Instructions to Authors

The Annals of Tropical Research (ATR) publishes original, innovative and recent research papers, review articles, research notes, conference proceedings, editorials, and letters to the editor. The printed version of the ATR is published bi-annually, in June and December. However, with ATR’s new Online First feature, the final revised electronic version of accepted articles will be published ahead of print while being assigned for an upcoming issue, and can be cited using the article’s unique Digital Object Identifier (DOI). ATR’s Online First allows authors to publish their work quickly thus significantly reducing the publication time and provides an avenue for articles to be available to ATR’s subscribers and the public earlier for greater exposure and citation opportunities. ATR is an open access journal that does not charge any article processing/handling fees. ATR supports the initiative of COPE in publication ethics, best practices and the promotion of the integrity of scholarly research.

When a paper is submitted, the Editor in Chief makes an initial assessment on the fitness of the submitted manuscript to the scope of ATR and the soundness of its research objectives and methodology. Although rare, it is possible for an exceptional manuscript or an invited paper to be accepted at this stage by the Editorial Board. On the other hand, a manuscript may be rejected for the following reasons:

  1. The paper’s focus does not fall under the scope of the ATR;
  2. The research has a faulty study design;
  3. The research is unethical (ie, it did not follow the ethical standards in the field); and
  4. The paper lacks originality, novelty or significance.

After having been judged robust enough, the manuscript will be passed to an associate editor whose expertise aligns with the manuscript’s disciplinary sphere. The associate editor reviews the manuscript with two other reviewers with pertinent disciplinary specialization. The review process is double blind where both authors and reviewers are kept anonymous. Based on the recommendation of the reviewers, the paper may be published without revision (ie, the paper is excellent), accepted with minor revision, accepted with major revision (review is required after revision) or rejected (ie, the paper is not acceptable). Normally, ATR gives reviewers three weeks to review the paper, after which they are expected to submit a report and recommendation whether to accept or reject it.

Authors are given four weeks to revise the manuscript based on the reviews. After the final revision by the authors, the associate editor endorses the manuscript to the Editor in Chief for final approval. Failure to submit the revision within the allotted time may result to the rejection of the manuscript, which can be submitted as a new manuscript.

The ATR is committed to uphold intellectual honesty and other fundamental ethical principles for the responsible conduct of academic and scientific pursuits. Authors are required to conform with ATR’s Ethics Statement.

Data Storage and Documentation

Although not mandatory, ATR encourages authors to make their data, transcripts and other artefacts used to generate the analyses presented in the paper available via a publicly available data repository. The journal, however, respects the privacy, confidentiality and ethical considerations of the data. For papers that include original data, at least one author should confirm that he or she has full access to all data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the analysis.

Human Studies

For studies that involve human participants, ATR requires a statement identifying the ethics committee that approved the study, and that the study conforms to recognized standards. Images (ie, photographs) and information from individual participants will be published only when the authors have obtained the individual’s prior informed consent. ATR does not require authors to provide a copy of the consent, however in signing the publication agreement, authors are required to confirm that consent has been obtained.

For studies that involve minors (ie, children and infants), authors should confirm that a written informed consent from legally authorized representatives — parents or guardians — was obtained and this is available upon request. If verbal informed consent was obtained, reasons for obtaining the verbal consent must be provided.

Animal Studies

For studies involving animals, ATR requires a statement indicating: 1) the protocol and procedures applied and that these were reviewed and approved by an appropriate animal ethics committee, and 2) the name of the body giving such approval. These information must be included in the Methods section of the manuscript. ATR encourages authors to adhere to animal research reporting standards for reporting study design and statistical analysis; experimental procedures; and basic protocols involved in housing, husbandry, and health management of experimental animals. Authors should clearly state that experiments and/or clinical trials were performed in accordance with relevant institutional and national guidelines and regulations for the care and use of laboratory animals such as the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC).

