Submissions

Author Guidelines

Instructions to the authors

1. Scope and policy

From 2017 on, the Journal of Seed Science (JSS) is circulating online version only.

Original scientific studies and communications, not yet published or submitted to another journal for publication and written in Portuguese or English, are accepted for publication. For manuscripts submitted in English, the authors should provide a suitable version, rather accompanied by a translation certificate. All scientific articles are published in English.

The scientific communication is a category of scientific manuscript which describes a technique, an equipment, new species or observations and surveys of limited results. It has the same scientific rigor as the scientific articles and the same value as a publication. The classification of a manuscript as a scientific communication is based on its content and scientific merit, but it can be a preliminary study, simple and not definitive on a certain subject, with publication justified by its uniqueness and contribution to the area. The scientific articles are published in order of approval and relevance.

The editorial board of the JSS may invite leading authors of recognized reputation to compose specific review articles covering topics of their specialization that convey to the scientific community the state-of-the-art knowledge related to the specific theme.

1.1 The JSS’ aims are:

- To publish original articles in thematic areas relevant to seed science and technology;

- To publish articles that significantly contribute towards the knowledge of this area, featuring a scientific stance and in-depth knowledge on themes and trends within seed science and technology;

- To provide a strict evaluation policy with articles sent for publication; each manuscript is evaluated by two reviewers who are carefully selected from the scientific community. The acceptance of article is the result of the reviewers’ and editors’ assessment;

- To maintain a high ethical behavior regarding the review and its collaborators;

- To maintain strict quality in scientific article to be published.

The articles are published in the order they are approved. The editorial committee makes a preliminary evaluation of the manuscript submitted and accept it for publication or not, according to the journal’s policy and criteria of relevance. After initial acceptance, the editor designates an associate editor (of the area), who must proceed to edit with the help of at least two scientific assessors of JSS, who has the same prerogatives to accept the manuscript for publication or not. The whole editorial process is accompanied by the authors, assessors or associate editors, using an access code (login) and password, given at the beginning of the submission process.

The data, opinions and concepts emitted in the articles, as well as the accuracy of the bibliographic references, are the entire responsibility of the author(s). The eventual quoting of products and commercial brands does not mean that ABRATES recommends their use. However, the editor, with the help of the editorial committee and the scientific assessors, reserves the right to suggest or request advisable or necessary changes.

1.2 Creative Commons license

All content published by the Journal of Seed Science is licensed by Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International. This license allows others to share, remix, tweak and create from the article, even for commercial purposes, and although the new articles must award it due credit, users do not have to license these derivative articles under the same terms.

1.3 Open access policy

The JSS provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that scientific knowledge offered freely to the public supports a greater global democratization of knowledge.

1.4 Publication fees

The payment of an article publication fee is obligatory for all authors, including members of ABRATES (one of the authors should be member), and works as follows: For members of ABRATES – up to six diagramed pages in final form: R$ 30,00  per page + R$ 80,00 per additional page.

For non-members – up to six diagramed pages in final form: R$ 60,00 per page + R$ 160,00 per additional page.

In the case of more than one author, including members, the total value is divided between the number of authors, but only the members whose dues are paid up to date have a 50% discount of their part. Payment of a submission or administrative fee is no longer necessary.

For readers: there is not any fees for readers.

2. Preparation of manuscript

The advice given in these instructions should be followed in full by the author(s).

The manuscripts should be organized into a short title (centrally placed at the beginning of the first page), title (in English), authors, abstract (up to 200 words), title (in Portuguese), resumo (abstract in Portuguese – up to 200 words), introduction, material and methods, results and discussion, conclusions, acknowledgements and references. The abstract and the resumo must also contain no more than five “index terms” (“termos para indexação”), which are not cited in the title.

The following norms should be adhered to when preparing the manuscript:

The manuscripts should be typed in Word text editor (DOC or RTF) in numbered lines (up to 30 lines per page) with double spacing and 2 cm margins, with Times New Roman 14 font for the title and 12 for the text, without the inclusion of tables and figures, which must be annexed at the end of the manuscript. The figures should be in programs compatible with Windows, such as Excel, and the image format, figures (GIF or TIFF) and photos (JPEG), with 300 dpi resolution.

The manuscript should not be longer than 20 pages, including figures, tables and references. Manuscripts longer than 20 pages are going to be returned.

The writing of the manuscripts should be concise, objective and clear, written impersonally in the past, except for the conclusions which should be written in the present tense.

Paragraphs are not permitted in the abstract or the resumo nor the presentation of data in columns or tables or the inclusion of bibliographic references.

The full name(s) of the author(s) should be mentioned immediately below the title. The corresponding author must be identified by an asterisk and an e-mail must be provided. The notes should be placed on the foot of the page, which has the respective superscripted number of each author indicating his/her institutional affiliation and address – department or section, institution, post office box, zip code, municipality and country.

A maximum of 6 (six) authors per article is allowed.

2.1 Text citations: the citations of authors in the text are made by the surname with only the first letter as a capital, followed by the year of publication. In the case of two authors, both surnames must be included, separated by “and”; if there are more than two authors, only the first must be cited, followed by “et al.”. In the case of the citation of two or more publications of the same author(s), published in the same year, they should be identified by small letters (a, b, c etc.), placed immediately after the year of publication.

