, title of book italicized with the initial letters capitalized, edition and volume number, e.g. Bennet, M.K (1954). The World’s Food. 1st ed., New York, Harper and Brothers. Pp. 55-68
Where an author or several joint authors have published more than one article (in same year) to which references are made, letters of the alphabet should be added to each year to distinguish between them, e.g. 2017b etc.
FINAL VERSION OF MANUSCRIPT
Author(s) should submit final versions of manuscripts for publication on CD-RW (re-writable) in Microsoft Word, Times New Roman 12font size at 1.5 spacing or a copy sent as e-mail attachment to the Editor-in-Chief at okoyebenjamen@yahoo.com and najasn@gmail.com.
PEER REVIEW PROCESS
All articles submitted to the Journal undergo a blind peer-review process. Each article on submission is reviewed for relevance to the scope of the Journal by the Editor-in-Chief. Articles that do not meet the basic criteria are rejected at this stage and authors promptly informed. Articles that meet basic requirements are initially reviewed by at least two reviewers. The recommendation of the reviewers informs the decision of the Editorial Board to accept on the conditions that the concerns raised by the reviewers are addressed (the article is back to the authors to address the reviewers concerns) or to reject. Where there is a notable disagreement between the reports of the two initial reviewers, a third reviewer may be consulted. The Nigerian Agricultural Journal (NAJ) aim is to have a first decision to the authors by at least 6 weeks after submission.
Selecting Reviewers
NAJ continually builds a data base of potential reviewers. In sourcing and assigning reviewers for each article, attention is given to the keywords of the article, citations, membership of the association and similar networks with works and specialization on the issues addressed by the article. Effort is made not to select a reviewer from the same institution as the author.
Publication Ethics
Articles published in the Nigerian Agricultural Journal (NAJ) must be relevant to agricultural works and should not have been published or under consideration for publication elsewhere. Authors submitting articles to NAJ are required to do a declaration that implies that the work described has not been published previously/elsewhere, not under consideration for publication elsewhere, its publication is approved by all authors and/ or authorities where the work was carried out, and if accepted, will not be published elsewhere including electronically. The Journal holds Authors responsible for keeping to the highest ethics in publishing, particularly with fabrication, falsification and plagiarism. Authors are expected to do plagiarism test and indicate programme used for this. Also, Authors should note that their article will be screened for plagiarism (using the software “Plagiarism Checker”) for confirmation at any point in the review process. Complaints on issues of ethics should be reported to the Editor-in-Chief. The Editorial board will make final decision on such complaints.
Conflict of Interest
Conflict of interest (COI) in the Journal publication process occurs when influence other than science result in an article being either rejected or published misleads the reader. Conflict of interest can arise in the development, review and publication of an article, when there is a strong positive or negative bias toward the authors on the part of the reviewers or the editor handling the manuscript. COI involves using your position as an author, editor, or reviewer to promote your interests (business or financial), or those of your external relationships (family, friends or employers). When advancing outside interests is more important to a reviewer than advancing the aims of NAJ, that reviewer stands in a conflict of interest. The NAJ policy is that COI must be taken into considerations for each step of the development, evaluation and publication process. Authors must include a declaration at the beginning of the manuscript in which they must either state that no conflict of interest exists. Editors and reviewers must give full disclosure of COI on first contact with a NAJ manuscript to the Editor-in-Chief that no conflict of interest exists or describe the nature of any potential conflict.
Author Charges
Upon submission of paper, a quick assessment of papers will be done first by Editorial before Author's will be requested to pay for Aricle Processing Fees (APC) of ₦5,000. Upon acceptance, publication charge of ₦20,000 will be requested for article. Payable into the following as appropriate:
Account Details
Account Name: The Nigerian Agricultural Journal
Account Number: 0057803205
Bank: Access Bank (Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike), Abia State, Nigeria
Copyright Notice
NAJ supports free online communication and exchange of knowledge as the most effective way of ensuring that the fruits of research and development practice are made widely available. It is therefore committed to open access, which, for authors, enables the widest possible dissemination of their findings and, for readers, increases their ability to discover pertinent information. The Journal adopts and uses the CC: BY license and is open access. This license lets others distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the Journal’s published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work. Copyright for articles published in this Journal is retained by the Journal.
Copyright Notice
NAJ supports free online communication and exchange of knowledge as the most effective way of ensuring that the fruits of research and development practice are made widely available. It is therefore committed to open access, which, for authors, enables the widest possible dissemination of their findings and, for readers, increases their ability to discover pertinent information. The Journal adopts and uses the CC: BY license and is open access. This license lets others distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the Journal’s published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work. Copyright for articles published in this Journal is retained by the Journal.