Conflict of Interest

ATR requires that all authors disclose any potential sources of conflict of interest or competing interest. Potential sources of conflict of interest may be financial or non-financial in nature that may influence an author’s objectivity. These potential sources of conflict of interest include, but are not limited to, patent or stock ownership, employment or membership in an organization’s board of directors, membership of an advisory board or committee of an organization, and consultancy for or receipt of honoraria from an organization, or any interest and relationship that might be perceived as inappropriately influencing an author’s objectivity. Conflict of interest may also arise from personal relationship with research participants or with leadership of subject organization. It is a must that authors disclose with the submission all pertinent commercial and other relationships that can constitute conflict of interest.

The existence of a conflict of interest does not preclude publication. ATR requires that all authors review this policy and disclose with the submission of all pertinent commercial and other relationships. If there is no disclosure, authors must say so, and ATR will just indicate “No potential competing interest was reported by the authors” under the section, Conflict of Interest.

Funding

Authors should list all funding sources in the Acknowledgments section. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of their funder designation.

Authorship

Only those who contributed to the research and writing of the paper should be included in list of authors. More specifically, those listed as authors qualify for authorship according to the following criteria by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICME):

  1. They have made substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data. They have been involved in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content.
  2. They have given final approval of the version to be published. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.
  3. They agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. ATR requires a statement, at the end of the manuscript, describing the role of each author in designing and implementing the research and in writing the paper. Contributions from anyone who does not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgments section to recognize contributions from people who provided technical help, collation of data, writing assistance, acquisition of funding, or a department chairperson who provided general support. It is assumed that prior to submitting the manuscript all authors agree on the order of their names in the paper. In the case of joint first authorship, a footnote should be added to the author listing (eg, Authors A and B should be considered as joint first authors). Editors and editorial team members are excluded from publication decisions when they are authors or have contributed to a manuscript.

Adding Authors After Review

ATR does not allow adding new co-authors after the review. A request for adding new co-authors is a ground for rejection of the manuscript. It is a must that the list of authors is complete before submitting the manuscript.

Plagiarism

Prior to review, ATR subjects the submission to the Turnitin plagiarism software. Only submissions that earn a similarity score of 4% or less will be subjected to a peer-review. Articles that do not reach the acceptable similarity index will be returned to the authors for revision or may result in outright rejection.

Research Fraud

ATR takes research fraud as a serious offense. Research fraud is an act of publishing research results and generating conclusions from fabricated data and falsification. Fabrication involves reporting up research data that were not generated by experiments or observations while falsification includes manipulation of research data, materials, processes and images. Both fabrication and falsification are serious forms of violations of ethical standards in publication. Thus, ATR rejects and retracts articles proven to be derived from fraudulent research.

Retraction

ATR reserves the right to retract articles reporting research that are fraudulent and have breached scientific ethics. Articles in the ATR may be retracted based on the following:

  1. The research is fraudulent, that is, the research findings and conclusions reported in the paper are from fabricated and falsified data. ATR also retracts papers with manipulated images and miscalculation or an experimental error;
  2. The research reported does not follow ethical standards, and
  3. The paper is a redundant publication, that is, the findings reported have previously been published elsewhere without proper cross-referencing, permission or justification. ATR considers as duplication translation articles without proper permission from the publisher. In submitting the paper, ATR requires that the cover letter explicitly state the following: 1) the paper is original, 2) no part of the manuscript has been published previously in a peer-reviewed publication, and 3) the manuscript is not under consideration by other journals.

ORCID

As part of our commitment to supporting authors at every step of the publishing process, ATR requires all authors to provide an ORCID iD when submitting a manuscript. More information about ORCID click here.

The ATR applies the Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND license that allows reusers to copy and distribute an article in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to ATR and the authors. The ATR immediately allows the free use of its content without charge for as long as it is not used for any commercial or unlawful purpose.

