Instruction for Authors

https://www.e-jecoenv.org/content/contributors/instructions.html

This instruction provides style and formatting information for each specific article types.

Article types

Our journal has five article types
- Research (more than 3,000 words)
- Review (more than 3,000 words)
- Short Communication (1,000~3,000 words)
- Editorial (less than 1,000 words)

Preparing your manuscript

Research articleA Research article should include all sections as follows:
Title page, Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions, Declarations, References, List of figure legends.
In a Research article, Discussion section should be written in an independent section and not allowed to be merged such as 'Results & Discussion’.

Title pageThe title page should:
present a title that includes, if appropriate, the study design list the full names and institutional addresses for all authors Contact information for the corresponding author (association, address and email address)

AbstractThe Abstract should not exceed 350 words. Please minimize the use of abbreviations and do not cite references in the abstract. The abstract must include the following separate sections:
- Background: the context and purpose of the study
- Results: the main findings
- Conclusions: a brief summary and potential implications
Keywords should include 3 to 8 keywords representing the main content of the article. Lowercase letters should be used for keywords except for proper noun such as scientific names of species or a particular place.

IntroductionThe Introduction section should introduce the background of the study, its aims, a summary of the existing literature, why this study was necessary, and the purposes of the present study.

MethodsThe methods section should include:
the aim, design and setting of the study the characteristics of participants or description of materials a clear description of all processes, interventions and comparisons. Generic names should generally be used. When proprietary brands are used in research, include the brand names in parentheses the type of statistical analysis used, including a power calculation if appropriate List of abbreviations

If abbreviations are used in the text they should be defined in the text at first use, and a list of abbreviations can be provided.

ResultsThis should include the findings of the study including, if appropriate, results of statistical analysis which must be included either in the text or as tables and figures.

DiscussionFor research articles this section should discuss the implications of the findings in context of existing research and highlight limitations of the study.

ConclusionsThis should summarize the main conclusions and provide an explanation of the importance and implications of the study to the field.

DeclarationsAll manuscripts must contain the following sections under the heading 'Declarations':
- Ethics approval and consent to participate
- Consent for publication
- Availability of data and materials
- Competing interests
- Funding
- Authors' contributions
- Acknowledgements
- Authors' information (optional)
If any of the sections are not relevant to your manuscript, please include the heading and write 'Not applicable' for that section.

Ethics approval and consent to participateManuscripts reporting studies involving human participants, human data or human tissue must include a statement on ethics approval and consent (even where the need for approval was waived), and the name of the ethics committee that approved the study and the committee’s reference number if appropriate. Studies involving animals must include a statement on ethics approval and for experimental studies involving client-owned animals, authors must also include a statement on informed consent from the client or owner. If your manuscript does not report on or involve the use of any animal or human data or tissue, please state “Not applicable” in this section.

Consent for publicationIf your manuscript contains any individual person’s data in any form (including any individual details, images or videos), consent for publication must be obtained from that person, or in the case of children, their parent or legal guardian. All presentations of case reports must have consent for publication. You can use your institutional consent form or our consent form if you prefer. You should not send the form to us on submission, but we may request to see a copy at any stage (including after publication).
If your manuscript does not contain data from any individual person, please state “Not applicable” in this section.

Availability of data and materialsAll manuscripts must include an ‘Availability of data and materials’ statement. Data availability statements should include information on where data supporting the results reported in the article can be found including, where applicable, hyperlinks to publicly archived datasets analyzed or generated during the study. By data we mean the minimal dataset that would be necessary to interpret, replicate and build upon the findings reported in the article. We recognize it is not always possible to share research data publicly, for instance when individual privacy could be compromised, and in such instances data availability should still be stated in the manuscript along with any conditions for access.

Data availability statements can take one of the following forms (or a combination of more than one if required for multiple datasets):

“The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.”

“All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article [and its supplementary information files].”

“The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available in the [NAME] repository, [PERSISTENT WEB LINK TO DATASETS]”

“The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due [REASON WHY DATA ARE NOT PUBLIC] but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.”

“Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.”

