Guide for Authors
INTRODUCTION
Biotechnology
Advances is a review journal which considers all aspects of the multidisciplinary field. The scope includes biotechnology principles
and applications in industry, agriculture, medicine, environmental concerns and regulatory issues. Authoritative articles on current
developments and future trends in biotechnology are empathized. Submissions of appropriate manuscripts are invited. A wide audience of
scientists, engineers and others is addressed: students, instructors, researchers, practitioners, managers, governments and related stakeholders.
Special issues are published on selections of presentations at recent relevant conferences as arranged with the organizations. Special
issues are also produced to review areas of biotechnology which are inadequately covered in a focused and/or timely manner in regular
issues, as arranged with invited guest editors.
Types of paper
The following types of manuscript
are considered: review articles, both short and longer extensive ones; special reports, notes and letters; guest editorials; reviews
of new books; overviews of recent conferences. The review article should demonstrate insights of the topic with regard to current developments
and future trends in biotechnology. The author(s) should give evidence in the literature of appropriate expertise, for example in the
publications cited in the proposed manuscript.
Contact details for submission
Papers should
be submitted using the Biotechnology Advances online submission system, http://ees.elsevier.com/jba
Page
charges
This journal has no page charges.
Ethics
in publishing
For information on Ethics in publishing and Ethical guidelines for journal publication see
http://www.elsevier.com/publishingethics
and
http://www.elsevier.com/ethicalguidelines.
Conflict of interest
All authors
are requested to disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest including any financial, personal or other relationships with
other people or organizations within three years of beginning the submitted work that could inappropriately influence, or be perceived
to influence, their work. See also
http://www.elsevier.com/conflictsofinterest.
Submission
declaration
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, that
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 including electronically in the same form, in English or in any other language,
without the written consent of the copyright-holder.
Plagiarism
A manuscript detected with
plagiarism will be automatically rejected and the author(s)' institute notified.
Authorship
All
authors should have made substantial contributions to all of the following: (1) the conception and design of the study, or acquisition
of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content,
(3) final approval of the version to be submitted. Only the corresponding author of co-authored articles is allowed to communicate with
the designated corresponding editor.
Please note that
journal policy does not allow any author to publish more than 3 papers in
Biotechnology Advances within a two-year timeframe.
Copyright
Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete a 'Journal Publishing Agreement'
(for more information on this and copyright see
http://www.elsevier.com/copyright). Acceptance of the agreement will ensure
the widest possible dissemination of information. An e-mail will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript
together with a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' form or a link to the online version of this agreement.
Subscribers may reproduce
tables of contents or prepare lists of articles including abstracts for internal circulation within their institutions. Permission of
the Publisher is required for resale or distribution outside the institution and for all other derivative works, including compilations
and translations (please consult
http://www.elsevier.com/permissions). If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included,
the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article. Elsevier has preprinted
forms for use by authors in these cases: please consult
http://www.elsevier.com/permissions.
Retained
author rights
As an author you (or your employer or institution) retain certain rights; for details you are referred to:
http://www.elsevier.com/authorsrights.
Role of the funding source
You are requested
to identify who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article and to briefly describe
the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report;
and in the decision to submit the article for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement then this should be stated.
Please see
http://www.elsevier.com/funding.
Funding body agreements and policies
Elsevier
has established agreements and developed policies to allow authors whose articles appear in journals published by Elsevier, to comply
with potential manuscript archiving requirements as specified as conditions of their grant awards. To learn more about existing agreements
and policies please visit
http://www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies.
Language and language services
Please
write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these). Authors who require information
about language editing and copyediting services pre- and post-submission please visit
http://webshop.elsevier.com/languageservices or our customer support site at
http://support.elsevier.com for more information.
Submission
Submission
to this journal proceeds totally online and you will be guided stepwise through the creation and uploading of your files. The system
automatically converts source files to a single PDF file of the article, which is used in the peer-review process. Please note that even
though manuscript source files are converted to PDF files at submission for the review process, these source files are needed for further
processing after acceptance. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, takes place
by e-mail removing the need for a paper trail.
Submit your article
Please submit your article
via
http://ees.elsevier.com/jba
Referees
The corresponding author should give
the names and e-mail addresses of 8 possible reviewers of the manuscript. The list of suggested external reviewers should include their
names, titles, organizations, and institutional e-mail addresses (not hotmail, gmail, yahoo, etc.) If possible, no more than one of the
suggested external reviewers should be located in the same country/state (excepting the USA) of the corresponding author. Also, the
suggested external reviewers should not have conflict interests as co-authors in previous publications within the past five years.
The editors, however, reserve the right at the time of manuscript submission to decide whether a manuscript should be reviewed by external
reviewers based on various factors, such as authors' qualification, suitability of the review topic, and general quality of the manuscript,
etc.