The Visayas State University, ATR’s publisher, retains the following rights to the articles that ATR published: non-exclusive right to publish and distribute an article including its figures, illustrations, charts, tables, photographs and text excerpts; receive proper attribution and citation as journal of first publication and/or version of record; and migrate the work to future formats and include it in it collections. Together with their manuscript, authors have to submit a properly accomplished Copyright Transfer Agreement (Click here to download) that declares transfer of the above-mentioned rights to the Visayas State University effective if and when the paper is accepted for publication in ATR. The authors, however, reserve the right to share and disseminate their research in unadapted form for as long as these are not done for commercial reasons. This does not require prior permission for as long as no alteration is done to the article or its components and ATR is properly acknowledged as the source, either as a footnote or in the reference list.

For advance and wider dissemination of research results, ATR allows authors the use the author’s original manuscript (AOM) and/or the final published version obtained from the ATR website for self-archiving in the author’s personal website and/or in a non-profit institutional repository without embargo. Authors can share AOM as much as the author likes and in any platform including social media for non-commercial purposes. Once the AOM has been accepted for publication in the ATR, the author has to acknowledge this through the statement: “This article has been accepted for publication in the Annals of Tropical Research.” ATR asks that the final published version to be archived will properly cite ATR as the original source and include the article’s DOI. Individual users may view, print, download and copy self-archived articles for non-commercial/non-promotional purposes only, provided that the author and ATR be given appropriate credit using correct citation details. The AOM and the published version may also be presented at a meeting or conference, used for educational purposes or group research discussions, and/or shared through social media. ATR is listed in Sherpa Romeo.

Manuscripts should be written in English and typed double-spaced on one side of letter size (21.59cmx27.94cm) bond paper, with normal margins (2.54cm), using Arial 12 points. All pages should be numbered consecutively in the top right corner, including those containing tables and figures. Research paper should not exceed 7,000 words in length; research notes, 2,000 words; letters, 1000. Abstract, keywords, tables, footnotes, references and supplemental materials are included in the word count.

All manuscripts must follow the ATR house style. Manuscripts that do not conform to the ATR house style will be returned to the author. Click this link for detailed presentation of the ATR house style: (Click here).

The first page should contain the title of the paper and the names of the authors. The title of the paper should not exceed 100 characters including spaces. The organizational affiliation of the authors and the telephone and fax numbers and e-mail address of the corresponding author should be indicated as footnotes.

The second page of the manuscript should contain only the Title, Abstract and Keywords. The abstract should present briefly the scope, major results and conclusions of the paper and should not exceed 250 words. A list of 4 to 6 keywords should immediately follow the abstract. These words will be used for indexing so do not include words that are in the title of the paper as well as general words like “development”.

The main portion of the manuscript should start on the third page. It should be divided into the following sections: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion, Conclusion (and Recommendations or Implications if applicable), Acknowledgment (if any) and References. Each section may be subdivided into sub-sections. Limit subsections to three levels.

Only published papers should be cited as references except for theses. References should be listed in sufficient details so that they can be easily located. They should be cited in the text as follows: single author: Bacusmo (2016) or (Bacusmo 2016); two authors: Uy and Shaw (2008) or (Uy and Shaw 2008); three or more authors: Lombard et al(2002) or (Lombard et al 2002). The Latin abbreviations ‘et al’ are not italicized and ‘al’ is not followed by a period except when it ends a sentence.

References must be arranged alphabetically by the surname of the first author or organizational name, or by the first word of the title if there is no author. Ignore the words ‘A’,’An’,and ‘The’ when alphabetizing by title. Two or more entries by the same author(s) are to be listed in chronological order with the earliest first. Below is ATR’s reference style.

