Guide for Authors
INTRODUCTION
Types of paper
Contributions falling into the following categories will be considered for publication: Original research papers, reviews and short communications.
Please ensure that you select the appropriate article type from the list of options when making your submission. Authors contributing to special issues should ensure that they select the special issue article type from this list.
BEFORE YOU BEGIN
Ethics approval and consent to participate
For information on Ethics in Publishing and Ethical guidelines for journal publication see https://www.elsevier.com/publishingethics and https://www.elsevier.com/ethicalguidelines
Submissions to KeAi journals are automatically screened using iThenticate's CrossCheck within the editorial system to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. Details can be found here
Manuscripts reporting studies involving human participants, human data or human tissue must (i) include a statement on ethics approval and consent (even where the need for approval was waived) and (ii) include the name of the ethics committee that approved the study and the committee's reference number if appropriate.
All materials must adhere to high ethical and animal welfare standards. Any use of animals must be based on ethological knowledge and respect for species-specific requirements for health and well-being. A statement indicating that the protocol and procedures employed were ethically reviewed and approved, and the name of the body giving approval, must be included in the Methods section of the manuscript.
Consent for publication
If your research or 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.
Declaration of competing interest
All authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. Authors should complete the declaration of competing interest statement using this template and upload to the submission system at the Attach/Upload Files step. Note: Please do not convert the .docx template to another file type. Author signatures are not required. If there are no interests to declare, please choose the first option in the template. More information.
Submission declaration and verification
Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract, a published lecture or academic thesis, see 'Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication' for more information), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, including electronically without the written consent of the copyright-holder. To verify compliance, your article may be checked by Crossref Similarity Check and other originality or duplicate checking software.
Author contributions
For transparency, we require corresponding authors to provide co-author contributions to the manuscript using the relevant CRediT roles. The CRediT taxonomy includes 14 different roles describing each contributor’s specific contribution to the scholarly output. The roles are: Conceptualization; Data curation; Formal analysis; Funding acquisition; Investigation; Methodology; Project administration; Resources; Software; Supervision; Validation; Visualization; Roles/Writing - original draft; and Writing - review & editing. Note that not all roles may apply to every manuscript, and authors may have contributed through multiple roles. More details and an example.
Changes to authorship
This policy concerns the addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names in the authorship of accepted manuscripts:
Before the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Requests to add or remove an author, or to rearrange the author names, must be sent to the Journal Manager from the corresponding author of the accepted manuscript and must include: (a) the reason the name should be added or removed, or the author names rearranged and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, fax, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed. Requests that are not sent by the corresponding author will be forwarded by the Journal Manager to the corresponding author, who must follow the procedure as described above. Note that: (1) Journal Managers will inform the Journal Editors of any such requests and (2) publication of the accepted manuscript in an online issue is suspended until authorship has been agreed.
After the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Any requests to add, delete, or rearrange author names in an article published in an online issue will follow the same policies as noted above and result in a corrigendum.
Copyright
Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete a 'License Agreement' (see more information on this). Permitted third party reuse of open access articles is determined by the author's choice of user license https://www.elsevier.com/openaccesslicenses
Author rights
As an author you (or your employer or institution) have certain rights to reuse your work. For more information on author rights please see https://www.elsevier.com/copyright.
Role of the funding source
You are requested to identify who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article and to briefly describe the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the article for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement, it is recommended to state this.
Open access
Every peer-reviewed research article appearing in this journal will be published open access. This means that the article is universally and freely accessible via the internet in perpetuity, in an easily readable format immediately after publication.To provide open access, this journal has an open access fee (also known as an article publishing charge APC) which needs to be paid by the authors or on their behalf e.g. by their research funder or institution. The APC for this journal is USD 800, excluding taxes.For all papers submitted before the 31st of December 2024, the article publication charge will be waived making it free to submit to the journal. Authors who require more information, please contact the editorial office (E-mail: ocs@oilcrops.cn) after submitting manuscript.
A CC user license manages the reuse of the article (see https://www.elsevier.com/openaccesslicenses). All articles will be published under the following license:
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND)
For non-commercial purposes, lets others distribute and copy the article, and to include in a collective work (such as an anthology), as long as they credit the author(s) and provided they do not alter or modify the article.