Use of wordprocessing software
It is important
that the file be saved in the native format of the wordprocessor used. The text should be in single-column format. Keep the layout of
the text as simple as possible. Most formatting codes will be removed and replaced on processing the article. In particular, do not use
the wordprocessor's options to justify text or to hyphenate words. However, do use bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts etc.
When preparing tables, if you are using a table grid, use only one grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row. If no
grid is used, use tabs, not spaces, to align columns. The electronic text should be prepared in a way very similar to that of conventional
manuscripts (see also the Guide to Publishing with Elsevier:
http://www.elsevier.com/guidepublication). Note that source
files of figures, tables and text graphics will be required whether or not you embed your figures in the text. See also the section on
Electronic artwork.
To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the 'spell-check' and 'grammar-check' functions of
your wordprocessor.
Article structure
Subdivision - numbered sections
Divide
your article into clearly defined and numbered sections. Subsections should be numbered 1.1 (then 1.1.1, 1.1.2, ...), 1.2, etc. (the
abstract is not included in section numbering). Use this numbering also for internal cross-referencing: do not just refer to 'the text'.
Any subsection may be given a brief heading. Each heading should appear on its own separate line.
Introduction
State
the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.
Results and Discussion
Include an appropriate amount of detailed surveys of the literature and other relevant
materials such as patents, reports and books, under various related sections and subsections to address the review objectives
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.
Appendices
If
there is more than one appendix, they should be identified as A, B, etc. Formulae and equations in appendices should be given separate
numbering: Eq. (A.1), Eq. (A.2), etc.; in a subsequent appendix, Eq. (B.1) and so on. Similarly for tables and figures: Table A.1; Fig.
A.1, etc.
Essential title page information
•
Title.
Concise and informative.
Titles are often used in information-retrieval systems. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible.
•
Author names
and affiliations.
Where the family name may be ambiguous (e.g., a double name), please indicate this clearly. Present the authors'
affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names. Indicate all affiliations with a lower-case superscript letter
immediately after the author's name and in front of the appropriate address. Provide the full postal address of each affiliation, including
the country name and, if available, the e-mail address of each author.
•
Corresponding author.
Clearly indicate
who will handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also post-publication.
Ensure that telephone and fax numbers
(with country and area code) are provided in addition to the e-mail address and the complete postal address. Contact details must be
kept up to date by the corresponding author.
•
Present/permanent address.
If an author has moved since the
work described in the article was done, or was visiting at the time, a 'Present address' (or 'Permanent address') may be indicated as
a footnote to that author's name. The address at which the author actually did the work must be retained as the main, affiliation address.
Superscript Arabic numerals are used for such footnotes.
Only
corresponding authors may correspond
with the designated
corresponding editor; contacts from their co-authors are not appropriate.
Abstract
A
concise and factual abstract is required. The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research review, the principal results
and major conclusions. An abstract is often presented separately from the article, so it must be able to stand alone. For this reason,
References should be avoided, but if essential, then cite the author(s) and year(s). Also, non-standard or uncommon abbreviations should
be avoided, but if essential they must be defined at their first mention in the abstract itself.
Keywords
Immediately
after the abstract, provide a maximum of 10 keywords, using American spelling and avoiding general and plural terms and multiple concepts
(avoid, for example, 'and', 'of'). Be sparing with abbreviations: only abbreviations firmly established in the field may be eligible.
These keywords will be used for indexing purposes.
Abbreviations
Define abbreviations that
are not standard in this field in a footnote to be placed on the first page of the article. Such abbreviations that are unavoidable in
the abstract must be defined at their first mention there, as well as in the footnote. Ensure consistency of abbreviations throughout
the article.
Acknowledgements
Collate acknowledgements in a separate section at the end
of the article before the references and do not, therefore, include them on the title page, as a footnote to the title or otherwise.
List here those individuals who provided help during the research (e.g., providing language help, writing assistance or proof reading
the article, etc.).
Accession numbers
Accession numbers are unique identifiers in bioinformatics
allocated to nucleotide and protein sequences to allow tracking of different versions of that sequence record and the associated sequence
in a data repository [e.g., databases at the National Center for Biotechnical Information (NCBI) at the National Library of Medicine
('GenBank') and the Worldwide Protein Data Bank]. There are different types of accession numbers in use based on the type of sequence
cited, each of which uses a different coding. Authors should explicitly mention the type of accession number together with the actual
number, bearing in mind that an error in a letter or number can result in a dead link in the online version of the article. Please use
the following format: accession number type ID: xxxx (e.g., MMDB ID: 12345; PDB ID: 1TUP). Note that in the final version of the electronic
copy, accession numbers will be linked to the appropriate database, enabling readers to go directly to that source from the article.
