Maydica

Instructions for authors

Calls for papers

Maydica welcomes the submission of manuscripts meeting the general criteria of significance and scientific excellence and will publish original articles in basic and applied research, case studies, critical reviews, surveys, opinions, commentaries and assays. Our objective is to inform authors of the decision on their manuscript(s) within four weeks of submission. Following acceptance, a paper will normally be published in the next issue. Instructions for authors, and further details are available below. Electronic submission to submission@maydica.org is required.

copyright

The corresponding author represents all the manuscript’s authors. Upon manuscript acceptance, copyright becomes held by Maydica, which adopts an open access publishing policy. Published articles can be retreived from the Maydica web site free of charge for personal use, deposition into any departmental or institutional repository, or distribution for any commercial or non-commercial endeavor. Articles obtained from the web site may not be altered in any way without the permission of the Maydica editors.
The corresponding author must obtain permission to reproduce figures, tables, or text from other copyrighted material.

authorship

Authors are those who contributed substantially to the research documented in the paper and share responsibility for the resulting article. Those who assisted peripherally but are not authors may be recognized in the Acknowledgments.

conflicts of interest

Upon manuscript submission, the corresponding author must describe any affiliations that may present a conflict of interest in either the choice of Editors or reviewers. This information will remain confidential.

funding agencies

All granting agencies must be recognized in the Acknowledgments.

Preparing manuscripts for submission

manuscript text

Manuscripts must be:

• written in English with American spelling and correct grammar and punctuation;
• in 12-point type, double-spaced throughout, including the References section, appendices, tables, and legends;
• marked with consecutive page numbers, beginning with the cover page.

Write out numbers nine or less except as part of a date, a fraction, a percentage, or a unit of measurement. Use Arabic numbers for those larger than nine, except as the first word of a sentence. Use abbreviations of the units of measurement when they are preceded by a number: 3 min but several minutes. Write percent as one word, except when used with a number. To indicate temperature in centigrade, use °C. Italicize names of organisms only when the species is indicated: Neurospora, but Neurospora crassa or N. crassa. In text citations include both names for citations with two authors. In citations with three or more authors name the first author with et al for the other authors. Cite only articles that are published or in press. Do not cite PhD theses, other dissertations, and, in general, publications that are impossible to obtain by the future readers of your manuscript.

Maydica is striving for scientific excellence to be made available to the international scientific community. Therefore, the citation of articles in languages other than the English language should be avoided.

The total of tables + figures should not exceed a total of six units. Further tables and/or figures should be considered and signed as supplementary and will not appear in the type-set article. Papers of five type-setted pages or less will be considered short communications. Research articles should contain the following sections: Abstract, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, and References. The Results and Discussion sections can be combined when needed. An Acknowledgements section can be added when requested for. Review articles should contain the following sections: Abstract, Introduction, and References. Further sections can be added when needed and as the authors retain necessary.

The first page should contain:

• a concise, informative title that includes the name of the organism under study;
• the authors' names;
• the authors' institutional affiliations, including department; institution, city, state or province, country, and postal code.

For the authors' names, indicate different affiliations with superscript numbering. Use a superscript symbol to indicate the corresponding author and supply this authors's e-mail address to be inserted into a dedicatory footnote.

The second page contains:

• a short running title of about 35 characters, including spaces,
• up to five key words or phrases,
• the corresponding author's name, mailing address including street name and number, phone and fax numbers, and email address.

Abstract

Abstracts are a single paragraph, must be fewer than 250 words, and may not contain citations or abbreviations. The abstract must contain the full name of the organism studied. It should be written for people who may not read the entire paper, so it must stand on its own. The abstract should begin with a broad context of the study, followed by the core findings, results, and conclusions.

Introduction

In the introduction, the scope and impact of the work should be clearly stated. A general background on the importance of the study should be provided in a single, well-reasoned paragraph near the beginning of the introduction. Successive paragraphs should contain more specific important background information, including relevant review papers and similar work in other organisms.

Materials and Methods

Manuscripts should contain a clear description of the experimental design in sufficient detail so that the experimental analysis could be repeated by another scientist. It is important to indicate what statistical analysis has been performed, including the method and model applied.

Results and Discussion

The results and discussion should not be repetitive. The results section should give a factual presentation of the data and all tables and figures should be referenced. The discussion should not summarize the results but provide an interpretation of the results, and should clearly delineate between the findings of the particular study and the possible impact of those findings in a larger context. It is sometimes acceptable to combine results and discussion.

References

The References section lists only articles that are published or in press. References should be formatted as they appear in a recent issue of Maydica. References are chronologically cited in text. Order references alphabetically by first author. For multiple citations with the same first author, first list single-author entries by year using 1996a, 1996b, etc., then list multiple-author entries alphabetically by second and succcessive authors.
Sample journal article citations:

Becraft PW, 2001. Cell fate specification in the cereal endosperm. Semin Cell Dev Biol 12: 387-394

Gruis DF, Guo H, Selinger D, Tian Q, Olsen OA, 2006. Surface position, not signaling from surrounding maternal tissues, specifies aleurone epidermal cell fate in maize. Plant Physiol 141: 898-909

Sample book citation:

Sturtevant AH, Beadle GW, 1939. An Introduction to Genetics. Saunders WB, Philadelphia

Sample chapter-in-book citation:

Beadle GW, 1957. The role of the nucleus in heredity, "The Chemical Basis of Heredity", pp3-22. McElroy WD, Glass B eds. Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore

 

FIGURES

Figures include drawings, graphs, complex chemical formulas, and other sketches. Each figure should be supplied in an independent file, which must be no larger than 10 MB.
Acceptable file formats are:

• TIFF (.tiff)
• JPEG (.jpg)
• EPS (.eps)
• Adobe Illustrator (.ai)

All files must conform to these resolution ranges:

• Halftone (color or black & white): 300 dpi
• Grayscale and color combination images: 300-600 dpi
• Line art images: 500 dpi

RGB, CMYK, and Grayscale are all acceptable. Halftones should be high contrast with sharp detail. For figures with multiple parts use A, B, etc. in non-bolded type to label the parts for easy reference within the text. If a figure has important areas, arrows or numbers can be used to draw attention.
Label all figures in numerical order with Arabic numerals, and cite figures in the text in their numerical order. Within the label, be sure to distinguish between similar characters, such as the letter l and the number 1. Supply all legends to figures in a single separate text file. Do not supply the legends as part of the image file. Figure legends should be a self-contained description of the content of the figure and should provide enough detail to fully understand the data presented. Figure legends should start with a brief title.

Supplementary Data

Supplementary data, which will be available on-line only together with the published article, must be provided during submission as additional tables and/or figures. Labeling should be in numerical order with Arabic numerals. Label supplementary tables with the prefix S_table and supplementary figures with S_figure.