Author Guidelines
(REVISED IN APRIL2018)
The Journal of Tropical Soils (JTS) publishes all aspects in the original research of soil science (soil physics and soil conservation, soil mineralogy, soil chemistry and soil fertility, soil biochemistry, soil genesis and soil classification, soil survey and land evaluation, land development, environmental management), and related subjects that use soils from tropical areas. The article must be written in English and should be as concise as possible. The first author of the contributor must be a subscriber of JTS.
All the submitted manuscripts are reviewed by one of the editor and at least two reviewers. The JTS uses anonymous reviewing process, in which the identities of the authors and reviewers are kept confidential (“blind reviewer”).
Type of Papers
Original papers (regular papers) should report the results of original research. Submission of a manuscript to this Journal represents a certification on the part of the author(s) that it is an original work, and that neither this manuscript nor a version of it has been published elsewhere or being considered for publication elsewhere. Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, and its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other languages, without the written consent of the Publisher. For these reasons, the authors are encouraged to fill in the “Statement Letter of the Originality of the Manuscript” provided on the JTS website and send it along with the submitted manuscript. The article similarity will be checked using the Plagiarism Checker and Similarity Detector (http://www.ithenticate.com/).
Preparation of Manuscripts
Manuscript format: Before preparing the manuscript, consult carefully the layout of one of the latest issue of JTS. Manuscripts should be prepared with line number and written in 12 point Times New Roman font and double space in A4 paper. Margin on all four sides are 2 cm throughout, i.e. also for abstracts, footnotes and references. Every page of the manuscript, including the title page, references, tables, etc. should be numbered. Figures and tables are grouped and put at the end of the manuscript (after the References). The manuscript should be typed in a paper length of 15-20 pages, approximately 5000 words. To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the ‘spellchecker’ function of your wordprocessor. Please refer the template of the manuscript provided on the JTS website.
Manuscript sections are written in this order:
- First page (cover sheet): date of submission, name of author(s) and institution(s), address, telephone and fax numbers, e-mail address, title of manuscript, number of text pages, number of tables, number of figures, number of photographs, running title (less than 50 letters including space between words), and reprint order.
- The title page: The title should be informative (consist of not more than 14 words) and be followed by the surname and forename (in full) of each author, the department and institution of the authors come from, fax number and e-mail address (complete with postcode) of the corresponding author (this author being identified by an asterisk).
- An abstract: Summarizing a clear introduction or background of the study in two or three sentences, aim of the study, the methodology, the main results and the conclusions. Give one or two sentence(s) to discuss the finding(s) or prospective(s). The abstract should not exceed 200 words which has no references and be followed by keywords (not more than five words or phrases arranged in alphabetical order).
- Introduction: Write down the background of the study and mention the previous studies that had been done. State the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background.
- Materials and Methods: The method section need to be detailed enough to allow the reviewers to answer the following questions: (i) Are the methods described in sufficient detail so that the study can be replicated?, (ii) Is the research an experimental or exploration?, (iii) If your research uses the previous research method, please describe briefly that method. If you make any modification on the method, please describe the modified part.
- Results and Discussion: Results should be clear and concise. State the obtained results based on the used methods. Do not present the same data in both table and figure. Discuss your data by comparing the current reported data with the previous results. Highlight the similarities, as well as the differences, and the uniqueness of your findings. Explain why your result(s) is coming to be.
- Conclusions: The main conclusions of the study may be presented in a short Conclusions section, which may stand alone or form a subsection of a Discussion or Results and Discussion section.
- Acknowledgements: List here those individuals who provided help during the research (e.g. providing language help, writing assistance or proof reading the manuscript, state the grant source, etc.) if any.
- References: Cite the main scientific publications on which your work is based. Cite only items that you have read. Do not inflate the manuscript with too many references. Avoid excessive self-citations. Avoid excessive citations of publications from the same region. Check each reference against the original source (authors name, volume, issue, year, DOI Number). Please use the Reference Manager Application of “Mendeley” to help you writing the references. You can download the “Mendeley” application for free at https://www.mendeley.com/. Use other published articles in the JTS as models. Please refer to the correct journal title abbreviations provided here https://images.webofknowledge.com/images/help/WOS/A_abrvjt.html when writing the references. If there is any doubt, give the full name of the journal.
All published works referred to in the text should be present in a list of references and arranged alphabetically by the author without serial numbering. The author year system is used in the text. They should be referred to in the text by the name(s) of the first author and the year of publication in parentheses, using the following format: (Jordano and Godoy 2002) or Jordano and Godoy (2002). Use the first author‘s name and “et al.” when there are more than two authors. The order for references within parentheses in the text should be typed starting from the oldest year, e.g. (Cobo et al. 2002; Kwabiah et al. 2003; Lupwayi et al. 2005). If the references have the same year, place them alphabetically. For works by the same author(s) and the same year, append a lowercase a, b, c, etc. to the year of publication. Examples of reference citation are as follow:
Journal Article
Majerus V, P Bertin and S Lutts. 2007. Effects of iron toxicity on osmotic potential, osmolytes and polyamines concentration in the African rice (Oryza glaberrima Steud). Plant Sci 173: 96-105.