Pardales JR, Konko Y & Yamauchi A. 1992. Epidermal cell elongation in the growth zone of sorghum seminal roots exposed to high root zone temperature. Plant Science 81:143-146

Tulin EE and Ecleo ZT. 2007. Cytokine-mimetic properties of some Philippine food and medicinal plants. J Medicinal Food 10(2):290-299

Marschner H. 1995. Mineral nutrition of higher plants (2nd edn). Academic Press, London Smith P. 2012. Cut to the the chase: Online video editing and the Wadsworth constant (3rd edn). E & K Publishing, Washington, DC

Goltiano HY. 2007. The face of subsistence farming in the Philippines: Donio. In Conklin AR Jr and Stilwell TC World Food: Production and Use (pp2-16). John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Jahn R and Asio VB. 1998. Soils in the tropical forests of Leyte, Philippines:Weathering, characteristics, classification and site qualities. In Schulte A and Ruhiyat D (eds) Soils of Tropical Forest Ecosystems (pp26-29). Springer-Verlag, Berlin

Pasa AE, Harrison S & Cedamon E. 2013. Payment for environmental services: global experience and relevance for Philippine watersheds. In Harrison S, Bosch A & Herbohn J (eds) Improving the outcomes of watershed rehabilitation in the Philippines: Proceedings from the Planning Workshop for the ACIAR Watershed Rehabilitation Project (ASEM/2010/050), Sabin Resort Hotel, Ormoc City, Leyte, the Philippines, 18-19 July 2012. University of Sunshine Coast, Queensland

Bacusmo JL. 1986. Stability studies in sweetpotato (PhD dissertation). North Carolina State University, Raleigh, USA

Belonias BS. 1996. Developmental physiology of the pod seed of bush bean grown in open and partially shaded conditions (MS thesis). Visayas State University, Leyte. Philippines

Figures should be of good quality and should have thickness of lines and size of lettering and other symbols to allow reduction of their original dimensions up to 50%. They must not exceed the size of an A4 or a letter- sized bond paper; explanatory notes to tables should be indicated by superscript small letters; Tables and figures should be on separate pages put after the References. They should not be embedded in the text. In addition, they should be provided with concise captions (above for tables, and below for figures) which adequately describe their contents. Photographs should be submitted as high-contrast glossy prints. Color plates may be included if color is necessary for clarity. Figures, tables, photographs or text passages that have been previously published must obtain permission from the copyright owner(s). Evidence of permission must be submitted with the manuscript. Materials submitted without such evidence will be assumed to be that of the author/s.

Only SI units and abbreviations should be used. Normal and molar concentrations should be written in italics N and M, respectively. The following standard abbreviations should also be used: mg, g, kg, km, mm, cm, m, rpm, s (second), h (hour), min (minute), L (liter), mL, m-3, kg per ha or kg ha-1 (the minus index should always be used in tables and figures). Latin biological names should be italicized or underlined. These commonly used Latin words are not italicized: a priori, a posteriori, in vitro, in utero, in situ, ad libitum, per se and viz, so as the abbreviations et al, eg, ie, etc and vs, which do not carry a period except when they end a sentence.

The common name of a species should be followed by the scientific name upon its first use in the abstract and text. The scientific name must be composed of genus, species and authority only, and enclosed in parentheses. For well-known species, however, scientific names may be omitted from article titles. If no common name exists in English, the scientific name should be used only.

Twenty offprints of each published paper will be supplied free of charge. Additional copies may be ordered from the editorial office of the ATR.

Copies of the ATR are archived at the Library of the Visayas State University main campus in Visca, Baybay City, Leyte, Philippines.

Submission of a paper is understood to mean that it is original and unpublished and is not being considered for publication elsewhere. Authors may submit manuscripts thru our new online manuscript submission system the ScholarOne Manuscripts, a service provided by Clarivate Web of Science. You may create your account and submit to https://atr.vsu.edu.ph/online-paper-submission/.

The Visayas State University (VSU) gratuitously established ATR as a venue for sharing of quality research-based technologies and innovations without cost to researchers. ATR is fully funded by VSU, thus it does not charge any article processing fee.

Foreign Subscription: US $25/issue

Local Subscription: Php 400.00/issue

Payment in the form of check/draft should be made payable to:

Annals of Tropical Research

Office of the Vice President for Research, Extension and Innovation

Visayas State University

Baybay City, Leyte 6521-A

Philippines

Email: atrlsu@yahoo.com | atr@vsu.edu.ph

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