Language (usage and editing services)
Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these). Authors who feel their English language manuscript may require editing to eliminate possible grammatical or spelling errors and to conform to correct scientific English may wish to use the Language Editing service available from Elsevier's Language Services.
Submission
Submission to this journal proceeds totally online. Use the following guidelines to prepare your article. Via the homepage of this journal (http://www.keaipublishing.com/ocsci) you will be guided stepwise through the creation and uploading of the various files. The system automatically converts source files to a single Adobe Acrobat PDF version of the article, which is used in the peer-review process. Please note that even though manuscript source files are converted to PDF at submission for the review process, these source files are needed for further processing after acceptance. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, takes place by e-mail and via the author's homepage, removing the need for a hard-copy paper trail. If you are unable to provide an electronic version, please contact the editorial office prior to submission (E-mail: ocs@oilcrops.cn, Phone and Fax: 86 27-86728520).
Additional information
Tables and figures may be presented with captions within the main body of the manuscript; if so, figures should additionally be uploaded as high resolution files.
PREPARATION
Editorial Policies
For information on Editorial Policies for journal publication refer to http://www.keaipublishing.com/en/authors-and-editors/editorial-policies
PEER_REVIEW
This journal operates a single blind review process. All contributions will be initially assessed by the editor for suitability for the journal. Papers deemed suitable are then typically sent to a minimum of two independent expert reviewers to assess the scientific quality of the paper. The Editor is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of articles.The Editor's decision is final. More information on types of peer review.
1. All manuscripts would be first reviewed by editorial office. Any papers fail to meet the basic standard of the journal would be desk rejected for reasons like out of scope, ethical conflicts, high similarities, lack of originality, flaws in research design or methods, etc. Then, editorial office would reassign selected papers to editor-in-chief.
2.Editor-in-chief would invite multiple reviewers to review this paper or assign an editorial board member to invite reviewers to review this paper.
3.After at least 2 reviewers give their reviews and comments, Editor-in-chief (or the assigned editor) would provide feedbacks based on review comments to the authors including his own review comments.
4.When author submits the revised manuscript, the assigned editor and editor-in-chief would collaborate to make final decision.
5.For submissions from Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editors, Guest Editor(s), other journal Board members, and authors who have conflicts of interest with them, we ensure that the paper is handled confidentially by a different team member.
6.For submissions to Special Issues, if there are conflicts of interest between the Guest Editor(s) and authors, the submissions will be handled by another Editor from Editorial Board who will manage the peer review process and make the decision whether to accept or reject the paper after peer review.
Use of word processing software
It is important that the file be saved in the native format of the word processor used. The text should be in single-column format. Keep the layout of the text as simple as possible. Most formatting codes will be removed and replaced on processing the article. In particular, do not use the word processor's options to justify text or to hyphenate words. However, do use bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts etc. When preparing tables, if you are using a table grid, use only one grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row. If no grid is used, use tabs, not spaces, to align columns. The electronic text should be prepared in a way very similar to that of conventional manuscripts (see also the Guide to Publishing with Elsevier). Note that source files of figures, tables and text graphics will be required whether or not you embed your figures in the text. See also the section on Electronic artwork.
To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the 'spell-check' and 'grammar-check' functions of your word processor.
LaTeX
You are recommended to use the Elsevier article class elsarticle.cls to prepare your manuscript and BibTeX to generate your bibliography.
Our LaTeX site has detailed submission instructions, templates and other information.
Article structure
Form
Please prepares your manuscript in the following order: Title page, Abstract, Key words, Introduction, Materials and methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgments, References, Tables, Figure legends and Figures. For first submissions (i.e. not revised manuscripts), authors may incorporate the manuscript text and figures into a single file. ONLY the following file types can be uploaded for Article text: txt, doc, docx, tex.
Headings and sub-headings
Except for special names (e.g. ATP), capitalize only the first letter of headings and subheadings. Headings and subheadings need to be defined in Times New Roman, 12 point, bold.
Text
The body text is in 12 point normal Times New Roman. New paragraphs will be separated with a single empty line. The entire document should be 1.5 line-spaced and should contain page and line numbers in order to facilitate the review process. Your manuscript should be written using either LaTeX or MS-Word.
PLEASE NOTE: All manuscripts must include page and line numbers.
Introduction
State the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.
Material and methods
Provide sufficient details to allow the work to be reproduced by an independent researcher. Methods that are already published should be summarized, and indicated by a reference. If quoting directly from a previously published method, use quotation marks and also cite the source. Any modifications to existing methods should also be described.
