Guidelines for Authors

Brief guidelines for preparation of the paper

• Title Page

  The title page must comprise of a brief title, name(s) of author(s) and their affiliations. The title must not have any abbreviations and it must indicate the contents of the paper. All of the affiliations must be provided with a lower-case superscript number subsequent to the author’s name.

  The name of the corresponding author(s) must be indicated with a star indicator ( * ). The telephone and fax numbers (with the country and area code) along with the full postal address and an e-mail address must be provided.

• Abstract

  The abstract must condense the key facets of the entire paper and should not exceed 300 words in length. It must display the objective of the work, design of the study, crucial findings and the interpretations of the study. An abstract must not contain any references and/or any non-standard abbreviations.

• Keywords

  All the papers must be accompanied by 5-8 keywords. It is recommended to include specific keywords related to the type of study and the area of application. Use of non-standard abbreviations in the keywords section must be avoided.

• Abbreviations

  All the non-standard abbreviations must be listed. The first time an abbreviation is used in the text, it must be followed by the full form in the parenthesis.

• Introduction

  The introduction is a critical aspect of a research paper. It must encapsulate the hypothesis, its proposed solution, a brief summary of the related literature and the rationalization that constitutes the proposed solution.

• Materials and Methods

  The materials and methods is an indispensable section of a research paper which may define the integrity and the reproducibility of the manuscript. It must display a comprehensive account of the techniques followed to allow anyone coveting to reproduce the results in the future. The already published methods must be accompanied with the proper references. It should also incorporate the statistical procedures, including calculations, used to analyze the results.

• Results and Discussion

  The results section must be presented with clarity in a step-by-step manner. It should be compatible with and focused on the major problems posed in the introduction. The analyses supporting the specific hypothesis should be presented first, followed by the secondary analyses and/or the investigative analyses. The statistical analyses and the quantitative results should also be accompanied, if applicable, to affirm the data acquired. Inconsequential findings should not be disdained. Tables and figures are the effective ways to support and highlight the key interpretations. The text supporting the information presented in the figures/tables should be followed by the figures/tables numbers (natural numbers) in the parentheses.

  The discussion section intends to present information about the accomplishments of the study, its scientific relevance and the potential research that could follow. It must not be a mere repetition of the results section and must incorporate the focused interpretations of the findings and the pertinent take-home messages highlighting the significance of the research. The original source of all the information must be properly cited, wherever applicable.

  The results and discussion section might be presented as two separate sections, if desired.

• Tables & Figures

  The tables and figures must be numbered in the order in which they are cited in the text.

  The tables are a condensed and potent means to present ample amounts of data. They must be self-explanatory and clearly presented without having the need to refer to the text for their interpretation. Each table must have a brief explanatory title placed above the table. One and a half spacing must be maintained throughout the table, including the table headings and the footnotes. The footnote(s), if any, must be placed below the table.

  The images, maps and graphical data can be presented in the form of figures. Similar to tables, each figure must be accompanied by a brief legend which must be comprehensible and placed below the figure. The legend must begin with ‘Fig.’ followed by a natural number. Figures should not come across as a repetition of the tables; and any symbol and/or abbreviation must be clearly defined.

• Conclusion

  It must be briefly stated outlining the major findings of the study. It should not come across as a repetition of the text in any other section.

• Acknowledgements

  All the people who contributed substantially towards the preparation of the manuscript, but do not fulfill the authorship specification, must be given acknowledgements. All the individuals who assisted in the preparation of the manuscript, who provided key materials to help fulfill the study and all the sources of funding must be included.

• Conflict of Interest

  It is vital to declare if there is any conflict of interest. Any potential undue influence on the work due to any business and/or personal associations must be disclosed by the authors. Employment, emoluments, copyright and licenses or funding programs, among other things, constitute a potential conflict of interest. In case there is no conflict of interest, the authors must mention ‘No conflict of interest exists’.

• Ethical Approval

  If the study involves any human/animal subjects, there must be an approval from the Institutional Ethics Committee (IEC) as per the law of the author’s country. The journal management will not be responsible for any omission on the part of the authors. The evidence of approval must be provided, if applicable. In case there is no ethical approval required, the authors must mention ‘Not applicable’.

• Reference style

  All the references, including DOI links, must be listed in the same order as they are quoted in the text. They should be numbered in square brackets ‘[ ]’ in the text as well as in the reference section. Please take excessive care to avoid replication of the references.

  Only the papers that are already published or are in the press must be quoted in the reference list. All the other findings which are unpublished or are personal communications must only be mentioned in the text and not in the reference list.

  All the references should follow the style as described below:

• Reference to a journal

  For Published paper

  Garg, S., Timm, T., Mandelkow, E.M., Mandelkow, E. and Wang, Y. (2011) Cleavage of Tau by calpain in Alzheimer’s disease: the quest for the toxic 17 kD fragment. Neurobiol Aging 32: 1-14. doi: 10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2010.09.008

  Torre, M.D.L., Humanes, C., Olivera, E.R. and Luengo, J.M. (2017) Plasmids containing the same origin of replication are useful tools to perform biotechnological studies in Pseudomonas putida U and in E. coliDH10BCan J Biotech 1: 38-43. doi: 10.24870/cjb.2017-000104

  For Accepted, unpublished papers

  Same as above, but ‘In press’ must be written instead of the page numbers.

• Reference to a book

  Kumar, A. and Garg, N. (2006) Genetic Engineering. Nova Science Publishers, New York. ISBN-13: 978-1594547539

• Authored chapter in edited publication

  Kumar, A., Garg, S. and Garg, N. (2015) ‘Regulation of gene expression’. In Synthetic Biology- Advances in Molecular Biology and Medicine. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co KGaA press, Weinheim, Germany, Vol. 1: 61-119.

