Submissions

Author Guidelines

Publication languages

Tropicultura publishes articles in English and French. Summaries are published in English and French.

Content of manuscripts

Priority is given to articles that focus on the widest possible range of original subjects. In other words, their content concentrates mainly on methodological aspects, which can be applied to many different environments and regions of the world.

Major emphasis is placed on the reliability of any information that is published, such as the number of test repetitions, in terms of time and space, which form the basis of the data obtained from the results of experiments.

Manuscripts must have not been previously published or simultaneously submitted to another scientific journal for publication.

Style

Manuscripts must be printed on single sides, single-spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 11), with a 2.5 cm margin around the printed area. They should include a maximum of twenty pages of text (not including the cover page).

The cover page must include the title, short title (maximum of 55 characters), the authors’ full names, together with their qualifications, position, nationalities, full work/e-mail addresses and any acknowledgements. The corresponding author’s name must be marked with a "*" and his address should include a telephone number.

The pages following the cover page must comprise:

(i) the summaries (max. 200 words) in the language of the manuscript and in English, preceded by a translation of the title and followed by a maximum of six key words in each of the two languages;
(ii) the body of the text with numbered tables and figures, with titles and legends, placed where they are mentioned in the text;
(iii) the bibliography.

All lines and pages must be numbered consecutively.

The text must be divided into longer chapters (Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions), but must not be subdivided into more than two levels (one single level following the chapters). The chapter headings and paragraph subtitles must be very concise and should never be underlined.

Images must be of a professional standard. Photographs must be unmounted, with clear contrast. Photos provided as .jpg or .png files must be of good quality, with a minimum of 96 pixels per inch (dpi) and 1000 dots width. The equations are provided as pictures.

Data files must be provided, containing the relevant table and chart data, when the manuscript is submitted.

Citations

Any use of ideas or words from an author must be referenced (even if the document is freely available, in the public domain or as a web page). There are no exceptions to this requirement.

Bibliographic references in the text are in "author-date" format inside brackets: "(Smith, 2011)". Pagination is not necessary. For a reference with two autors, both names are indicated (Brown & Dupont, 2010). For more than two authors, the name of the first authoris followed by "et al". If several references are cited together, they should appear in chronological order and be separated by a semicolon "(Iwai et al, 1980; Binoux et al, 1988; Dordick, 1989)".Direct citations should be placed inside quotation marks. Citations in another language should appear in italics. When a whole paragraph is reproduced, it should be indented. The citation should be followed by the reference in brackets, appearing outside the quotation marks.

References

The bibliography is limited to 50 references. For reviews, the author must explain the information retrieval methodology used at the end of the introduction.

The presentation of the bibliography should follow the international Harvard style adapted. For Zotero or Mendeley users, the style file can be found at: http://infolit.be/TROP_CSL/tropicultura.csl (copy the URL or use the downloaded CSL file to complete the installation of this style).

A list of all references cited in the text should be presented in the bibliography at the end of the article, before any appendices. References should appear in alphabetical order according to the first author’s surname and in chronological order for a given author. A reference for a single author should precede a reference for an author with a co-author. References should not be numbered.  When more than four authors, only the first author is cited followed by 'et al.'.

1. Monograph

Authors’ names, year, title, edition (if not the first one), place of publication (city and country) and publisher are mandatory.

Agrios G., 1997. Plant pathology. 4th ed. New York, NY, USA; London: Academic Press. 

2. Articles in journals

Journal titles should be abbreviated according to the list published by the ISSN International Center, “The List of Title Word Abbreviations” (http://www.issn.org/2-22661-LTWA-online.php). Those containing only one word should not be abridged: Heredity, Endeavour, etc.

Klausmeier C.A., Litchman E., Daufresne T. & Levin S., 2004. Optimal nitrogen-to-phosphorus stoichiometry of phytoplankton. Nature, 429, 171-174.

3. Chapters in an edited book

Authors, editors and publishers must be clearly identified. The name of the editor is followed by “ed.” or “eds” (if more than one).

Ennos R.A., 1990. Detection and measurement of selection: genetic and ecological approaches. In: Brown A.H.D., Clegg M.T., Kalher A.L. & Weir B.S., eds. Plant population genetics, breeding, and genetic resources. Sunderland, MA, USA: Sinauer Associates Inc., 200-214.

 The reference to a conference in a proceeding should include the title, and if possible, the place and date of the meeting.

Charudattan R., 1996. Pathogens for biological control of water hyacinth. In: Charudattan R., R. Labrada, TD Center & Kelly-Begazo C., eds. Strategies for water hyacinth control. A report of a panel of experts meeting, 11-14 September, 1995, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Roma: FAO, 90-97.

4. Theses

Theses should be identified as monographs with the title of the degree and the name of the university where the thesis was presented.

Fumière O., 2010. Combinaison des techniques de biologie moléculaire et de la spectrométrie dans le proche infrarouge pour l’authentification des denrées destinées à l’alimentation humaine et animale. PhD thesis: University of Liège - Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech (Belgium).

5. Internet documents

An Internet document should be described in the same way as a printed document followed by a comma, the full Internet address and the consultation date (written in brackets).

Shenk J.W. & Shenk J.S., 2008. White paper – Unity Scientific Standardization concept for NIR instrument product lines, http://www.unityscientific.com.au, (24/06/2012).

Citations of articles "in press" or "accepted" may be included in the bibliography. Documents "in preparation", "submitted" or constituting a "personal communication" (which may be cited in the text), internal unpublished reports, courses and masters dissertations should not be listed in the bibliography.

Permission rights

By submitting their articles, the relevant authors grant Tropicultura non‐exclusive permission to publish their work with open access. The author retains the copyright.

Permission for publication

In order to ensure that the manuscript is original and the supervisory organisations of the authors have agreed to its publication, the main author is asked to sign a sworn declaration (declaration available here).

Contribution to publishing costs

As of volume 38 (2020), the journal Tropicultura does not charge any participation fee to authors.

Plagiarism detector

All manuscripts are subjected to a plagiarism test before they are sent to readers.

Review process and double blind peer review

The Tropicultura reading committee is made up of volunteer reviewers from the international scientific community, who specialise in all fields linked to rural development and sustainable management of the environment in other countries.

Authors must propose three internationally renowned reviewers when they submit an article.

Articles are submitted to one or more reviewers selected by the editorial committee.

These reviewers remain anonymous to the authors. The authors also remain anonymous to the reviewers.

The editorial committee reserves the right to reject any article that fails to meet the review criteria.

32% of articles submitted to Tropicultura between 2010 and 2015 were accepted.

Dealines

Readers who agree to evaluate a manuscript have one month to submit their report. Authors have two months to submit a new version of their manuscript after a review request. These deadlines can be extended upon request.

The Editorial Board reserves the right to reject manuscripts for which the deadlines have passed.

Revisions

When submitting a corrected version of an article, authors are asked to highlight the corrections (by correction tracking and/or color) and to answer any questions from reviewers or the editor.

Without this information, the paper will not be re-evaluated.

Assistance with editing

The editorial office may advise authors how to improve their manuscripts. If readers so wish, the editorial office can put them in contact with the authors whose manuscript they are reviewing.