Results
Results should be clear and concise.
Discussion
This should explore the significance of the results of the work, not repeat them. A combined Results and Discussion section is often appropriate. Avoid extensive citations and discussion of published literature.
Appendices
If there is more than one appendix, they should be identified as A, B, etc. Formulae and equations in appendices should be given separate numbering: Eq. (A.1), Eq. (A.2), etc.; in a subsequent appendix, Eq. (B.1) and so on. Similarly for tables and figures: Table A.1; Fig. A.1, etc.
Essential title page information
- Title. Concise and informative. Titles are often used in information-retrieval systems. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible. Capitalize only the first letter except for special names and in 16 point bold Times New Roman font at the top of page. Abbreviations should be avoided within the title. The maximum article title length is 20 words.
- Author names and affiliations. 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 full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name, and, if available, the e-mail address of each author.
- Corresponding author. Clearly indicate who will handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also post-publication. Ensure that telephone and fax numbers (with country and area code) are provided in addition to the e-mail address and the complete postal address. Contact details must be kept up to date by the corresponding author.
- Present/permanent address. If an author has moved since the work described in the article was done, or was visiting at the time, a "Present address" (or "Permanent address") may be indicated as a footnote to that author's name. The address at which the author actually did the work must be retained as the main, affiliation address. Superscript Arabic numerals are used for such footnotes.
- Running title. A shortened version of the title for use as a running head (maximum 8 characters).
- Word count. Number of words for the whole manuscript.
- Keywords. 5-8 keywords for use in indexing.
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.
Keywords
Authors are invited to submit less than 7 keywords associated with their paper.
Abbreviations
Define abbreviations that are not standard in this field in a footnote to be placed on the first page of the article. Such abbreviations that are unavoidable in the abstract must be defined at their first mention there, as well as in the footnote. Ensure consistency of abbreviations throughout the article.
Acknowledgements
Collate acknowledgements in a separate section at the end of the article before the references and do not, therefore, include them on the title page, as a footnote to the title or otherwise. List here those individuals who provided help during the research (e.g., providing language help, writing assistance or proof reading the article, etc.).
Nomenclature and units
Follow internationally accepted rules and conventions: use the international system of units (SI). If other quantities are mentioned, give their equivalent in SI. Authors wishing to present a table of nomenclature should do so on the second page of their manuscript.
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.
Artwork
Electronic artwork
General points
• Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of your original artwork.
• Embed the used fonts if the application provides that option.
• Aim to use the following fonts in your illustrations: Arial, Courier, Times New Roman, Symbol, or use fonts that look similar.
• Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text.
• Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files.
• Provide captions to illustrations separately.
• Size the illustrations close to the desired dimensions of the published version.
• Submit each illustration as a separate file.
• Ensure that color images are accessible to all, including those with impaired color vision.
A detailed guide on electronic artwork is available.
You are urged to visit this site; some excerpts from the detailed information are given here.
Formats
If your electronic artwork is created in a Microsoft Office application (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) then please supply 'as is' in the native document format.
Regardless of the application used other than Microsoft Office, when your electronic artwork is finalized, please 'Save as' or convert the images to one of the following formats (note the resolution requirements for line drawings, halftones, and line/halftone combinations given below):
EPS (or PDF): Vector drawings, embed all used fonts.
TIFF (or JPEG): Color or grayscale photographs (halftones), keep to a minimum of 300 dpi.
TIFF (or JPEG): Bitmapped (pure black & white pixels) line drawings, keep to a minimum of 1000 dpi.
TIFF (or JPEG): Combinations bitmapped line/half-tone (color or grayscale), keep to a minimum of 500 dpi.
Please do not:
• Supply files that are optimized for screen use (e.g., GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG); these typically have a low number of pixels and limited set of colors;
• Supply files that are too low in resolution;
• Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.
Color artwork
Please make sure that artwork files are in an acceptable format (TIFF (or JPEG), EPS (or PDF), or MS Office files) and with the correct resolution. If, together with your accepted article, you submit usable color figures then Elsevier will ensure, at no additional charge, that these figures will appear in color online (e.g., ScienceDirect and other sites) regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in color in the printed version. For color reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Elsevier after receipt of your accepted article. Please indicate your preference for color: in print or online only. Further information on the preparation of electronic artwork.