2.2 References: sixty percent (60%) of the references should have been listed on the database ISI Web of Knowledge, Scopus or SciELO during the last 10 years.

Citations from theses, dissertations, monographs, proceedings or annals of congress, abstracts, and magazines are not accepted.

Avoid:

- Excessive citations of textbooks;

- Obsolete citations and informative magazines which are not scientific. Citations of recent articles published in the JSS can be accessed at the site: www.scielo.br/jss

The references should be given in alphabetical order by the surname of the first author, without numbering; mention all the authors of the article separated by “;”. Follow the norms of the ABNT NBR6023.

The references should have hyperlinks to permit access to any web page on the internet. With the cursor placed on the desired spot of a text or spreadsheet, type the address of the page (e.g.: www.abrates.org.br) and press the space bar. The hyperlink is automatically created. Position the cursor on one of the letters of the hyperlink, which was created, press Shift F10 to open the menu, move the arrow down until the option to open the hyperlink, press enter and the page will open.

Some examples are shown as follows:

Journal articles: (it is not necessary to mention where the journal was published)

LIMA, L.B.; MARCOS-FILHO, J. Condicionamento fisiológico de sementes de pepino e germinação sob diferentes temperaturas. Revista Brasileira de Sementes, v.32, n.1, p.138-147, 2010. http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_pdf&pid=S0101-31222010000100017&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=pt

OLIVEIRA, A.S.; CARVALHO, M.L.M.; NERY, M.C.; OLIVEIRA, J.A.; GUIMARÃES, R.M. Seed quality and optimal spatial arrangement of fodder radish. Scientia Agricola, v.68, n.4, p.417-423, 2011. http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_pdf&pid=S0103-90172011000400005&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en

Books:

MARCOS-FILHO, J. Fisiologia de sementes de plantas cultivadas. 2 ed. Londrina: ABRATES, 2015. 660p.

BRASIL. Ministério da Agricultura, Pecuária e Abastecimento. Regras para análise de sementes. Ministério da Agricultura, Pecuária e Abastecimento. Secretaria de Defesa Agropecuária. Brasília: MAPA/ACS, 2009. 395p. http:// www.agricultura.gov.br/arq_editor/file/2946_regras_analise__sementes.pdf

Book chapter:

VIEIRA, R.D.; KRZYZANOWSKI, F.C. Teste de condutividade elétrica. In: KRZYZANOWSKI, F.C.; VIEIRA, R.D.; França-Neto, J.B. (ed.). Vigor de sementes: conceitos e testes. Londrina: ABRATES, 1999. p.4.1–4.26.

Laws, decrees, directives:

Country or State. Law, Decrees or Directives n. ..., of (month) (day), (year). Diário Oficial da União, place of publication, (month) (day), (year). Section ..., p. ...

BRASIL. Medida provisória nº 1.569-9, de 11 de dezembro de 1997. Diário Oficial da República Federativa do Brasil, Poder Executivo, Brasília, DF, 14 dez. 1997. Seção I, p.29514.

Technical report:

FRANÇA-NETO, J.B.; HENNING, A.A.; COSTA, N.P. Estudo da deterioração da semente de soja no solo. In: Resultados de Pesquisa de Soja, 1984/1985. Londrina, 1985. p.440-445. (EMBRAPA-CNPSo. Documentos, 15).

Electronic documents:

BRASIL. Ministério da Agricultura, Pecuária e Abastecimento. SNPC – Lista de cultivares protegidas. http://extranet.agricultura.gov.br/php/proton/cultivarweb/cultivares_protegidas.php Accessed on: January 13^th, 2010.

2.3 Tables

The tables in the “picture” format numbered with arabic numerals, should be headed by a self-explanatory title, with small letters, and vertical lines should not be used to separate the columns.

2.4 Figures

The figures (graphs, drawings, maps or photographs) should be numbered with arabic numerals in programs compatible with Word for Windows (GIF or TIFF), inserted in the text preferentially as an object. The drawings and photographs should be digitalized in high quality (JPEG 300 dpi) and sent in the same size as they must be published in the journal. The legends typed immediately below the figure and initiated with the word Figure, should be followed by their respective number and text in small letters.

2.5 Units of measurement:

Should be typed with a space between the number and the unit. Examples: 10 ^oC, 10 mL, µS.cm^-1.g^-1. The percentage symbol should be next to the numeral without any space (e.g.: 10%).

3. Submission of manuscripts

Start the submission process reviewing in full the instructions for authors to ensure that the article agrees with JSS standards. Non-standard manuscripts, including references, are going to be returned.

The submission of manuscripts to the JSS must be done exclusively online in the site http://www.scielo.br/jss clicking on <submission online>. The manuscript file must not be greater than 1.5 Kb.

Besides this, a document with the signature and agreement of all the authors to submit and/ or publish the manuscript in the JSS and delegating the rights to translation into English should be attached into the system.

Authors of articles in the journal Journal of Seed Science profit from the following benefits:

• JSS is an open access journal;
• Articles translations are free of charge;
• Online submission and revision of articles;
• PDF articles freely available on the web;
• JSS adopts the Ithenticate software against plagiarism;
• All articles are published with DOI.

Thank you for choosing the JSS!