ISSN 0038-2353 printed version

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

• Scope and editorial policy
• Form and preparation of manuscripts
• Manuscripts submission

The South African Journal of Science accepts articles from any source on the understanding that they are the original work of the authors named and that they are being offered only to the South African Journal of Science.

Various kinds and categories of article are welcome. (Please consult a recent issue of the journal for examples.) Research communications are of three kinds: Research Letters, Research Articles, and Review Articles. Research Letters are shorter reports (normally no longer than 1 500–2 000 words) and should be up-to-date accounts of interesting and noteworthy scientific developments. Although these reports may be concerned with very particular advances, they should be of wider-than-specialist interest. Research Articles are longer papers (normally no more than 6 000 words in length). Here the criteria of intelligibility and wider interest are strictly applied. Review Articles (up to 6 000 words long) should be up-to-date surveys of important current developments in science. Preference is given to concise, reader-friendly submissions.

This set of guidelines and supplementary documentation is available at   http://www.sajs.co.za/index.php/SAJS/about/submissions#authorGuidelines

Submission of manuscripts for consideration
Editorial process: To read more about the editorial process, editorial criteria for publication, refereeing policy and how editors handle papers after submissions, visit the journal website.

Pre-submission enquiries: If you wish to enquire whether your submission might be suitable for consideration by the South African Journal of Science, please use our online enquiry service, or email the Editor at mic@sun.ac.za. All pre-submission enquiries must include a covering letter to the editor outlining its interest to a broad scientific readership, as well as an abstract.

Readability: As the journal has a multidisciplinary focus, authors are requested to write their papers and reports in a manner and style that is intelligible to specialists and non-specialists alike. Articles are judged by referees at the discretion of the Editor. Contributions should therefore be written clearly and simply so that they are accessible to readers in other disciplines and to readers for whom English is not a first language. Note: Please use UK spelling and not US spelling. If in doubt, consult the Oxford English Dictionary.  

Presentation of content
Format of articles: One and a half line spacing, 8–10 pages (excluding cover page/s, figures and tables), or no longer than 6 000 words in Palatino or Times New Roman font, 12 point size. If other non-Latin/foreign alphabets are used, a covering note should specify which Unicode and HTML fonts have been used in the electronic copy submission. All specialised fonts must be supplied by the author in TrueType or on PostScript Type 1 format and uploaded in Step 4 of the online submission process.

Format of compulsory cover letter: Provide a short title of 50 characters or less and indicate briefly the significance of the work being reported. State the full name(s) and title(s) of the author(s) with the position, affiliation and contact details (postal address, email, telephone and cell number) of each author. Please identify the author to whom all correspondence should be addressed.

For manuscripts with multiple authors, proof of approval to submit the manuscript to the journal, signed by all authors, should be attached and uploaded as a supplementary file – this document can be downloaded from the journal website.

Include a paragraph briefly summarising the nature of the contribution made by each of the authors listed, along the lines of the following:

Author contributions: J.K. was the project leader, L.M.N. and A.B. were responsible for experimental and project design. L.M.N. performed most of the experiments. P.R. made conceptual contributions and S.T., U.V. and C.D. performed some of the experiments. S.M. and V.C. prepared the samples and calculations were performed by C.S., J.K. and U.V. wrote the manuscript.

Authors are encouraged to provide the names and full contact details (including email) of two or three potential referees to evaluate the work (referees should not be people with whom the researcher has recently collaborated or published). Lastly, a list containing the number of pages of the manuscript and the number of tables, figures and/or other supplementary material should accompany the submission.

Title, abstract and keywords page (page 2): The article’s full title should contain a maximum of 95 characters. The abstract should be no longer than 250 words and must be written in the past tense. The abstract should give a succinct account of the objectives, methods, results and significance of the subject matter.

Motivation/problem statement: Why do we care about the problem? What practical, scientific, theoretical or artistic gap is your research filling? Methods/procedure/approach: What did you actually do to get the results?

Clearly express the basic design of the study, name or briefly describe the basic methodology used without going into excessive detail – be sure to indicate the key techniques used.

Results/findings: As a result of completing the above study, what have you learned?

Conclusion/implications: What are the larger implications of your findings, especially for the problem/gap identified in your motivation?

Acknowledgements: If, during your study, you received any significant help in conceiving, designing, or carrying out the work, or received materials from someone who did you a favour by supplying them, you must acknowledge their assistance and the service or material provided. Authors always acknowledge outside reviewers of their drafts and any sources of funding that supported the research.

