Journal Plantarum
Guide Lines for Authors
Thank you for choosing to submit your paper to us. Before submitting the article, please go
through the aims and objectives of the journal to avoid rejection. This journal is an official publication
of Department of Botany, Lahore College for Women University, Lahore, Pakistan.
It is an open access biannual journal of plant sciences. For submission of article,
following instructions will ensure that your paper can move through peer review, production and
publication smoothly. Please take time to read and follow them to have quality production with this journal.
A paper would normally require at least 10-12 weeks from the date of receipt for its appearance in the journal.
For any inquiry about publication process,
email at info@plantarum.pk OR journalplantarumlcwul@gmail.com
Journal Plantarum publishes
1. Original papers
2. Short Communications
3. Quality reviews and
4. Letters of Botanical interest to Editors
5. Research briefs
1. Preparing the Article
Papers may be submitted in MS Word or LaTeX formats. Article, figures and tables should be saved in a single document. Font style is Times New Roman whereas all scientific names should be italicized.
Language
Please note that this journal only publishes manuscripts in English.
Research Article
Journal considers all original research articles that are technically sound and provide considerable new information for scientific community. A research article should typically contain the following elements: title page; abstract; keywords; main text (introduction; materials and methods, results and discussion, acknowledgments; declaration of conflict of interest statement; references). Table(s) with caption(s) and figures and figure captions should be merged in article where they are described. Total length of research article should not exceed 10 type pages with 50 references maximum.
Short Communication
Short communications are short papers but containing significant information and data to be dispersed rapidly. Short communications may be limited to 3000 words or a maximum of 4 type set pages. Short communication in Journal Plantarum may have sections like in Research Article or it may be an simple form. Materials and methods of short communication should be provided as supplementary data.
Reviews
Journal Plantarum invites high quality analytical and critical review with a broad range of topics of Plant Sciences. Review articles may be written in the following order: title page; abstract; keywords; main text, discussion; conclusion; acknowledgments; declaration of interest statement; references. Review articles should not contain more than 120 references.
Letter to Editors
A letter to editor may be considering any one of these
a. A reanalysis of already published article in Journal Plantarum
b. An emerging issue of research interest lying within the scope of J. Plantarum
c. A brief report of research finding of public interest and scope of J. Plantarum
Research Brief
Research brief is a non-technical and short summary of an article that may include a report of analytical technique,
a short case study or a snapshot of an emerging issue.
2. Arrangement:
The different sections of the paper must be arranged as follows.
Title: The title should be concise and informative. All capitals (Font Size 12), bold and center aligned.
Authors Information: Title should be followed by complete name (s)
of authors in all capitals with center alignment and Font size 10 and bold. In
case of more than one authors with different Institutions, use numbering in
superscripts to separate the author's affiliation. Use * for corresponding author.
Next to Authors name list, there must be affiliations of authors and Email address/s of
corresponding author (font size 10, center aligned, not bold, and italicized).
Abstract:
A short and comprehensive abstract (Not more than 300 words) should be
provided including research problem, hypothesis, objective, brief methodology,
important findings and conclusion (font size 9).
Key words:
Appropriate 6-10 Key words should be given after abstract (alphabetically arranged and font size 10)
Introduction:
Must contain research background, research problem to be addressed, valid hypothesis to be tested and objective. All the section of introduction must be justified properly by comprehensive and latest literature (font size 10).
Materials and Methods:
This section must contain all the details of the laboratory and field studies. In case of agriculture data of at least two years must be included. However, data of one year will be acceptable if the experiments are conducted at two different sites (font size 10). Methods that are already published must be summarized with proper citation.
Result and Discussion:
This part may be in a single section as "Results and Discussion" or if necessary, can be split into separate "Results" and "Discussion" sections. Avoid to make subsections however, if necessary, subheadings can be used in this section. Discussion should be logical and results must be discussed in the light of previous finding (preferably recent ones) justifying your findings (font size 10).
Nomenclature Scientific plant names must be used in accordance with the International Code of Nomenclature of algae, fungi and plants. In taxonomic studies, author’s names of all taxa should be provided as standardized by the International Plant Names Index. Resourceful link may be like
https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=521671
Conclusions:
It can be given in a separate heading or a short paragraph containing important conclusions of the study
Conflict of Interest:
All the authors have to declare conflict of interest if there is any. The journal requires that
all authors disclose any potential sources of conflict of interest. Any interest or relationship,
financial or otherwise that might be perceived as influencing an author's objectivity
is considered a potential source of conflict of interest. The existence of a conflict
of interest does not preclude publication. If the authors have no conflict of interest to declare,
they must also state this at submission. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to review this
policy with all authors and collectively to disclose with the submission ALL pertinent commercial and other relationships.
