Instructions for Authors

JAFS manuscript submission form.docx

JAFS manuscript submission form.pdf

Instructions for Authors 32_2023.pdf

1. General information

The Journal of Animal and Feed Sciences publishes original papers, reviews and, occasionally, short papers on basic and applied research in the fields of animal physiology, physiology of nutrition, animal feeding, feed technology, food preservation, breeding and genetics. Also papers specialized in molecular and cell biology, the emerging area of genetics and on the influence of animal husbandry on the environment and vice versa are published. Submitted manuscripts should provide new facts or confirmatory data. Review papers cannot be a summary of research done by one scientific team or research done within one project. Publication of a preliminary report or part of the data presented at scientific meetings or conferences should be noted in a title page footnote.
The papers should be written in clear and concise English.
The manuscript should be submitted only via the JAFS Editorial System (http://www.editorialsystem.com/jafs). The authors must remember to upload also the scan of completed Manuscript Submission Form. The form of the MSF is available at the end of these instructions on our website and in the system during registration.
The day the manuscript reaches the editors for the first time is given upon publication as the date ‘received’ and the day the version corrected by the authors is accepted by the reviewers is given as the date ‘revised’.
Authors receive a free electronic PDF version of their paper as a form of gratification. No royalties are offered to the authors. All papers are available free of charge at the webpage of the Journal (jafs.com.pl).

2. Requirements for manuscripts

Form and size. Manuscripts must be prepared in a doc or docx format – the preferred font for title page and main text is Times New Roman 12 points, double-spaced, and for tables and figures required font is Arial Narrow 9 points. Full-length articles may not exceed 6000 words (including tables) and 30 references. Short papers should not exceed 3000 words (including tables) and 15 references.

3. The manuscript should be assembled in the following order:

Title
The title should be unambiguous, understandable to specialists in other fields, and must reflect the contents of the paper. No abbreviations may be used in the title.

Name(s) of author(s) with affiliations footnoted added only to the system, not visible in the manuscript
The names of the authors should be given in the following order: first name initial, second name initial, surname. Affiliations should contain: name of institution, faculty, department, street, city with zip code, country.

E-mail address of corresponding author.

Running title no longer than 8 words.

Abstract with key words

Abstract
Information given in the title does not need to be repeated in the abstract. The abstract should be no longer than 250 words. It must contain the aim of the study, methods, results and conclusions. Abbreviations should be limited, if used, they must be explained on their first use.

Key words
Key words (min. 3, max. 6) should cover the most specific terms found in the paper. They should describe the subject and results and must differ from words used in the title. Key words should be placed in alphabetical order.

Main Text
The paper (without line numbering as the system adds it automatically) should be sub-headed into appropriate sections:

Introduction
A brief review of relevant research (with references to the most important and recent publications) should lead to the clear formulation of the working hypothesis and aim of the study. Indicating what is novel and important in the study is recommended.

Material and Methods
The approval of the relevant Ethics Committee of the procedures used in experiments on animals has to be cited at the beginning of this section. Care should be taken to ensure that the experiments are adequately replicated.
All procedures used for processing of experimental material and analytical methods should be given. Only original methods should be described in detail, otherwise citation of the author of the method and indication of the modifications are sufficient. All sources of products, equipment and chemicals used in analyses must be specified. All measurements should be expressed in SI units. Experimental animals should be identified by designation of their genus, species and strain, and of their age, sex, genetic and physiological status. Methods of statistical processing, including software, should be indicated.

Results
The results can be presented in tables or in graphic form (figures, photographs) and shortly described in the text. The text should not duplicate the tabular data.

Tables should be prepared using the table creation function in Microsoft Word® (not by employing tabs and spaces), and submitted as separate pages at the end of the manuscript. They should be numbered in the order in which they appear in the text. Tables and column headings should be brief, but sufficiently explanatory. All results must be presented in SI units. Abbreviations should only be used if necessary for consistency or if there is not enough space for whole words. All abbreviations and symbols that are not obvious should be defined in the captions or footnotes. Numbers should be formatted so that they only contain meaningful digits. The data in tables should be presented to three significant digits with mean values <990, i.e., XXXX, XXX, XX.X, 0.XX, 0.0XX, etc. SEM values should be expressed with one more decimal place than presented results. Using text tables when presenting a small set of data is recommended.