Footnotes
Footnotes should be used sparingly. Number them consecutively throughout the article, using superscript
Arabic numbers. Many wordprocessors build footnotes into the text, and this feature may be used. Should this not be the case, indicate
the position of footnotes in the text and present the footnotes themselves separately at the end of the article. Do not include footnotes
in the Reference list.
Table footnotes
Indicate each footnote in a table with a superscript lowercase letter.
Electronic artwork
General points
• Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of your
original artwork.
• Save text in illustrations as 'graphics' or enclose the font.
• Only use the following fonts in
your illustrations: Arial, Courier, Times, Symbol.
• Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text.
•
Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files.
• Provide captions to illustrations separately.
• Produce images
near to the desired size of the printed version.
• Submit each figure as a separate file.
A detailed guide on electronic
artwork is available on our website:
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions
You are urged to visit this
site; some excerpts from the detailed information are given here.
Formats
Regardless of the application used, when
your electronic artwork is finalised, please 'save as' or convert the images to one of the following formats (note the resolution requirements
for line drawings, halftones, and line/halftone combinations given below):
EPS: Vector drawings. Embed the font or save the text
as 'graphics'.
TIFF: Color or grayscale photographs (halftones): always use a minimum of 300 dpi.
TIFF: Bitmapped line drawings:
use a minimum of 1000 dpi.
TIFF: Combinations bitmapped line/half-tone (color or grayscale): a minimum of 500 dpi is required.
If
your electronic artwork is created in a Microsoft Office application (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) then please supply 'as is'.
Please
do not:
• Supply files that are optimised for screen use (e.g., GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG); the resolution is too low;
•
Supply files that are too low in resolution;
• Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.
Color artwork
Please make sure that artwork files are in an acceptable format (TIFF, EPS or MS Office files)
and with the correct resolution. If, together with your accepted article, you submit usable color figures then Elsevier will ensure,
at no additional charge, that these figures will appear in color on the Web (e.g., ScienceDirect and other sites) regardless of whether
or not these illustrations are reproduced in color in the printed version.
For color reproduction in print, you will receive information
regarding the costs from Elsevier after receipt of your accepted article. Please indicate your preference for color: in print or
on the Web only. For further information on the preparation of electronic artwork, please see
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
Please note: Because of technical complications which can arise by converting color figures to 'gray scale' (for the printed version
should you not opt for color in print) please submit in addition usable black and white versions of all the color illustrations.
Figure captions
Ensure that each illustration has a caption. Supply captions separately, not attached to the
figure. A caption should comprise a brief title (
not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep text in
the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used.
Tables
Number
tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text. Place footnotes to tables below the table body and indicate them
with superscript lowercase letters. Avoid vertical rules. Be sparing in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in tables
do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article.
References
Citation
in text
Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Any
references cited in the abstract must be given in full. Unpublished results and personal communications are not recommended in the reference
list, but may be mentioned in the text. If these references are included in the reference list they should follow the standard reference
style of the journal and should include a substitution of the publication date with either 'Unpublished results' or 'Personal communication'.
Citation of a reference as 'in press' implies that the item has been accepted for publication.
Web references
As
a minimum, the full URL should be given and the date when the reference was last accessed. Any further information, if known (DOI, author
names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.), should also be given. Web references can be listed separately (e.g., after the
reference list) under a different heading if desired, or can be included in the reference list.
References
in a special issue
Please ensure that the words 'this issue' are added to any references in the list (and any citations
in the text) to other articles in the same Special Issue.
Reference style
Text:
All citations in the text should refer to:
1.
Single author: the author's name (without initials, unless there is ambiguity)
and the year of publication;
2.
Two authors: both authors' names and the year of publication;
3.
Three or more authors:
first author's name followed by 'et al.' and the year of publication.
Citations may be made directly (or parenthetically). Groups
of references should be listed first alphabetically, then chronologically.
Examples: 'as demonstrated in wheat (Allan, 2000a, 2000b,
1999; Allan and Jones, 1999). Kramer et al. (2010) have recently shown ....'
List: References should be arranged first alphabetically
and then further sorted chronologically if necessary. More than one reference from the same author(s) in the same year must be identified
by the letters 'a', 'b', 'c', etc., placed after the year of publication.
Examples:
Reference to a journal publication:
Van der Geer J, Hanraads JAJ, Lupton RA. The art of writing a scientific article. J Sci Commun 2010;163:51–9.
Reference
to a book:
Strunk Jr W, White EB. The elements of style. 4th ed. New York: Longman; 2000.
