Author Guidelines
Manuscripts should be submitted by one of the authors of the manuscript through the online manuscript tracking system. The EJOPAAS online platform accepts only electronic PDF (.pdf) or Word (.doc,.docx) files. Submissions by anyone other than one of the authors will not be accepted. The submitting author takes responsibility for the manuscript during submission and peer review. For technical help, contact (EJOPAAS@edouniversity.edu.ng). All correspondence, including notification of the editor's decision and requests for revision, takes place in the journal management system.
Our Research Integrity team will occasionally seek advice outside of standard peer review, for example, on submissions with serious ethical, security, biosecurity, or societal implications. We may consult experts and the academic editor before deciding on appropriate actions, including but not limited to: recruiting reviewers with specific expertise, assessment by additional editors, and declining to further consider a submission. Authors may also be required to suggest up to four potential reviewers for their work, which may be used at the discretion of the editors. Please double-check the email addresses provided for reviewers.
Authors should also specify which category and paper subject they want reviewed. A subject-topic list is provided below:
Agricultural, applied, biological, computational, environmental, mathematical, medical, natural, and physical sciences, as well as engineering and technology.
Language
Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these).
Formatting
An optional research article manuscript template can be downloaded in the journal management system. We recommend that all manuscripts include page number as well as line numbers and follow the structure below:
Title and Authorship Information
The following information should be included:
Manuscript title: Concise and informative. Titles are often used in information-retrieval systems. Avoid references, abbreviations and formulae where possible.
Author names (full author names) and affiliations: Indicate the name of each author. Where the family name may be ambiguous (e.g., a double name), please indicate this clearly. Present the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names. Indicate all affiliations with a lower-case superscript letter immediately after the author's name and in front of the appropriate address. Provide the affiliation, including department/laboratory, institution/university, city, state and the country name and, if available, the e-mail address of each author. EJOPAAS remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in institutional affiliations. Responsibility for affiliations ultimately rests with the author, although EJOPAAS may request changes be made to countries listed in affiliations to ensure consistency across published output (for indexing and discovery reasons).
Corresponding author: Clearly indicate who will handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also post-publication. Ensure that the e-mail address is given and that contact details are kept up to date by the corresponding author.
Abstract: A concise and factual abstract is required. The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research, the principal results and major conclusions. An abstract is often presented separately from the article, so it must be able to stand alone. For this reason, References should be avoided, but if essential, then cite the author(s) and year(s). Also, non-standard or uncommon abbreviations should be avoided, but if essential they must be defined at their first mention in the abstract itself. It should not exceed 300 words.
Keywords: Immediately after the abstract, provide a maximum of 4-6 keywords, using United Kingdom spelling and avoiding general and plural terms and multiple concepts (avoid, for example, 'and', 'of'). Be sparing with abbreviations: only abbreviations firmly established in the field may be eligible. These keywords will be used for indexing purposes.
Information on the Main Body on the Manuscript
The following information should be included:
Introduction: This section should be succinct, with no subheadings.
Methodology (Materials and Methods): The methods section should provide enough detail for others to be able to replicate the study. If you have more than one method, use subsections with relevant headings, e.g., different models, in vitro and in vivo studies, statistics, materials and reagents, etc.
Detailed descriptions of the methods (including protocols or project descriptions) and algorithms may also be uploaded as supplementary information or a previous publication that gives more details may be cited. If the method from a previous article is used then this article must be cited and discussed. If wording is reused from a published article, then this must be noted, e.g., this study uses the method of Ukhurebor et al. [1], and the methods description partly reproduces their wording
If a method or tool is introduced in the study, including software, questionnaires, and scales, the license this is available under and any requirement for permission for use should be stated. If an existing method or tool is used in the research, the authors are responsible for checking the license and obtaining any necessary permission. If permission was required, a statement confirming permission was granted should be included in the Materials and Methods section.
Results and Discussion: This section may be divided into subsections or may be combined.
Main Text: (This is might only be applicable to review articles): This section may be divided into subsections or may be combined.
Conclusions: This should clearly explain the main conclusions of the article, highlighting its importance and relevance.
Data Availability: This statement should describe how readers can access the data supporting the conclusions of the study and clearly outline the reasons why unavailable data cannot be released.
Conflicts of Interest: Authors must declare all relevant interests that could be perceived as conflicting. Authors should explain why each interest may represent a conflict. If no conflicts exist, the authors should state this. Submitting authors are responsible for co-authors declaring their interests.
Funding Statement: Authors must state how the research and publication of their article was funded, by naming financially supporting body(s) (written out in full) followed by associated grant number(s) in square brackets (if applicable), for example: “This work was supported by the TETFund Institution Based Research (IBR) [grant numbers]; the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council [grant numbers]; the National Science Foundation [grant number]; the Petroleum Trust Fund Project Grant” [grant numbers]; etc.
If the research did not receive specific funding, but was performed as part of the employment of the authors, please name this employer. If the funder was involved in the manuscript writing, editing, approval, or decision to publish, please declare this.
Acknowledgments: All acknowledgments (if any) should be included at the very end of the manuscript before the references. Anyone who made a contribution to the research or manuscript, but who is not a listed author, should be acknowledged (with their permission).