References: Begin the reference list on a separate page, with no more than 60 references. The South African Journal of Science uses the Vancouver referencing style, details of which can be downloaded from the journal website. Note: No other style will be permitted. Key points include:

• Your reference list should appear at the end of your assignment/report with the entries listed numerically and in the same order that they were cited in the text.
• It is very important that you use the right punctuation and that the order of details in the reference is also correct.
• No use of ‘&’ between author names.
• Book and journal titles are not italicised or placed in quotation marks.
• Abbreviate page numbers to p. (eg p. 12−25).
• Only first words of the article title and words that normally begin with a capital letter are capitalised.
• Journal titles are abbreviated according to the official ISSN abbreviations.
• If a source has more than 6 authors, only the first 3 authors are listed; thereafter add an et al.
• If the journal has continuous page numbering, you may omit the month/ issue number.

Please consult the journal website for more details on the application of this referencing style.

General specifications of manuscripts Layout: Start each paragraph at the margin (no tabs to indent first line). Include a line space between paragraphs to separate.

Heading styles: First level headings: (Boldface, upper case, centred, on a separate line, 14pt). Second level headings: (Boldface, normal case, justified at left margin, on a separate line, 14pt). Third level headings: (Boldface, normal case, justified at left margin, on a separate line, 12pt)

Quotations in the text: Single quotation marks are used for all quotations; to highlight a quote within a quote, please use double quotation marks. If citations are longer than 30 words, please do not use single quotation marks; rather indent the citation and italicise it.

Tables and figures: In Step 4 of the online submission process, upload all tables, figures, images, and supplementary files. Tables should be saved and uploaded as separate Excel (.xls) files, no more than 10 figures and tables in total per article. Ensure all personal identifying information is removed from the supplementary files as per the provided instructions. All captions should be provided together on a separate page. Tables and figures should use numerical numbers. Please note that this is not required for articles which are not peer reviewed (book reviews, commentaries, profiles, obituaries, news and views). Figures and images should be saved and uploaded using high quality image formats: BMP, TIFF, EPS, JPEG (uncompressed); not GIF or compressed JPEG. Audio and video files should be saved and uploaded using the MPEG format (MP3 for audio and MPEG for video). At least two large originals of each figure in greyscale and colour at 600 dpi format should be submitted. Black and white line drawings should ideally be supplied in 1200 dpi (but no less than 800 dpi).

Acronyms: If a phrase with an established acronym or abbreviation is used, and appears more than five times in your article, please include the acronym/ abbreviation in brackets after first mention of the phrase, then use the acronym/abbreviation only. Please note that you should not define acronyms or abbreviations in any of your headings. If either have been used in your abstract, you need to define them again on their first use within the main text.

Units: The use of units should conform to the SI convention and be abbreviated accordingly. Metric units and their international symbols are used throughout, as in the decimal point (not the decimal comma), and the 24-hour clock.

Spacing and punctuation: There should be one space (not two) between sentences; one space before unit terms (e.g. 5 kg, 5 cm, 5 mmol, 5 days, 5 °C); but no space before %. Thousand/millions are marked with a space, not a comma (e.g. 1 000, 1 000 000) Ranges are expressed with an extended hyphen, not with a short hyphen (e.g. 1990–2000).

Dates, italics: Dates are written in the following style: 12 July 1908. Phrases within the text that are not English (e.g. inter alia) should be italicised.

Permission: Permission should be obtained from the author and publisher for the use of quotations, illustrations, tables and other materials taken from previously published works that are not in the public domain. The author is responsible for the payment of any copyright fee(s) if these have not been waived. The letters of permission should accompany the manuscript and can be downloaded from the journal website. The original source(s) should be mentioned in the figure legend or as a footnote to a table.

Proofs: Authors can provide feedback on the publication process of their manuscript, at two stages:

1 Copy-editing queries in Word Document

2 Final PDF proof approval

These must be returned promptly to the Title Operations Coordinator within 48 hours to avoid delays in publication. Substantial changes made at PDF proof stage will be charged to the author.

Submissions and correspondence: All submissions must be made online at http://www.sajs.co.za where authors can track the progress of their manuscripts online. Other enquiries regarding manuscripts should be addressed to: The Editor, South African Journal of Science, email: mic@sun.ac.za
Note: Ensure that the article ID [reference] number is included in the subject of your email correspondence.