Reference to a chapter in an edited
book:
Mettam GR, Adams LB. How to prepare an electronic version of your article. In: Jones BS, Smith RZ, editors. Introduction to
the electronic age. New York: E-Publishing Inc; 2009. p. 281–304.
Note shortened form for last page number. e.g., 51–9,
and that for more than 6 authors the first 6 should be listed followed by "et al." For further details you are referred to "Uniform Requirements
for Manuscripts submitted to Biomedical Journals" (J Am Med Assoc 1997;277:927–34) (see also
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html).
Journal abbreviations source
Journal names should be abbreviated according to
Index Medicus journal abbreviations:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/serials/lji.html;
List of title word abbreviations:
http://www.issn.org/2-22661-LTWA-online.php;
CAS (Chemical Abstracts Service):
http://www.cas.org/sent.html.
Supplementary data
Elsevier
accepts electronic supplementary material to support and enhance your scientific research. Supplementary files offer the author additional
possibilities to publish supporting applications, high-resolution images, background datasets, sound clips and more. Supplementary files
supplied will be published online alongside the electronic version of your article in Elsevier Web products, including ScienceDirect:
http://www.sciencedirect.com. In order to ensure that your submitted material is directly usable, please provide the data
in one of our recommended file formats. Authors should submit the material in electronic format together with the article and supply
a concise and descriptive caption for each file. For more detailed instructions please visit our artwork instruction pages at
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
Submission checklist
The following list will be useful during the final checking of an article prior to sending
it to the journal for review. Please consult this Guide for Authors for further details of any item.
Ensure that the following
items are present:
One author has been designated as the corresponding author with contact details:
• E-mail address
• Full postal address
• Telephone and fax numbers
All necessary files have been uploaded, and contain:
•
Keywords
• All figure captions
• All tables (including title, description, footnotes)
Further considerations
•
Manuscript has been 'spell-checked' and 'grammar-checked'
• References are in the correct format for this journal
•
All references mentioned in the Reference list are cited in the text, and vice versa
• Permission has been obtained for use
of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Web)
• Color figures are clearly marked as being intended for color
reproduction on the Web (free of charge) and in print, or to be reproduced in color on the Web (free of charge) and in black-and-white
in print
• If only color on the Web is required, black-and-white versions of the figures are also supplied for printing purposes
For any further information please visit our customer support site at
http://support.elsevier.com.
Use of the Digital
Object Identifier
The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) may be used to cite and link to electronic documents. The DOI consists
of a unique alpha-numeric character string which is assigned to a document by the publisher upon the initial electronic publication.
The assigned DOI never changes. Therefore, it is an ideal medium for citing a document, particularly 'Articles in press' because they
have not yet received their full bibliographic information. The correct format for citing a DOI is shown as follows (example taken from
a document in the journal
Physics Letters B):
doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2010.09.059
When you use the DOI to create URL
hyperlinks to documents on the web, the DOIs are guaranteed never to change.
Proofs
One
set of page proofs (as PDF files) will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author (if we do not have an e-mail address then paper
proofs will be sent by post) or, a link will be provided in the e-mail so that authors can download the files themselves. Elsevier now
provides authors with PDF proofs which can be annotated; for this you will need to download Adobe Reader version 7 (or higher) available
free from
http://get.adobe.com/reader. Instructions on how to annotate PDF files will accompany the proofs (also given online).
The exact system requirements are given at the Adobe site:
http://www.adobe.com/products/reader/tech-specs.html.
If
you do not wish to use the PDF annotations function, you may list the corrections (including replies to the Query Form) and return them
to Elsevier in an e-mail. Please list your corrections quoting line number. If, for any reason, this is not possible, then mark the corrections
and any other comments (including replies to the Query Form) on a printout of your proof and return by fax, or scan the pages and e-mail,
or by post. Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text, tables and figures.
Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the Editor.
We will do everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately – please let us have all your corrections within
48 hours. It is important to ensure that all corrections are sent back to us in one communication: please check carefully before replying,
as inclusion of any subsequent corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility. Note that Elsevier may proceed
with the publication of your article if no response is received.
Offprints
The corresponding
author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article via e-mail. For an extra charge, paper offprints can be ordered via
the offprint order form which is sent once the article is accepted for publication. The PDF file is a watermarked version of the published
article and includes a cover sheet with the journal cover image and a disclaimer outlining the terms and conditions of use.
For inquiries relating to the submission of articles (including electronic submission) please
visit this journal's homepage. Contact details for questions arising after acceptance of an article, especially those relating to proofs,
will be provided by the publisher. You can track accepted articles at
http://www.elsevier.com/trackarticle. You can also
check our Author FAQs (
http://www.elsevier.com/authorFAQ) and/or contact Customer Support via
http://support.elsevier.com.