P-values should be given in the tables.

Figures
Illustrations should be referred to within the text as ‘Figure’ and numbered consecutively throughout the paper. Diagrams should be provided in Microsoft Excel® files and should be stored with original data. Autotypes should be submitted in JPEG or TIF format with a resolution of no less than 300 dpi and provided in the size in which they should be printed, i.e. 8 cm in width when placed on one column and 17 cm in width when across the page; the font Arial Narrow 11 points should be used for all characters on JPEG and TIF illustrations.

Discussion
This section should contain an interpretation of the results and explain the influence of experimental factors or methods. It should describe how the results and their interpretation relate to the scientific hypothesis and/or aim of the study. The discussion should take into account the current state of knowledge and up-to-date literature and highlight the significance and novelty of the paper. It may also point to the next steps that will lead to a better understanding of the matters in question.
Simple comparison of the results with those obtained in other studies should be avoided.

Conclusions
One or two conclusions originating from the study should be formulated in the present tense. Repetition of the main results should be avoided.

Acknowledgements (if relevant).

Conflict of interest
The following statement should be added to the text of the manuscript: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

References
In the text:
at the end of the sentence or after particular part of the sentence:

• papers with one author (example: Soren, 2012);

• if the cited manuscript has two authors, the citation should include both last names followed by a comma, a space, and the publication year (example: Marconi and Johnston, 2006);

• papers with more than two authors should be cited by the last name of the first author, followed by et al., a comma, a space, and the year of the publication (example: Smith et al., 2012);

• if several authors are cited simultaneously, references should be separated with a semicolon (example: Zhang, 2011; Smith et al., 2012; Li et al., 2018; Sun et al., 2022) – starting with the oldest and ending with the newest one, or when the publications dates are the same they should be placed in alphabetical order (example: Smith et al, 2012; Soren, 2012);

at the beginning of the sentence:
• when a sentence starts with cited author last name, only the date of the publication should be placed in brackets (example: Arntfield et al. (2021) discovered that the optimal…..// In contrast, Marconi and Johnston (2006) examined the role of the … while Soren (2012) emphasised that ….).

In tables:
• papers with one author, two authors or more with the year of publication in brackets and the semicolon between them are cited chronologically as presented below:

Grain	Time, s	Surface temperature, ° C	Moisture level, %	Source
maize flour	173	179	40	Soren (2012); Chung et al. (2021)
pea	90	180	10	Marconi and Johnston (2006); Smith et al. (2012)

In the Reference section, a maximum of ten authors of the cited paper may be given. Where there are more than ten authors, the first three should be listed and followed by et al. All references cited in the text must be listed in the Reference section alphabetically by the last names of the author(s) and then chronologically. The year of publication follows the authors’ names. All titles of the cited articles should be given in English. Please limit the citation of papers published in languages other than English; if necessary translate the title into English and provide information concerning the original language in brackets, e.g. (in Spanish).
Abbreviation of the titles of periodicals should be in accordance with the ISSN List of the World Abbreviations (LTWA), otherwise the full name of periodicals should be given.
If possible, the DOI number should be added at the end of each reference.
Important: All Treaties, Legal Acts, Regulations, Declarations, Reports etc. mentioned in the text of manuscript should be also listed in References section.

