Author Guidelines

The author(s) are required to read the following guidelines before submitting their manuscripts to the journal AgroEnvironmental Sustainability:

Manuscript Template (Mandatory): Download
Cover Letter Template (Mandatory): Download
Recommended Reviewer List Template (Mandatory): Download
Response to Reviewers (only for revision): Download

Before Submission

Types of Papers

AgroEnvironmental Sustainability considers the following type for papers for publication:

  • Editorials: Letters to editors and letters from the editors related to journal/subject progress.
  • Original research articles: Not more than 7000 words (maximum 40 pages including tables, figures, etc.).
  • Review articles: Maximum 10000 words article of critical and logical review.
  • Short communications: Not more than 3000 words including references.
  • Case studies: Local/region-oriented studies that have the findings of global significance (maximum 7000 words and 40 pages including, tables, figures, etc.).

Submission Requirements

  • Manuscript title: The title of the manuscript should be informative, concise, and relevant to its content. The title must not start from “The” initial. A title of 15-25 words is often acceptable.
  • Author details: The details of participating authors are compulsory and should be provided on the title page of the manuscript. In this, full name, laboratory/department, institutional addresses with PIN code, email IDs (preferably institution), and ORCID are compulsory. Authors from different affiliations should be marked using superscripted numbers like John Michel1, Subodh Singh2, etc. along with a list of the affiliations.
  • Correspondence details: One or more authors can be assigned as the corresponding author which should be highlighted using * (asterisk). Only one author with being assigned as the main corresponding author and other corresponding authors will be referred to as co-corresponding authors. The main corresponding author is responsible for all editorial correspondences.
  • Abstract: Abstract should not exceed 250 words. It should be concise and formulated using the followed logical order of sentences in a single paragraph: Main problem, Objectives of the study, brief methodology, key findings, and contribution of the findings to current knowledge.
  • Keywords: Provide a total of 4-6 relevant keywords arranged in alphabetical order which should be placed just below the abstract.
  • Statement of Sustainability: Please write 50-100 words about the novelty of your work while focusing on its contribution to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Please don’t repeat the text from the abstract or conclusion section. Manuscripts without this section will not be considered.
    Graphical abstract: Graphical abstract is compulsory for this journal. A 5 x 3 inches (width x height) graphical abstract should be provided just below the abstract. The graphical abstract will not be counted as a figure.
  • Figures: All figures should not exceed 5 in number and provide in a separate Word file. Figures should be provided as high quality having relevant captions. Figures should be cited as an abbreviated form like 1, 2, 3a, 3b, etc. in both text and figure sections.
  • Tables: Maximum number of Tables allowed is 5. All tables must have relevant captions and all asterisks used should be defined in the footnote of each table.
  • Supplementary files: Authors may submit supplementary data like Excel sheets, PowerPoint slides, Word documents, software/data files, videos, codes, methods, etc. which should not exceed a maximum size of 10 megabytes and two in number. All supplementary files should be submitted as a zip archive which will be published along with the manuscript if accepted.
  • Scientific/chemical nomenclature and units: All plants, animals, microorganisms, etc. names must be written following the international trend of organism nomenclature like The International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants, The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), etc. The chemicals used in the material and methods section should be written in the common name followed by the chemical formula in brackets e.g. hydrochloric acid (HCl), sodium hydroxide (NaOH), etc. The standard guidelines of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) should be followed for writing chemical nomenclature of specific compounds (if necessary). All standard units should be written according to SI norms.
  • Equations/formulae/symbols: All equations and formulae should be written using the equation editor tool of MS Word and numbered as 1, 2, 3, etc. Kindly note that special symbols/equations/formula in the running text should not be provided using the equation tool as it creates problems in typesetting/production. In the running paragraph, these should be provided as simple text.