Figure legends
Figure legends are required to have the same font as the main text (12 point normal Times New Roman, 1.5 line-spaced). Legends should be preceded by the appropriate label, for example "Figure 1". It should be placed at the end of the manuscript (for supplementary images you must include the caption with figure, uploaded as a separate file). Figure legends should be brief and should not contain methods. Please use only a single paragraph for the legend. Figure panels are referred to by bold capital letters in brackets: (A), (B), (C), (D), etc. Symbols indicted in the figure must be identified in the legend text. Abbreviations and error bars must also be defined. If figures are reprinted from another source, permission to reprint is required.
Tables
Please submit tables as editable text and not as images. Tables can be placed either next to the relevant text in the article, or on separate page(s) at the end. Number tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text and place any table notes below the table body. Be sparing in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in them do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article. Please avoid using vertical rules and shading in table cells.
References
Citation in text
Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Any references cited in the abstract must be given in full. Unpublished results and personal communications are not recommended in the reference list, but may be mentioned in the text. If these references are included in the reference list they should follow the standard reference style of the journal and should include a substitution of the publication date with either 'Unpublished results' or 'Personal communication'. Citation of a reference as 'in press' implies that the item has been accepted for publication.
Web references
As a minimum, the full URL should be given and the date when the reference was last accessed. Any further information, if known (DOI, author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.), should also be given. Web references can be listed separately (e.g., after the reference list) under a different heading if desired, or can be included in the reference list.
Preprint references
Where a preprint has subsequently become available as a peer-reviewed publication, the formal publication should be used as the reference. If there are preprints that are central to your work or that cover crucial developments in the topic, but are not yet formally published, these may be referenced. Preprints should be clearly marked as such, for example by including the word preprint, or the name of the preprint server, as part of the reference. The preprint DOI should also be provided.
References in a special issue
Please ensure that the words 'this issue' are added to any references in the list (and any citations in the text) to other articles in the same Special Issue.
Reference management software
Most Elsevier journals have their reference template available in many of the most popular reference management software products. These include all products that support Citation Style Language styles, such as Mendeley. Using citation plug-ins from these products, authors only need to select the appropriate journal template when preparing their article, after which citations and bibliographies will be automatically formatted in the journal's style. If no template is yet available for this journal, please follow the format of the sample references and citations as shown in this Guide. If you use reference management software, please ensure that you remove all field codes before submitting the electronic manuscript. More information on how to remove field codes from different reference management software.
Reference style
Text: All citations in the text should refer to:
1. Single author: the author's name (without initials, unless there is ambiguity) and the year of publication;
2. Two authors: both authors' names and the year of publication;
3. Three or more authors: first author's name followed by "et al.," and the year of publication.
Citations may be made directly (or parenthetically). Groups of references should be listed first alphabetically, then chronologically.
Examples: "as demonstrated (Allan, 1996a, 1996b, 1999; Allan and Jones, 1995; Max et al., 2018). Kramer et al. (2000) have recently shown ...."
List: References should be arranged first alphabetically and then further sorted chronologically if necessary. List only first 10 authors and followed by et al. More than one reference from the same author(s) in the same year must be identified by the letters "a", "b", "c", etc., placed after the year of publication.
Examples:
Reference to a journal publication:
Van der Geer, J., Hanraads, J.A.J., Lupton, R.A., 2000. The art of writing a scientific article. J. Sci. Commun. 163, 51-59. doi: 10.1093/aob/mcq051.
Reference to a book:
Strunk Jr., W., White, E.B., 1979. The Elements of Style, third ed. Macmillan, New York.
Reference to a chapter in an edited book:
Mettam, G.R., Adams, L.B., 1999. How to prepare an electronic version of your article, in: Jones, B.S., Smith , R.Z. (Eds.), Introduction to the Electronic Age. E-Publishing Inc., New York, pp. 281-304.
Journal abbreviations source
Journal names should be abbreviated according to
Index Medicus journal abbreviations: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/serials/lji.html;
List of title word abbreviations: http://www.issn.org/2-22661-LTWA-online.php;
CAS (Chemical Abstracts Service): http://www.cas.org/sent.html.