The following system for arranging references should be used:

For papers in periodicals (without DOI):
Menke K.H., Steingass H., 1988. Estimation of the energetic feed value obtained from chemical analysis and in vitro gas production using rumen fluid. Anim. Res. Develop. 28, 7–55

For papers in periodicals (with DOI):
Krawczyńska A., Olczak E., Rembiszewska A., Gromadzka-Ostrowska J., 2013. High-fat, cholesterol-rich diet affects leptin expression in the aortic layers. Exp. Biol. Med. 238, 47–56, https://doi.org/10.1258/ebm.2012.012228

For papers in periodicals (more than 10 authors):
Sanchez M.P., Govignon-Gion A., Ferrand M. et al., 2016. Whole-genome scan to detect quantitative trait loci associated with milk protein composition in 3 French dairy cattle breeds. J. Dairy Sci. 99, 8203–8215, https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2016-11437

For papers in edited volumes, symposia proceedings, special issues of periodicals, etc.:
Lonergan S.M., Huff-Lonergan E., Grubbs J.K., Cruzen S.M., Carlson K.B., 2016. Proteomic applications to study livestock growth efficiency and meat quality. In: J. Skomiał, H. Lapierre (Editors). Energy and Protein Metabolism and Nutrition. Proceedings of the 5th EAAP International Symposium on Energy and Protein Metabolism and Nutrition. Krakow (Poland). EAAP publication No. 137. Wageningen Academic Publishers, pp. 53–54

For books and edited volumes:
Steiner T. (Editor), 2006. Managing Gut Health. Natural Growth Promoters as a Key to Animal Performance. Nottingham University Press. Nottingham (UK)

For multi-author books:
Kleter G., Kok E., 2013. Compositional analysis for nutritional and safety assessment of feed from GM plants. In: G. Flachowsky (Editor). Animal Nutrition with Transgenic Plants. CAB International. Wallingford, OX (UK), pp. 50–58

For theses:
Haasbroek P., 2016. The use of Hermetia illucens and Chrysomya chloropyga larvae and pre-pupae meal in ruminant nutrition. Master of Science Thesis. University of Stellenbosch. Western Cape (South Africa)

4. Acceptance of manuscripts

The editor decides whether to reject the manuscript or to accept it for further processing after pre-evaluation by Editorial Board experts. An accepted paper is sent without the authors’ names and affiliations to at least two reviewers. Proposals of three reviewers (and their e-mail addresses) from countries other than the authors’ will be appreciated.
The authors should improve the manuscript according to the reviewers’ remarks and should answer all of the questions and comments in a separate letter. The corrected version should be sent in two copies: one as a final text (plain text) and the second with all of the amendments clearly marked.
The editor and publisher kindly request all authors to carefully follow the recommendations laid down in these Instructions.

5. Special issues

Special issues of the Journal of Animal and Feed Sciences are published occasionally. Manuscripts on extensive experimental investigations, forming a self-contained unit, are of first consideration for publication in these issues. All such manuscripts will be reviewed as in the regular volumes.

6. Article image (graphical abstract)

Authors of manuscripts accepted for publication are kindly asked to prepare the article image (jpeg file) which will be presented at our website (not in the article pdf). The article image should represent the core of the article and encourage Readers to look through the text. It should be colourful, and can be one of the Figures form the article or can be specially prepared for this purpose. It is free of charge.

7. Charges

All papers published in Journal of Animal and Feed Sciences are open access and freely available online, immediately upon publication. This is made possible by an article-processing charge (APC) that covers the costs of article publishing process.

APC is dependent of the pages count. The APC is 67 EUR (+Tax) or 67 USD (+Tax) or 320 PLN (+Tax) for one (PDF) page.

The APC will be payable when the manuscript is editorially accepted but before the publication. It will be charged to author or institution. The invoice will be sent electronically after the Editor-in-Chief approval of the article and the designation a number of issue.

Additional costs
The additional cost of each colour page in the printed version is 10 EUR (+Tax) or 10 USD (+Tax) or 48 PLN (+Tax).

APC and all additional costs payment should be made by international money order or bank transfer to:
name of institution: The Kielanowski Institute of Animal Physiology and Nutrition, Polish Academy of Sciences
address: street: Instytucka 3, city: 05-110 Jabłonna, country: Poland
IBAN: PL 43 1130 1017 0020 1463 9520 0002 (Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego)
SWIFT: GOSKPLPW
VAT No.: PL5250009105