Chapter in Book or Proceeding
Haselwandter K. 1997. Soil microorganisms, mycorrhiza and restoration ecology. In: KM Urbanska, NR Webb and PJ Edwards (eds). Restoration Ecology and Sustainable Development. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 65-80.
Dolan MJ, H Van Bohemen, P Whelan, V O’Malley, G O’Leary and PJ Keizer. 2006. Towards the sustainable development of modern road ecosystem. In: J Davenport and JL Davenport (eds). The Ecology of Transportation: Managing Mobility for the Environment. Springer Netherlands, pp. 275-331.
Book
Tan KH. 1996. Soil sampling, preparation, and analysis. Marcel Dekker, Inc. New York. 408 p.
Thesis or Dissertation
Nursyamsi D. 2008. Pelepasan kalium terfiksasi dengan penambahan asam oksalat dan kation untuk meningkatkan kalium tersedia bagi tanaman pada tanah-tanah yang didominasi mineral liat smektit. [Disertasi]. Institut Pertanian Bogor, Bogor. (in Indonesian).
Burghouts TBA. 1993. Spatial variability of nutrient cycling in Bornean rain forest. [Thesis]. Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam.
Online Article or Newspaper
Strom S. 2016. Cover crops, a farming revolution with deep roots in the past. The New York Time. February, 6. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/business/cover-crops-a-farming-revolution-with-deep-roots-in-the-past.html (Accessed on March 27, 2018).
Tables, figures, and illustrations: Tables and figures, with their captions, should not appear in the text, but be placed together on separate sheets at the end of the manuscript. Keep text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used. In text, skip extra lines and indicate where those figures and table are to be placed. Number the tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text. Please use 10 point Times New Roman font and line spacing of 1.15 when making the table. Place footnotes for the tables below the table body and indicate them with superscript lowercase letters. Avoid vertical rules when making the table. Be sparing in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in the tables do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the manuscript.
Units: SI units should be used throughout, always be written in roman and separated from the numerical value by a space. The µ in µg or µm is always in roman. The symbol for litre is l and that for minute is min. The unit of ton should be written as Mg. As the ångstöm (1 Å = 10-10 m) is not an SI unit, it should be replaced by the nanometer (1 nm = 10-9 m) or by the picometer (1 pm = 10-12 m): 1 Å = 0.1 nm = 100 pm. Multiple units should be written with negative superscripts (for example, 25 mg l-1s-1).
Nomenclature: The Latin binomial or trinomial and authority must be used for plants, animals, and microorganisms when they are first used in both abstract and text. For soil nomenclature, international classification system (e.g. FAO-UNESCO system or USDA Soil Taxonomy) may be included as reference, when a local classification is presented. For chemical nomenclature, recommendation by the convention of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry should be followed.
Submission of Manuscripts
The manuscript and the “Statement Letter of the Originality of the Manuscript” should be submitted online through JTS website at http://journal.unila.ac.id/index.php/tropicalsoil/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions and/or by email (j.tnhtrop@gmail.com). Upon receipt of the manuscript, the authors will be informed of the “date when the manuscript was received” and the “registration number” of the manuscript. The registration number of the manuscript should be quoted in all correspondence thereafter.
For manuscript submissions and inquiries, please contact or send to:
Journal of Tropical Soils. Department of Soil Science, The University of Lampung, Jl. Sumantri Brojonegoro No. 1 Bandar Lampung 35145 INDONESIA, Phone/Fax: +62-721-781 822
Email: j.tnhtrop@gmail.com
Proofs
Proofs will be sent to the corresponding author as given on the title page of the manuscript. Usually proofs will be sent by email as a PDF file. Only typesetter’s errors may be corrected; no changes in, or additions to, the edited manuscript will be allowed. JTS will do everything possible to get your article corrected and published as quickly and accurately as possible. Therefore, it is important to ensure that all of your corrections are sent back to us in one communication. Subsequent corrections will not be possible, so please ensure your first sending is complete.
English language help service: Upon request, Editor of JTS will direct Authors to an agent who can check and improve the English of their paper (before submission). Please contact the journal via http://journal.unila.ac.id/index.php/tropicalsoil/about/contact or e-mail to j.tnhtrop@gmail.com for further information.
Author Fee
There is no submission fee for the authors when submitting their manuscripts to the Journal of Tropical Soils. However, the following fee will be applied to the authors for their accepted articles:
- The fee for publication process for each article is about Rp. 1,850,000 or 125 USD.
- The fee for hardcopy/printing of the published article (journal) is about Rp. 350,000 or 20 USD.