Supplementary material
OIL CROP SCIENCE does not support pushing important results and information into supplementary sections. However, data that are not of primary importance to the text, or which cannot be included in the article because it is too large or the current format does not permit it (such as movies, raw data traces, power point presentations, etc.) can be uploaded during the submission procedure and will be displayed along with the published article.
The Supplementary Material can be uploaded as Data Sheet (word, excel, csv, cdx, fasta, pdf or zip files), Presentation (power point, pdf or zip files), Supplementary Image (cdx, eps, jpeg, pdf, png or tif), Supplementary Table (word, excel, csv or pdf), Audio (mp3, wav or wma) or Video (avi, divx, flv, mov, mp4, mpeg, mpg or wmv).
Supplementary material is not typeset. Please ensure that all information is clearly presented, the appropriate caption is included in the file and not in the manuscript, and that the style conforms to the rest of the article.
Cover letter
Cover Letter is required to the Editor when you submit your manuscript. The title of the manuscript, the article type must be indicated in the first paragraph. You must also state that the manuscript has not been submitted for publication elsewhere; any closely related works submitted for consideration in other publications should be noted and you may be asked to provide a copy. A short description of the significance of the manuscript is essential as well. Cover Letter should frame the question(s) you have addressed in your work in the context of the current body of knowledge, providing evidence that the findings -whether positive or negative - contribute to progress in your research discipline. This will assist the Chief Editors to determine whether your manuscript fits within the scope of a specialty as defined in its mission statement. A detailed Cover Letter will also facilitate the identification of the Editors and Reviewers most appropriate to evaluate your work, ultimately expediting your manuscript's initial consideration. Reviewers can also be recommend in the letter to help Editors make choice.
Materials and data release policy
Authors are required to agree and make all materials and protocols in their published work freely available to qualified researchers. Authors are encouraged to deposit biological materials such as cell lines, plasmid constructs and genetically modified organisms in an established public repository. If materials are held in repositories or if a third-party distribution agreement is in place, then the distributor name and location should be included in the manuscript.
Submission checklist
The following list will be useful during the final checking of an article prior to sending it to the journal for review. Please consult this Guide for Authors for further details of any item.
Ensure that the following items are present:
- Cover letter
- E-mail address
- Full postal address
- Telephone and fax numbers
- Keywords
- All figure legends
- All tables (including title, description, footnotes)
- Manuscript has been "spellchecked" and "grammar-checked"
- References are in the correct format for this journal
- All references mentioned in the Reference list are cited in the text, and vice versa
- Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Web)
- Color figures are clearly marked as being intended for color reproduction on the Web (free of charge) and in print or to be reproduced in color on the Web (free of charge) and in black-and-white in print
- If only color on the Web is required, black and white versions of the figures are also supplied for printing purposes
- Supplementary material
AFTER ACCEPTANCE
Use of the Digital Object Identifier
The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) may be used to cite and link to electronic documents. The DOI consists of a unique alpha-numeric character string which is assigned to a document by the publisher upon the initial electronic publication. The assigned DOI never changes. Therefore, it is an ideal medium for citing a document, particularly 'Articles in press' because they have not yet received their full bibliographic information. The correct format for citing a DOI is shown as follows (example taken from a document in the journal Physics Letters B):
Proofs
One set of page proofs (as PDF files) will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author (if we do not have an e-mail address then paper proofs will be sent by post) or a link will be provided in the e-mail so that authors can download the files themselves. To ensure a fast publication process of the article, we kindly ask authors to provide us with their proof corrections within two days. Elsevier now provides authors with PDF proofs which can be annotated; for this you will need to download the free Adobe Reader, version 9 (or higher). Instructions on how to annotate PDF files will accompany the proofs (also given online). The exact system requirements are given at the Adobe site.
If you do not wish to use the PDF annotations function, you may list the corrections (including replies to the Query Form) and return them to Elsevier in an e-mail. Please list your corrections quoting line number. If, for any reason, this is not possible, then mark the corrections and any other comments (including replies to the Query Form) on a printout of your proof and scan the pages and return via e-mail. Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text, tables and figures. Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the Editor. We will do everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately. It is important to ensure that all corrections are sent back to us in one communication: please check carefully before replying, as inclusion of any subsequent corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility.
AUTHOR INQUIRIES
Visit the Elsevier Support Center to find the answers you need. Here you will find everything from Frequently Asked Questions to ways to get in touch.
You can also check the status of your submitted article or find out when your accepted article will be published.