“The data that support the findings of this study are available from [third party name] but restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license for the current study, and so are not publicly available. Data are however available from the authors upon reasonable request and with permission of [third party name].”

“Not applicable. If your manuscript does not contain any data, please state 'Not applicable' in this section.”

Our journal also requires that authors should cite any publicly available data on which the conclusions of the paper rely in the manuscript. Data citations should include a persistent identifier (such as a DOI) and should ideally be included in the reference list. Citations of datasets, when they appear in the reference list, should include the minimum information recommended by DataCite and follow journal style. Dataset identifiers including DOIs should be expressed as full URLs. For example:

Hao Z, AghaKouchak A, Nakhjiri N, Farahmand A. Global integrated drought monitoring and prediction system (GIDMaPS) data sets. figshare. 2014.http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.853801

Competing interestsAll financial and non-financial competing interests must be declared in this section. If you are unsure whether you or any of your co-authors have a competing interest, please contact the Editor-in-Cheif. Please use the authors initials to refer to each authors' competing interests in this section.
If you do not have any competing interests, please state "The authors declare that they have no competing interests" in this section.

FundingAll sources of funding for the research reported should be declared. Authors should declare the role of the funding body in the design of the study and collection, analysis, and interpretation of data and in writing the manuscript.

Authors' contributionsThe individual contributions of authors to the manuscript should be specified in this section. Please use initials to refer to each author's contribution in this section, for example: "FC analyzed and interpreted data regarding transplant experiment. RH performed statistical analysis and was a major contributor in writing the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript."

AcknowledgementsPlease acknowledge anyone who contributed towards the article who does not meet the criteria for authorship including anyone who provided professional writing services or materials. Authors should obtain permission to acknowledge from all those mentioned in the Acknowledgements section.
If you do not have anyone to acknowledge, please write "Not applicable" in this section.

Authors' informationThis section is optional. You may choose to use this section to include any relevant information about the author(s) that may aid the reader's interpretation of the article, and understand the standpoint of the author(s). This may include details about the authors' qualifications, current positions they hold at institutions or societies, or any other relevant background information. Please refer to authors using their initials. Note this section should not be used to describe any competing interests.

ReferencesExamples of the Vancouver reference style are shown below.

- Article within a journal
Smith JJ. The world of science. Am J Sci. 1999;36:234-5.

- Article within a journal (no page numbers)
Shin S, Jung KS, Kang HG, et al. Northward expansion trends and future potential distribution of a dragonfly Ischnura senegalensis Rambur under climate change using citizen science data in South Korea. J Ecol Environ. 2021;45:33.

- Article within a journal by DOI
Slifka MK, Whitton JL. Clinical implications of dysregulated cytokine production. Dig J Mol Med. 2000; doi:10.1007/s801090000086.

- Article within a journal supplement
Frumin AM, Nussbaum J, Esposito M. Functional asplenia: demonstration of splenic activity by bone marrow scan. Blood 1979;59 Suppl 1:26-32.
-Book chapter, or an article within a book
Wyllie AH, Kerr JFR, Currie AR. Cell death: the significance of apoptosis. In: Bourne GH, Danielli JF, Jeon KW, editors. International review of cytology. London: Academic; 1980. p. 251-306.

- Online First chapter in a series (without a volume designation but with a DOI)
Saito Y, Hyuga H. Rate equation approaches to amplification of enantiomeric excess and chiral symmetry breaking. Top Curr Chem. 2007. doi:10.1007/128_2006_108.

- Complete book, authored
Blenkinsopp A, Paxton P. Symptoms in the pharmacy: a guide to the management of common illness. 3rd ed. Oxford: Blackwell Science; 1998.

- Online document
Doe J. Title of subordinate document. In: The dictionary of substances and their effects. Royal Society of Chemistry. 1999. http://www.rsc.org/dose/title of subordinate document. Accessed 15 Jan 1999.

- Online database
Healthwise Knowledgebase. US Pharmacopeia, Rockville. 1998. http://www.healthwise.org. Accessed 21 Sept 1998.

- Supplementary material/private homepage
Doe J. Title of supplementary material. 2000. http://www.privatehomepage.com. Accessed 22 Feb 2000.