  Kumar, A., Rathore, R.S., Singh, R.K. and Garg, S. (2008) ‘Proteomics studies to understand the molecular basis of stress tolerance in plants’. In Plant Genomics and Bioinformatics (Rao GP, Wagner CV, Singh RK, Sharma ML, Eds). Studium Press LLC, Texas, USA, 271-301.

• Reference to Web-resource or Electronic articles

  Hugo, J.T. and Mondal, S.C. Parallels between tissue repair and embryo morphogenesis: a conceptual framework. Global Health 2006, 16: 4. Accessed 29 March 2012. Available: http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/ content/1/1/14.

  Anonymous. Parallels between tissue repair and embryo morphogenesis: a conceptual framework. Global Health 2006, 16: 4. Accessed 29 March 2012. Available: http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/ content/1/1/14.

• Nomenclature and Units

  The International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, the International Code of Nomenclature of Bacteria and the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants must be followed for the biological nomenclature.

  The recommendations of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) and the official recommendations of the IUPAC-IUB combined commission on biochemical nomenclature must be followed for the chemical nomenclature.

  Scientific names of the plants, animals, fungi, etc. must be written in italics and must be in line with the gender of the common names. They must be mentioned in the parentheses next to the common name at its first appearance in the text.

  All the symbols and abbreviations which are commonly accepted must be used. All the units must follow the SI standards.

• Mathematical equations/formulae

  All the equations/formulae must be presented as text and not in the form of pictures. Any symbol must be clearly described at its first appearance in the text.

Copyright

Canadian Journal of Biotechnology (CJB) is an open access journal which offers the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC). This license allows the readers to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format, and to adapt, remix, transform, and build upon the material, provided an appropriate credit is given to the original author(s) and the journal. The readers may not use the material for commercial purposes.

The author(s) confirm that the work is authentic. It has neither been published anywhere else (except in the form of an abstract or presentation in a scientific conference) nor is under consideration for publication in any other journal. The manuscript does not contain any material which breaches any existing copyright or third party rights. The copyright material has been reproduced, if any, only subsequent to obtaining the necessary permissions from the authorized personnel(s) and acknowledging the proper source(s).

The author(s) grant the publisher of CJB an exclusive license to publish the article in an electronic form and to be recognized as the indigenous publisher. Having retained the copyright of the article under the CC license, the author(s) can reuse their article in the future without requiring an authorization from the publisher of CJB provided the journal and the original publisher are credited. In case the publisher of CJB is changed, all the licensing rights will be automatically transferred to the new publisher.

Submission

The manuscript needs to be submitted in both MS-Word as well as in PDF format through e-mail at submissions@canadianjbiotech.com. For documents to be submitted along with the manuscript, please refer to Manuscript Submission. After the receipt of the submitted manuscript, the acknowledgement and the manuscript ID will be communicated to the corresponding author within 72 hours.

For submission related queries or all other correspondence, please contact the editorial office through e-mail at editor@canadianjbiotech.com.

Peer-review Process

Peer-review is the most salient system of any journal to ensure the quality assurance in scientific publishing. Independent reviewers as per their domain expertise evaluate the manuscripts on the basis of their novelty, relevance and integrity. The assessment reports of the reviewers assist the editorial board in reaching the final decision of acceptance or rejection of a manuscript for publication in the journal.

Canadian Journal of Biotechnology (CJB) follows the single-blind peer-review process where the manuscript along with the names and affiliations of the authors are sent to the reviewers, but the reviewer information is kept anonymous to the author. The manuscripts submitted to CJB for publication are sent to at least two to three independent reviewers. The reviewers are selected on the basis of their domain expertise with the help of the editor-in-chief and/or editorial board members. The final decision of the acceptance or rejection of the manuscript is drawn by the editor-in-chief and/or editorial board members on the basis of the reviewer’s comments and recommendations. If there is a conflict between the review reports, the decision shared by the majority of the reviewers is considered final. If there is no majority, the editor-in-chief and/or an editorial board member takes the final decision.

Proofs

If the manuscript gets accepted post the peer-review process, a PDF file of the proof will be sent to the corresponding author(s) as an e-mail attachment. Please check the proof for any typographical errors, editing, integrity, and accuracy of the text, tables and figures. No significant changes in the manuscript will be considered at this stage, but under exceptional circumstances it may be considered only with the permission of the editor-in-chief. It is imperative to send all the corrections back to us in a timely fashion as per the e-mail.

Publication Charges

Canadian Journal of Biotechnology (CJB) is published by a not-for-profit organization, Science Planet Inc. The intent is to aid anyone who fails to keep himself/herself abreast with the latest quality research due to limited resources by keeping the research papers free to access. To serve this purpose, the authors are expected to pay nominal publication charges only upon the acceptance of the paper, post the peer-review process, as CJB is having no financial support from any government agency/society. Authors from the developed countries (except for Canada*) would be charged US$250 and from the developing countries would be charged US$150.

In case of financial constraints, the authors from all the countries may also request either for the reduction or complete waiver of the publication charges. All such requests must be accompanied by the supporting documentation. All the requests will be reviewed and may be considered on a case-by-case basis. However, all such requests must be made either prior to or at the time of the manuscript submission. The requests received during the reviewing process or post the acceptance of the manuscript will be disregarded.

The journal does not levy any submission charges.

*Papers from the Canadian labs will be given a 40% rebate. Therefore, the publication charges for the papers from the Canadian labs would be US$150.