Submissions

Author Guidelines

Journal of Agriculture and Forestry University (JAFU)

Authors’ Guidelines
The Journal of the Agriculture and Forestry University (JAFU) publishes original research findings in the fields of agriculture, livestock, fisheries, forestry, and social sciences. The JAFU considers manuscripts from both within and outside the university/country for publication. Only original, unpublished manuscripts, not under consideration for publication elsewhere can be submitted to the JAFU. Articles may be original research papers, short communications, or invited reviews. All submissions will undergo a double-blind peer review by at least two reviewers, and the editorial board retains full discretion in assigning reviewers and making publication decisions.

• Manuscript documents can be in the following formats: DOC, DOCX.
• Invited reviews will be solicited by the Editorial Board. Manuscripts must have an abstract.

Cover Letter:
Authors must include a cover letter confirming that the manuscript is original, has not been submitted, or is under consideration elsewhere, and is based on their own work. The letter should briefly state the broad subject area of the paper and may suggest potential reviewers with full contact details, avoiding conflicts of interest. Provide the full name (without titles), email address, phone number, affiliation (see Author names and affiliations below for the format of affiliation), and ORCID ID of all authors in the cover letter.

Manuscript format:
All content in the manuscript must be written in English. Manuscripts should be typed in Times New Roman font, with a 12pt font size, single spacing (including tables and references). The manuscript should be arranged in the following sequence: Title, Author/s name/s and affiliation/s, Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Research Methods, Results and Discussion, Conclusion, Acknowledgments, Author Contributions, and References. Number all pages consecutively in the paper’s right corner.

Title: The title should be concise, clear, and informative, and should reflect the content of the paper. Avoid abbreviations and formulae in the title. Provide a concise running title (a shortened version of your manuscript title) to appear at the bottom of each page. It should be written in all CAPITAL LETTERS, and must not exceed 50 characters in length (spaces and punctuation included).

Author names and affiliations: In the main document, present the full name, affiliations and the ORCID ID of all authors with an email address of the corresponding author. Indicate all affiliations with a lowercase superscript letter immediately after the author's name and in front of the appropriate address. Provide the full address of each affiliation.

For example:
^aDepartment of Horticulture, Faculty of Agriculture, Agriculture and Forestry University, Rampur, Chitwan, Nepal
^bAgriculture and Botany Division, Nepal Agricultural Research Council, Khumaltar, Lalitpur, Nepal.

Corresponding author: Clearly indicate the corresponding author using a symbol (*), who will handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also post-publication.

Abstract: The abstract should be concise (not exceeding 200 words) and contain a brief account of the introductory words, objectives, research methods, major findings, and main conclusions. The name of any plant or animal appearing for the first time in the abstract should be given its scientific name and authorship. It should not have any references, tables, etc.

Authors must include both English and Nepali versions of the abstract in their manuscript. The Nepali abstract must begin with the title “सारांश”, written in Preeti or Unicode font, preferably Kalimati. Authors must use correct spelling and terminology by referring to the official dictionary, “प्रज्ञा नेपाली बृहत् शब्दकोश”, published by Nepal Pragya-Pratishthan, to ensure accuracy and standardization of the Nepali language. Proper use of standardized Nepali vocabulary is mandatory.

Keywords: A list of 3 to 5 words for additional index words follows the abstract. It includes species (common and scientific name), chemicals, and physiological and pathological terms. Words appearing in the title should not be repeated in the keywords. These keywords will be used for indexing purposes.

Introduction: In this section, background information, problem addressed, justification of the research, including knowledge gaps, relevant reviews of literature (if any), and the objective of the research should be described. Statements must be supported by citations wherever possible.

Research Methods: Detailed information on relevant research methods used including sampling techniques, experimental design, treatments, plot size, and/or any other techniques used in the research, as well as the year and place of conducting the research should be provided.The statistical methods used should be clearly mentioned. Social science related studies should provide detail of survey methods, data collection, and data analysis tools/techniques.

Results and Discussion: The results and discussion may be presented separately or combined. The results should be supported by brief but adequate data in the form of either tables, or graphic or pictorial materials but not in a repeated manner. Thus, the same data should not be presented in more than one form. All weights and measures should be in the metric system. The discussion should be related to the research findings supported by similar work, or with the information used in the results.

Conclusion: Conclusion should provide concrete knowledge statements based on the study findings.

Acknowledgements: Acknowledgements, if any, be given to institutions, funding agencies, and the key person(s) who helped in research.