Article Organization/Structure

  • The manuscript should be written in MS Word having double line spacing (2.0) and 12 pt. size of Times New Roman font. The manuscript text should be justified. Each section and subsection should be numbered as 1., 2., 3., and subsections as 1.1., 1.2., 2.1., 2.2., 3.1., 3.1.1., 3.1.2., etc. and so on. The components of the article should be organized as follows:
  • Title page: The title page is the first page of the manuscript having essential manuscript information like title, correct order of authors, author(s) marked for correspondence, complete affiliation, emails, and ORCID of each author.
  • Abstract and graphical abstract: This is the second page of the manuscript containing 250 words well written abstract and an informative graphical abstract.
  • Keywords: Placed just after the graphical abstract.
  • Introduction: The introduction section should not exceed 1000 words. It must deliver the main research problem, the current status of the problem, state of the art, hypothesis, and clear objectives in the last paragraph which should not be provided as numbered or bullet points.
  • Material and methods: Brief and clear description of each material, method, design/treatment should be provided. Locations of study/sample collection must be provided with the geocoordinates as degrees, minutes, and seconds (DMS): 41°24'12.2"N 2°10'26.5"E system. Use the degree symbol instead of "d" or superscripted zero (0). The last subsection of materials and methods should be for the short description of statistics, data analysis, and software used. In the case of short communication, material and methods must not contain any subsections. The model, company, and origin of the major instrument should be provided within brackets just after the corresponding sentence. E.g. The absorbance was recorded using a UV-Vis spectroscopy (60 Cary, Agilent Tech., US).
  • Results and discussion: Results and discussion should be clear and follow the following order of explanation: major results, statistical interpretation, reasons for outcomes with valid references, and comparison with currently available literature.
  • Conclusion and/or recommendations: This section should not exceed 200 words. Do not repeat your abstract or too many numerical readings. The major outcome of the work and future recommendations should be provided briefly.
  • Acknowledgments: The acknowledgment section is compulsory and the name of the institutions, persons, organizations that contributed to the work may be provided.
  • Funding: Funding details are required if applicable. The funder details should be provided in the following format: This research received funding from ABC Organization, Address, Country, (Grant number). If multiple funders are applicable the following format should be used: This research received funding from multiple funders including, ABC Organization, Address, Country, (Grant number) and XYZ Organization, Address, Country, (Grant number).
  • Conflict of interest: Authors must provide the conflict of interest statement if applicable, if not a simple declaration “There is no conflict of interest related to this work as declare by the author(s)”.
  • Author roles: The role of each author/co-authors should be provided as follows: Author A: Concept, Methodology, Study Design; Author B: Experiments, Data collection, Data analysis; Author C: Manuscript writing; Manuscript editing, Statistics; Author D: Research project administration; Funding arrangements.
  • References: References should be the last section of the manuscript file and placed just after the author's roles section. Avoid using outdated references and arrange them alphabetically having 0.5 left an indent on the first line (not as numbered or bullet point list). References from the last 5 years are preferred mostly. All references should be cited in both the text and reference section and vice versa.
  • Journal references style: The following method should be followed to write the references and et al. or journal name should not be italicized. The full name of the journal should be provided instead of abbreviated form and DOI/URLs of each reference are mandatory if available.
    • In-text section: For the single author: (John, 2020); for two authors: (John and Wilson, 2020) for three or more authors: (John et al., 2020).
    • In the reference section: For the single author: John, S. (2020). Low-cost treatment of municipal wastewater using pyrolyzed parthenium biomass. AgroEnvironmental Sustainability, 10: 10-22, https://doi.org/10.101xx/atadavnces.2020.3736.
    • For two authors: John, S., Wilson, M.S. (2020). Low-cost treatment of municipal wastewater using pyrolyzed parthenium biomass. AgroEnvironmental Sustainability, 10: 10-22, https://doi.org/10.101xx/atadavnces.2020.3736.
    • For three or more authors: John, S., Wilson, M.S., Xin, S., Jhou, M., Depp, J., et al. (2020). Low-cost treatment of municipal wastewater using pyrolyzed parthenium biomass. AgroEnvironmental Sustainability, 10: 10-22, https://doi.org/10.101xx/atadavnces.2020.3736.
  • Book references style: Similarly, the reference to a book should be provided as per the following instructions.
    • In-text section: For the single author: (John, 2020); for two authors: (John and Wilson, 2020) for three or more authors: (John et al., 2020).
    • In the reference section: For the single author: John, S. (2020). Low-cost treatment of municipal wastewater using pyrolyzed parthenium biomass. In: Low-cost Biosorbents, ABC Publishing, India. pp. 10-22, https://doi.org/10.101xx/atadavnces.2020.3736.
    • For two authors: John, S., Wilson, M.S. (2020). Low-cost treatment of municipal wastewater using pyrolyzed parthenium biomass. In: Low-cost Biosorbents, ABC Publishing, India. pp. 10-22, https://doi.org/10.101xx/atadavnces.2020.3736.
    • For three or more authors: John, S., Wilson, M.S., Xin, S., Jhou, M., Depp, J., et al. (2020). Low-cost treatment of municipal wastewater using pyrolyzed parthenium biomass. In: Low-cost Biosorbents, ABC Publishing, India. pp. 10-22, https://doi.org/10.101xx/atadavnces.2020.3736.
  • Dissertation/thesis references style: The reference to a dissertation or thesis should be provided as per the following instructions.
    • In the next section: Only a single author: (John, 2020).
    • In the reference section: John, S. (2020). Low-cost treatment of municipal wastewater using pyrolyzed parthenium biomass. Doctoral Thesis: Department of Agricultural Engineering, XYZ University, India. pp. 10-22, https://doi.org/10.101xx/atadavnces.2020.3736.
  • Online document/webpage/report references style: The reference to a dissertation or thesis should be provided as per the following instructions.
    • In text section: Abbreviated page/report/document name: (WHO, 2020).
    • In the reference section: WHO (2020). Low-cost treatment of municipal wastewater using pyrolyzed parthenium biomass. Word Health Organization, Accessed from https://www.who.org/10.101xx/atadavnces.2020.3736 on 20 December 2020.