Review articleA Review article should include all sections as follows:
Title page, Abstract, Introduction, Results (Main text), Conclusions, Declarations, References, List of figure legends

Title pageThe title page should:
present a title that includes, if appropriate, the study design list the full names and institutional addresses for all authors Contact information for the corresponding author (association, address and email address)

AbstractThe Abstract should not exceed 350 words and should be structured with Background, Results, and Conclusion. Please minimize the use of abbreviations and do not cite references in the abstract.

KeywordsKeywords should include 3 to 8 keywords representing the main content of the article. Lowercase letters should be used for keywords except for proper noun such as scientific names of species or a particular place.

IntroductionThe Introduction section should state the background of the study, its aims, a summary of a search of the existing literature and the issue under discussion, followed by statement of purpose of the presented study.

Results (Main text)This should contain the body of the article, and may also be broken into subsections with short, informative headings. The authors can choose either “Results” for section heading or several subsection headings for the main text section without using “Results” for section heading.

ConclusionsThis should summarize the main conclusions and provide an explanation of the importance and implications of the study to the field.

List of abbreviationsIf abbreviations are used in the text they should be defined in the text at first use, and a list of abbreviations should be provided.

DeclarationsAll manuscripts must contain the following sections under the heading 'Declarations':
Ethics approval and consent to participate, Consent for publication, Availability of data and materials, Competing interests, Funding, Authors' contributions, Acknowledgements, Authors' information (optional)
If any of the sections are not relevant to your manuscript, please include the heading and write 'Not applicable' for that section.
Detailed guidelines for sections under declarations can be found in the guidelines for research article above.

Short CommunicationA Short Communication is short research communication less than 3,000 words. A Short Communication should include all sections as follows:
Title page, Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion, Declarations, References, List of figure legends

Title pageThe title page should: present a title that includes, if appropriate, the study design list the full names and institutional addresses for all authors Contact information for the corresponding author (association, address and email address)

AbstractThe Abstract should not exceed 350 words. Please minimize the use of abbreviations and do not cite references in the abstract

KeywordsKeywords should include 3 to 8 keywords representing the main content of the article. Lowercase letters should be used for keywords except for proper noun such as scientific names of species or a particular place.

IntroductionThe Background section should state the background of the study, its aims, a summary of a search of the existing literature and the issue under discussion, followed by statement of purpose of the presented study.

MethodsThe methods section should include:
the aim, design and setting of the study the characteristics of participants or description of materials a clear description of all processes, interventions and comparisons. Generic names should generally be used. When proprietary brands are used in research, include the brand names in parentheses the type of statistical analysis used, including a power calculation if appropriate List of abbreviations

Results and DiscussionThis should contain the body of the article, and may also be broken into subsections with short, informative headings.

List of abbreviationsIf abbreviations are used in the text, they should be defined in the text at first use, and a list of abbreviations should be provided.

DeclarationsAll manuscripts must contain the following sections under the heading 'Declarations':
Ethics approval and consent to participate
Consent for publication, Availability of data and materials
Competing interests
Funding
Authors' contributions
Acknowledgements
Authors' information (optional)

If any of the sections are not relevant to your manuscript, please include the heading and write 'Not applicable' for that section.
Detailed guidelines for sections under declarations can be found in the guidelines for research type article above.

Preparing main manuscript text

For your main manuscript, you should submit your text with following guidelines:
- Use double line spacing
- Include line and page numbering
- Use SI units: Please ensure that all special characters used are embedded in the text,
- otherwise, they will be lost during conversion to PDF
- Do not use page breaks in your manuscript

File formatsThe following word processor file formats are acceptable for the main manuscript document:
- Microsoft word (DOC, DOCX)
- Rich text format (RTF)

For editors and reviewers to accurately evaluate your manuscript, you need to ensure the English in your manuscript good enough to be understood to the general readers.

Preparing your figures and tables

FiguresWhen preparing figures, please follow the formatting instructions below.