Author Contributions:
Authors must specify their individual contributions to the manuscript using the CRediT taxonomy. Please include this section at the end of your manuscript. Use the following roles as applicable:

CRediT Roles: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal Analysis, Investigation, Resources, Data Curation, Writing – Original Draft, Writing – Review & Editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project Administration, Funding Acquisition.

Example:
Author A: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – Original Draft.
Author B: Data Curation, Formal Analysis, Visualization.
Author C: Supervision, Writing – Review & Editing, Funding Acquisition.

References: Manuscripts submitted to this journal must be original and free from plagiarism. Authors must ensure their work is original and properly cite all sources.

APA style (7th) guidelines should be followed for the reference and citation.

1. Book with single author:
Last name, Initial(s). (Year). Title. Publisher. DOI or URL
For eg.

• Pant, P. R. (1975). Social science research and dissertation writing. Buddha Academic Enterprises. https://xxxxx

2. Book with two authors or more:
Last name, Initial(s), & Last name, Initial(s). (Year). Title. Publisher. DOI or URL
For eg.

• Phillips, J., Ajrouch, K., & Hillcoat-Nalletamby, S. (2010). Key concepts in social gerontology. Sage. https://xxxxx

3. Edited book:
Last name, Initial(s). (Ed.). (Year). Title (edition if applicable). Publisher. DOI or URL
For eg.

• Cash, T. F., & Smolak, L. (Eds.). (2011). Body image: A handbook of science, practice, and prevention (2nd ed.). Guilford Press. https://xxxxx

Use (Ed.) if one editor and (Eds.) if two or more editors:
For eg.

• Woodhead, S. (Ed.). (2013). A core care pathway children with life-limiting and life threatening conditions (3rd ed.). Together for Short Lives.https://xxxxx
• Kozier, B., Erb, G., Berman, A., Snyder, S., Harvey, S., & Morgan-Samuel, H. (Eds.). (2012). Fundamentals of nursing: Concepts, process and practice (2nd ed.). Pearson. https://xxxxx

4. Chapter in edited book:
Last name, Initial(s). (Year). Chapter title. In Initial(s). Last name (Ed./Eds.), Book title (pp. xx–xx). Publisher. DOI or URL
For eg.

• Zeleke, W. A., Hughes, T. L., & Drozda, N. (2020). Home–school collaboration to promote mind– body health. In C. Maykel & M. A. Bray (Eds.), Promoting mind–body health in schools:Interventions for mental health professionals (pp. 11–26). American Psychological Association. https://……….

5. E-book:
Last name, Initial(s). (Year). Title (edition if applicable). URL
For eg.

• Ogden, J. (2007). Health psychology: A textbook (4th ed.). http://www………

6. Thesis:
Author, A. A. (Year). Title of doctoral dissertation or master’s thesis (Unpublished master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation). Institution.
For eg.

• Pokhrel, N. (2014). Effects of different fertilization and feeding systems on water quality and growth performance in Nile tilapia (Unpublished master’s thesis). Agriculture and Forestry University.

7. Journal article:
Last name, Initial(s). (Year). Title of the article. Title of Journal, Volume(Issue), pages. DOI or URL
For eg.

• Blann, A. (2014). Why do we test for urea and electrolytes? Nursing Times, 110(5), 19–21. https://xxxxx
• Tapper, K., Shaw, C., Ilsley, J., Hill, A. J., Bond, F. W., & Moore, L. (2009). Exploratory randomized controlled trial of a mindfulness-based weight loss intervention for women. Appetite, 52, 396–404. https://xxxxx
• Edwards, A. A., Steacy, L. M., Siegelman, N., Rigobon, V. M., Kearns, D. M., Rueckl, J. G., & Compton, D. L. (2022). Unpacking the unique relationship between set for variability and word reading development: Examining word- and child-level predictors of performance. Journal of Educational Psychology, 114(6), 1242–1256. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000696

8. Online journal article:
Last name, Initial(s). (Year). Article title. Journal Title, Volume(Issue), pages. https://doi/xxxxx
For eg.

• Allen, S. J., Jordan, S., Storey, M., Thornton, C. A., Gravenor, M., Garaiova, I., ... Morgan, G. (2010). Dietary supplementation with lactobacilli and bifidobacteria is well tolerated and not associated with adverse events during late pregnancy and early infancy. The Journal of Nutrition, 140, 483–488. https://doi.org/10.3945/jn.109.117093

9. Newspaper article:

• Ruddick, G. (2013, October 3). Tesco suffers sales slump in all global businesses; UK rivals gain ground but boss Clarke confident turnaround plan is working. Daily Telegraph, Business News, p. 1.