Copyright

AgroEnvironmental Sustainability publishes its content in the Open Access model which allows the scientific community to access its content without any barriers. The articles published in AgroEnvironmental Sustainability are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 (CC-BY-NC) International License. The authors are the original copyright holder of the published article which allows them to use, reform, distribute, non-commercially.

Plagiarism

AgroEnvironmental Sustainability has partnered with Crossref to use iThenticate software by Turnitin for checking the text-similarity index of each submitted manuscript. Plagiarism is strictly monitored and manuscripts having a similarity index of more than 10% are immediately desk rejected. However, if the similarity index is found below 10% then authors may receive a revision requesting to eliminate the plagiarized content. Plagiarism is also not allowed to author’s own previously published works. Plagiarism of figures and artworks is also regularly monitored and this type of content is not published without due permission of the original right holder/publisher. Authors must provide their own and original figures/data tables or with proper citing sources. We suggest you use our language editing and proofreading services to ensure the quality and originality of your work before you submit your work to our journal. We follow the guidelines by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) for maintaining the quality of submitted and published work. However, if any accepted/published manuscript is found violating our guidelines, we will retract it immediately.

After submission

Peer Review Process

AgroEnvironmental Sustainability uses a single-blind peer-review model to ensure the originality/quality of the works, which means that the names of the authors may be disclosed to the reviewers but the name of reviewers remains anonymous for the authors. The decision of sending a paper for review is made by the Chief editor. Manuscripts not fitting to the journal scope or having multiple issues may be desk rejected without sending for peer review. Since the peer review process is a voluntary service and purely dependent on the availability of relevant peers, it may take undefined time to receive recommendations from them (usually 15 to 60 days). This journal asks to recommend a minimum of two reviewers who has expertise in the same subject of manuscript work. However, both reviewers should be from different countries and must not create bias in the peer review process which is the responsibility of the manuscript authors.

Revisions

Revisions are requested to implement mandatory corrections in the originally submitted manuscript files as recommended by the Chief editor, associate editor, reviewers, or publishing house. However, the revision decision is made based on the recommendations received on relevance, quality, reading, logical standing, language, and contribution of the work to present knowledge, so if found unsuitable the manuscript may be rejected even after multiple revisions.

After Acceptance

Article Processing Charges (APC)

To make available all works published in AgroEnvironmental Sustainability through the Open Access initiative, we charge a very nominal fee from the authors. The standard Article Publication Charges (APC) to publish a manuscript in this journal is 2500 INR for Indian authors and 30 USD for foreign authors (excluding taxes). The payment is made only after the acceptance of the manuscript and the main corresponding author will be notified by SAGENS who will pay APC using our online payment portal at https://www.sagens.org/payments. For any query regarding APC kindly contact the publisher at info@sagens.org.