Figures should be numbered in the order they are first mentioned in the text, and be uploaded in this order. Multi-panel figures (those with parts a, b, c, d etc.) should be submitted as a single composite file that contains all parts of the figure.
Figures should be uploaded in the correct orientation.
Figure titles (max 15 words) and legends (max 300 words) should be provided in the main manuscript (List of figure legend at the end of main manuscript), not in the graphic file.
Figure keys should be incorporated into the graphic, not into the legend of the figure.
Each figure should be closely cropped to minimize the amount of white space surrounding the illustration. Cropping figures improves accuracy when placing the figure in combination with other elements when the accepted manuscript is prepared for publication on our site. For more information on individual figure file formats, see our detailed instructions.
Individual figure files should not exceed 10 MB. If a suitable format is chosen, this file size is adequate for extremely high quality figures.
Please note that it is the responsibility of the author(s) to obtain permission from the copyright holder to reproduce figures (or tables) that have previously been published elsewhere. In order for all figures to be open access, authors must have permission from the rights holder if they wish to include images that have been published elsewhere in non open access journals. Permission should be indicated in the figure legend, and the original source included in the reference list.

Figure file typesWe accept the following file formats for figures:
- EPS (suitable for diagrams and/or images)
- PDF (suitable for diagrams and/or images)
- Microsoft Word (suitable for diagrams and/or images, figures must be a single page)
- PowerPoint (suitable for diagrams and/or images, figures must be a single page)
- TIFF (suitable for images)
- JPEG (suitable for photographic images, less suitable for graphical images)
- PNG (suitable for images)
- BMP (suitable for images)
- CDX (ChemDraw - suitable for molecular structures)

Figure size and resolutionFigures are resized during publication of the final full text and PDF versions to conform to our journal’s standard dimensions

Figure file formatVector figures should be submitted as PDF files, which are usually more compact than EPS files.
TIFF files should be saved with LZW compression, which is lossless (decreases file size without decreasing quality) in order to minimize upload time.
JPEG files should be saved at maximum quality.
Conversion of images between file types (especially lossy formats such as JPEG) should be kept to a minimum to avoid degradation of quality.

If you have any questions or are experiencing a problem with figures, please contact the customer service team of our publishing partner (MEDrang INFOrang) atjournal@inforang.com.

TablesWhen preparing tables, please follow the formatting instructions below.
Tables should be numbered and cited in the text in sequence using Arabic numerals (i.e. Table 1, Table 2 etc.).
Tables less than one A4 or Letter page in length can be placed in the appropriate location within the manuscript.
Tables larger than one A4 or Letter page in length can be placed at the end of the document text file. Please cite and indicate where the table should appear at the relevant location in the text file so that the table can be added in the correct place during production.
Table titles (max 15 words) should be included above the table, and legends (max 300 words) should be included underneath the table.
Tables should not be embedded as figures or spreadsheet files, but should be formatted using ‘Table object’ function in your word processing program.
Color and shading may not be used. Parts of the table can be highlighted using superscript, numbering, lettering, symbols or bold text, the meaning of which should be explained in a table legend.
Commas should not be used to indicate numerical values.
If you have any questions or are experiencing a problem with tables, please contact the customer service team of our publishing partner (MEDrang INFOrang) at journal@inforang.com.

Preparing additional files

As the length and quantity of data is not restricted for our journal, authors can provide datasets, tables, movies, or other information as additional files.

All Additional files will be published along with the accepted article. Do not include unnecessary files. Results that would otherwise be indicated as "data not shown" should be included as additional files. Since many web links and URLs rapidly become broken, our journal requires that supporting data are included as additional files, or deposited in a recognized repository. Please do not link to data on a personal/departmental website. Do not include any individual participant details. The maximum file size for additional files is 20 MB each, and files will be virus-scanned on submission. Each additional file should be cited in sequence within the main body of text.

If additional material is provided, please list the following information in a separate section of the manuscript text:
- File name (e.g. Additional file 1)
- File format including the correct file extension for example .pdf, .xls, .txt, .pptx (including name and a URL of an appropriate viewer if format is unusual)
- Title of data
- Description of data
Additional files should be named "Additional file 1" and so on and should be referenced explicitly by file name within the body of the article.