10. Magazine article:

• Allen, L. (2004, August). Will Tuvalu disappear beneath the sea? Global warming threatens to swamp a small island nation. Smithsonian, 35(5), 44–52.
• Begley, S., & Murr, A. (2007, July 2). Which of these is not causing global warming? A. Sport utility vehicles; B. Rice fields; C. Increased solar output. Newsweek, 150(2), 48–50.

11. Book review in a journal:

• Nagorski, A. (2013). The totalitarian temptation [Review of the book The devil in history: Communism, fascism and some lessons of the 20th century, by V. Tismaneanu]. Foreign Affairs, 92, 172–176.

12. Website:
Author. (Year). Title. https://xxxxx
For eg.

• American Psychological Association. (2015). APA style blog. https://blog.apastyle.org/

13. Personal communication:

• P. Mooney (personal communication, June 6, 2013) Use your judgment in citing other electronic forms of personal communication. What you cite should have scholarly relevance.

14. Code of Practice:
Author. (Year). Title. Publisher.
For eg.

• Welsh Assembly Government. (2008). Mental Health Act 1983: Code of practice for Wales. Welsh Assembly Government.
• Great Britain. Department for Constitutional Affairs. (2007). Mental Capacity Act 2005: Code of practice. TSO

In text citations: APA style guidelines should be followed, as shown below, for text citations.

1. One author: The last name of the author and the year of publication be inserted into the text as, Marks (2011) states that, or, (Marks, 2011).
2. Two authors: Both authors should be cited as, Bee and Boyd (2010) state that, or, (Bee & Boyd, 2010).
3. Three or more authors: If there are three or more authors, citation should be as, Rolfe et al. (2010) state that, or (Rolfe et al., 2010).
4. More than one work citation: If cited two or more works within the same parentheses, they should be in alphabetical order of authors as, (Phillips et al., 2010; Rolfe et al., 2010).
5. Citation for two or more works by the same authors but in separate years: Give the authors’ last name followed subsequently by the years as (Davies, 2008, 2010, 2012).
6. Citation for two or more works by the same author in a single year: Use lower case letters (a, b etc.) to distinguish between works published in the same year by the same author (s) as, Hewitt (2010a) states that, and/or, this was supported by Hewitt (2010b), or (Hewitt 2010 a, b). The suffixes are assigned in the reference list, where these kinds of references are ordered alphabetically by title (of the article, chapter, or complete work).
7. Websites: It can be difficult to identify the author of a webpage, so decide who is responsible for the page and that person or corporate body can be referenced as the author. Searching the ’About Us’ or ‘Contact Us’ will help to identify the author. If no author can be found, use the webpage title as, American Psychological Association (2012). If no title, use URL.
8. Works with no identified author or with an anonymous author: Be cited as, Anonymous (2012) state that, or, (Anonymous, 2012).
   ("APA style blog," 2012)
   Use title in quotation marks for in-text citation; no “Anonymous” unless the source is signed that way.
9. If the first authors of multiple references share the same surname but have different initials, include the first authors’ initials in all in-text citations, even if the year of publication differs.
   (K. Chen, 2019; M. Chen, 2011)
   (J. M. Taylor & Neimeyer, 2015; T. Taylor, 2014)
10. If multiple authors within a single reference share the same surname, the initials are not needed in the in-text citation; cite the work in the standard author–date format.
    (Chen & Chen, 2019)

For more information:
https://apastyle.apa.org/instructional-aids/reference-examples.pdf
https://apastyle.apa.org/instructional-aids/reference-guide.pdf
https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations

Nomenclature and units

1. Give the Latin name and family of the species at first mention in the manuscript. Italicize Latin names.Provide the full authorship in the first mention of the taxon. Example: Skejotettix netrajyoti Subedi, 2022 and mention the reference of authorship in the references section. Subsequent references may use the common name.
2. Place a (leading) zero before the decimal in numbers less than 1. Give dates as the DDMMYY form, e.g. 10 January 1994. Spell out numbers less than 10 unless they stand beside standard units of measure (e.g. eight fish and 8 kg). Do not spell out numbers larger than 10 unless they are used to start a sentence.
3. Use metric units or the International System of Units (with base units meter, gram, second, liter, mole, joule, etc.). Common units such as day, tons, hectare, watts, horsepower, °C and ppt salinity may be acceptable. Always use abbreviations for standard units such as gram (g), kilogram (kg) metric ton (t), milliliter (mL), liter (L), centimeter (cm), meter (m), and kilometer (km). Do not use plural forms or periods for abbreviations of units. Use the bar (/) for compound units; for example, 2 t/ha/y; 10 g/m² or 2 t ha⁻¹ year⁻¹; 10 g m^-2.