Production

Just after the acceptance, the manuscripts are transferred to the production department for further typesetting, composing, and publication. The following steps are followed in the production of each article:

  • Under production article: After official acceptance, the manuscripts are published on the journal website as an “Under production” article. Under production, articles are accepted manuscripts made available to the authors fastening the publication process and remains until the article is assigned to an upcoming issue. Kindly note that an article may remain Under production until the APC is received, therefore, authors have to submit APC as early as they receive proof corrections to avoid delay in the final publication.
  • Copyright agreement: The main corresponding author has to submit the duly sign electronic copyright agreement using the link in the same APC request email.
  • Proof corrections: Proof corrections are sent to the main corresponding author to check the typesetting and accuracy of the work going to be published. Proof corrections are sent online through our manuscript submission system.
  • Final publication: Once the APC, final corrections, and copyright form of the accepted article are received, the manuscript will be assigned to an upcoming issue and the final version will be made available to all with full publication information like volume number, DOI, page numbers, etc.

Authorship Changes

AgroEnvironmental Sustainability avoids changing in the author list of submitted manuscripts. However, if an article is sent for revision, authors may incorporate or delete, and change the sequence of one or more authors before final acceptance. Once the article has been accepted for publication, authors have to write a request letter signed by all authors/co-authors clearly stating the reason for authorship changes. Once the article is published in “Under production article” or “Final publication” there will be no changes in the authorship/sequence.

Withdrawals/Erratum

Authors are free to withdraw their manuscripts before the final acceptance of the manuscripts by priorly writing a request letter to the Chief editor stating a valid reason. But after the acceptance of the manuscripts, authors are not allowed to withdrawals. If the authors found that some corrections are required in the final published article (except authorship changes), then authors may write a letter to the Chief editor stating the clear reasons and corrections to be done. The changes will be reviewed by the journal management board and if changes are accepted, an erratum will be published in the upcoming issue with the list of corrections. For this, a nominal Article Update Charges (AUC) of 20 USD is to be deposited by the main corresponding author of the manuscript through our online payment portal.

Retractions

If a published article is found violating the publication ethics, plagiarism policy, or Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines, SAGENS will look into the issue and if the violations are found against standard publishing practice, the article may be retracted without prior information to the authors. In this case, the original published version of the article will be replaced by a “Retraction notice” along with the reason for retraction.

Publication Ethics

The manuscripts submitted to AgroEnvironmental Sustainability are meant for publication under this title only. Authors must read guidelines for authors before proceeding a submission to AgroEnvironmental Sustainability. The work being submitted to this journal must follow standard publishing rules and regulations set by the Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE). The peer-review process is an essential part of this journal, however, manuscripts directly recommended for acceptance by reviewers may be published without any revision, if fulfills the journal criteria. All manuscripts are peer-reviewed by a minimum of two members of the editorial/reviewer pool. Manuscripts being submitted to AgroEnvironmental Sustainability must not be submitted elsewhere before until a final decision is made. There should be no self-citation or self-plagiarism and authors are responsible for all copyright and permissions regarding the work they submitted. Authors are requested to disclose all financial/relevant interests that may have influenced the development of the manuscript during its submission. The manuscripts must not have simultaneous submission which occurs when a manuscript (or substantial sections from a manuscript) is submitted to a journal when it is already under consideration by another journal and it will be considered misconduct of publication ethics. It must be stated categorically that SAGENS will, in no way, condole any of the above because they are unethical. In cases where the violations of the above policies are found to be outstandingly bad, SAGENS has the right to take action to restraint the violations.

Languages

SAGENS respects the language diversity of its authors and readers. Manuscripts may be submitted in English of both the United States or United Kingdom forms. The English of the paper should free from grammatical and rhetorical errors. The language should not target any group/religion/community/person/place or thing (brands, trademarks, products, firms, organizations, etc.). The language must not have any health, gender, race, ethnicity, culture sexual, or disability bias. The language must not contain any personal comments.