References:
References must be arranged alphabetically and stick to the Journal format.
In the text reference should be mentioned in the following ways In case of one author should be cited as Erin, 2018.
Use of a citation software like Endnote should be preferred.
In case of two authors in parenthesis, both authors must be separated with "and" (e.g. Khalid and Khan, 2019).
In case of publications of more than two authors,
the name of first author should be followed by et al. (e.g. Khan et al., 2017).
In case of two or more citations in the text, the citation must be arranged in
chronological order (Khan, 2009; Ali & Murai, 2010; Zeb et al., 2012, Wang, 2014).
The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the Thomson Reuters Journal List
(Journals in the 2018 Release of Journals).
In case of more than one publication by the same author in the same year,
the references must be separated by a, b, c etc (e.g. Khan et al., 2018a, 2018b)
Journal article:
Micheal, C.H. 2017. The role of biosynthesis of Thymoquinones in vascular plants: J. Exp. Bot., 52:1145-1164.
Sana, K. and R. Rehana. 2018. Dynamics of the antioxidant system during seed osmo priming, post-priming germination, and seedling establishment in Spinach (Amaranthaceae). Plant. Sci., 180(2): 212-220.
Sana, F., F. Khan, M. Zeb and R. Rehana. 2018. Taxonomy and species association of grass species in response to altitudinal gradient in the Potohar region. Pak. J. Bot., 50(1): 41- 49.
Book
Brow, E.J.H. 2017. The Seed biology. Vol: 1. Cambridge University Press, Britain.
Book Chapter
Aliya, S.M. 1994. Nutrient uptake by plants under salt stress conditions. In: Parasad, M. (Ed.), Handbook of Plant and Crop Stress.xxxxxx, Pakistan, pp. 227-246.
Edited Book
Ali, S.I. and M. Qaiser (Eds.). 2001. Flora of Pakistan. 205. University of Karachi, Karachi
3. Publication Ethics:
Articles must be submitted with the understanding that there is not any prior publication of any part of submitted article/data in form of article, abstract or published lecture. It should not be a duplicated or plagiarized submission. Data should be accessible. All sources should be acknowledged. When animals are used in the research of submitted manuscript, approval from the ethics committee of the institute or organization should be submitted along with the submission. It should also be stated that all efforts were taken to minimize pain and discomfort to the animal while conducting these experiments. Article may be retraced in case of any ethical issue found in the publications later on even after publication.
4. Authorship
Authorship is a mean to assign responsibility and giving credit of intellectual and research work. Corresponding author should consider the authorship in terms of their substantial role but not simply on good will. The list of authors should be based on facts that who contributed to the work and how. Any change in authorship will not be considered after acceptance of article in J. Plantarum. All those listed as authors should qualify for authorship according to the following criteria:
1. Have made substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; and
2. Been involved in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and
3. Given final approval of the version to be published. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content; and
4. Agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
5. Plagiarism policy
Journal strictly follows the antiplagiarism policy of HEC, Pakistan. Similarity index should not exceed 15%.
6. Peer review policy
Journal Plantarum is open access and a peer-reviewed journal that uses a double-blind peer-review process.
Under our double-blind policy, reviewers’ names are not disclosed to the authors. To increase transparency,
reviewers may choose to sign their reports. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible to maintain high-quality
peer-review of papers submitted to the journal and works together with Managing Editors and an Editorial Board to
ensure a thorough and fair peer-review and the highest scientific publishing standards. All submissions undergo preliminary
assessment by the Editor-in-Chief, who may reject a paper before peer review when it is outside the journal’s
scope or is of insufficient quality. Associate Editors select reviewers and after at least two review reports
are received, they make the decision whether to accept/reject or send a manuscript for revision. The final decision is made by the Editor-in-Chief.
The Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor/s of J. Plantarum have the right to decline peer review of manuscript when it
a. does not lie in the scope of journal
b. results reported are not novel
c. is not sound technically
d. reports only routine work
Article Processing Fee
There is no article processing fee and no charges on acceptance but if authors want to have colored printing
of their article, they have to pay colored pages charges as 1000/- PKR per color page.
Copyrights
Copyrights of articles will be with Lahore College for Women University, Lahore Pakistan.
Copies available from:
Chief Editor,
Journal Plantarum,
Lahore College for Women University, Lahore, Pakistan
Lahore-53000, Pakistan.
Phone: (042) 99203801 Ext 250