References: Authors should submit references in the recommended style, which is Chicago style. Authors are responsible for ensuring that the information in each reference is complete and accurate. All references should be numbered consecutively in the order of their first citation. Citations of references in the text should be identified using numbers in square brackets e.g., “as discussed by Ukhurebor [9]”; “as discussed elsewhere [9, 10]”. All references should be cited within the text and uncited references will be removed.
Date formatting: EJOPAAS recommends writing dates out fully to avoid confusion with different all-numeral date styles. For example, 11/10/2018 could be 10 November 2018 or 11 October 2018 depending on the reader, therefore, the date should be written out in full. For example, the date 30 September 2018 can be used rather than 01/09/2018 or 09/01/2018.
Preparation of figures: Upon submission of an article, authors should include all figures and tables in the file of the manuscript. Figures and tables should not be submitted in separate files. If the article is accepted, authors will be asked to provide the source files of the figures. Each figure should be supplied in a separate electronic file. All figures should be cited in the manuscript in a consecutive order. Figures should be supplied in either vector art formats (Illustrator, EPS, WMF, FreeHand, CorelDraw, etc.) or bitmap formats (Photoshop, TIFF, GIF, JPEG, etc.). Bitmap images should be of 300 dpi resolution at least unless the resolution is intentionally set to a lower level for scientific reasons. If a bitmap image has labels, the image and labels should be embedded in separate layers. Figures should be placed in the appropriate position within the article with the respective title, legends, and captions.
Maps: EJOPAAS remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps. For reasons of consistency, authors are requested to use accepted standard maps as the basis for map figure drawing, for example using the latest standard base-map of Map Press. Responsibility for maps rests with authors and it is their responsibility to also provide any copyright or licence information when using maps that are not owned or created by the author (e.g. Google Maps, etc.)
Preparation of tables: Tables should be cited consecutively in the text. Every table must have a descriptive title and if numerical measurements are given, the units should be included in the column heading. Vertical rules should not be used. Tables should be placed in the appropriate position within the article with the respective title, legends, and captions.
Supplementary materials: Supplementary materials are the additional parts to a manuscript, such as audio files, video clips, or datasets that might be of interest to readers. Authors can submit one file of supplementary material along with their manuscript through the Manuscript Tracking System. If there is more than one file, they can be uploaded as a .ZIP file.
A section titled “Supplementary Material” should be included before the references list with a concise description for each supplementary material file. Supplementary materials are not modified by our production team. Authors are responsible for providing the final supplementary materials files that will be published along with the article.
Proofs: Corrected proofs must be returned to the publisher within five to seven days of receipt. The publisher will do everything possible to ensure prompt publication.
Reporting guidelines: Authors are strongly encouraged to use appropriate reporting guidelines when preparing and submitting manuscripts, to maximise transparency and reproducibility. Our editors and reviewers are also encouraged to use them in the review process. Completed checklists should be provided in the supplementary files on submission.
Appeals: Authors may appeal if they feel that the decision to reject was based on:
i) A major misunderstanding over a technical aspect of the manuscript, or ii) a failure understands the scientific advance shown by the manuscript. Appeals requesting a second opinion without sufficient justification will not be considered. To lodge an appeal, please contact the journal by email, quoting your manuscript number. Appeals will only be considered from the original submitting author.
Abbreviations: The use of abbreviations should be kept to a minimum. When abbreviations are used, give the full term followed by the abbreviation in parentheses at the first mention in the text. The abbreviation may appear in the text thereafter. Abbreviations used in tables and figures should be explained in the legend.
Units: Follow internationally accepted rules and conventions: use the international system of units (SI). If other units are mentioned, please give their equivalent in SI.
Math formulae: Please submit math equations as editable text and not as images. Present simple formulae in line with normal text where possible and use the solidus (/) instead of a horizontal line for small fractional terms, e.g., X/Y. In principle, variables are to be presented in italics. Powers of e are often more conveniently denoted by exp. Number consecutively any equations that have to be displayed separately from the text (if referred to explicitly in the text).
Footnotes: Footnotes should be used sparingly. Number them consecutively throughout the article. Many word processors can build footnotes into the text, and this feature may be used. Otherwise, please indicate the position of footnotes in the text and list the footnotes themselves separately at the end of the article. Do not include footnotes in the Reference list.
What happens after submission?
The manuscript is checked if it is in conformity to the journal guidelines and if the subject it reports falls within the scope of the journal. If a manuscript is deemed unsuitable for publication by the editors, the authors will be notified of this decision. Only manuscripts that have passed this initial screening by the editors will undergo complete peer review.
Peer-review reports with the reviewers’ recommendations about acceptance or rejection will be sent to the authors as soon as possible. Authors who are advised that their manuscript must be revised are required to provide a document detailing their response to each reviewers’ comments upon resubmission. In addition, revised manuscripts should clearly indicate changes made to the text using yellow colour text highlight, and the original text should be kept and marked as underlined text.
Papers are published on a first-come, first-served basis, but the editorial board reserves the right to make case-by-case exceptions. After acceptance for publication, the authors will receive page proofs for checking, but corrections should be limited to typesetting errors. Proofs should be returned within a week after receipt. Papers not returned within this period of one week will not be considered for publishing and will be sent back to the authors. After final approval by the authors, NO changes can be made to the paper.