Tables: Keep the number of tables to a minimum. Type each table on a main text where it is supposed to be positioned. Number each table with Arabic numbers (e.g., Table 1,2,3). The title, column and row headings, and footnotes of each table should be self-explanatory. Use a single asterisk (*) for 5% level and a double asterisk (**) for 1% level of significance.

Figures and Photographs: The figures and photographs including legends should be supplied on main text in addition to supplementary files. Identify all graphs and photographs with Arabic numerals (e.g. Fig.1, Fig.2 etc. in order of appearance). Send electronic images (.png or .tif format) at first submission and the originals labelled as Fig. 1, Fig. 2 as they appear in the main text.. Provide figures both in word and excel format. All figures that are not generated by the authors must be properly cited, and appropriate permissions must be obtained if required. Authors are responsible for ensuring that the use of third-party figures does not violate any copyright laws. Copyrighted material may only be included with explicit permission from the rights holder and must be clearly credited in the figure caption.

Type setting of the manuscript

Heading: Headings should be bold, centrally aligned and uppercase letters. Sub heads should be on a separate line, left aligned, bold and sentence case.
Trade or brand names: Capitalize the first letter of trade or brand names.
Periods: Do not put periods after the title and key words. Periods are necessary at the end of table and figure heading.
Reprints: The final copy of the manuscript in PDF format will be sent to the corresponding author via email.

Declaration of conflict of Interest: Authors must disclose any conflict of interest in their cover letter that could be perceived as influencing the content or outcome of the submitted work.

Ethics Approval and Permits:
Authors must ensure that all research submitted to this journal complies with relevant ethical standards and legal requirements. The following guidelines apply:

1. Human Subjects Research
   Studies involving human participants must have prior approval from an Institutional Review Board (IRB) or authorized body/department of the respective institution.
   A statement of ethical approval, including the name of the approving body and approval number, must be included in the submission.
   Informed consent must be obtained from all participants and documented accordingly.

2. Animal Research
   Research involving animals must comply with institutional, national, and international guidelines for the care and use of animals.
   Approval from an institutional animal care and use committee (or equivalent) is required.
   A statement from the respective department/unit specifying ethical approval has to be included in the submission.

3. Field Studies and Specimen Collection
   Authors must obtain and provide documentation of all necessary permits for field studies, specimen collection, and research in protected areas or involving endangered species.
   Permit numbers, issuing authorities, and country of origin should be clearly stated.

4. Ethics Statement in Manuscript
   All submitted manuscripts must include an “Ethics Approval and Consent” section within the Research Methods or Acknowledgments section, specifying:
   Name of approving body (ethics committee or permit authority)
   Approval or permit number(s)
   Confirmation of compliance with ethical standards

Use of AI: The use of AI is discouraged in the manuscript. If used, limit the use to improve the readability of the manuscript and strictly avoid its use in data fabrication and creation or alteration of the contents and images. Authors should be accountable for the accuracy of their publication. If AI has been used, authors must disclose any use of AI tools, including the tool's name, version, how it was used, and the reason for its use in the Materials and Methods section.

Submission: Prepare a cover letter and your complete manuscript, along with supplementary files (images/ figures/diagrams/ ethical approval and necessary permits, if applicable). For submission details, please refer to the official "Call for Papers" announced by the Directorate of Research and Extension, AFU.The Editors may return (without reviewing) any manuscript that falls outside the journal’s policy or scope. All accepted manuscripts will be peer reviewed by at least two referees.

Privacy Statement: The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

Review process
Each article undergoes an initial evaluation by an Editorial member, who then forwards suitable submissions to two external experts for review. To ensure the anonymity of all involved experts, author information is removed from the manuscripts sent to these peer reviewers. Authors receive anonymized reports after this process. Following peer review and the Editor's assessment, a decision will be communicated to the authors.

Submitting a revised paper
When making revisions to your manuscript, carefully go through the comments given by the reviewers and editor. Ensure that you address each point raised clearly and in detail, and also submit the point by point response of the comments. This might involve clarifying points, incorporating new information, reorganizing sections, and correcting any errors or issues highlighted by the reviewers.

Misconduct
Any misconduct found in submitted manuscripts will result in immediate rejection. This includes duplicate publication, plagiarism, figure manipulation, dual-submission, or any other fraudulent practices, all of which are unacceptable. If misconduct is discovered after publication, the article will be retracted and a retraction notice will be issued. Submitted manuscripts may undergo plagiarism scanning to ensure originality.