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Author Guidelines

Journal of Science of the University of Kelaniya

Author Guidelines

General

Manuscripts submitted in all fields of natural and applied sciences are considered for publication in the Journal of Science of the University of Kelaniya on the understanding that they have not been published, submitted, or accepted for publication elsewhere. A submitted manuscript will be initially screened by the chief editor of the journal, and if the manuscript is within the scope of the journal, it will be sent to the reviewers in the respective field for peer review. Based on the comments and recommendations of the reviewers, the editorial board will make the final decision on the manuscript. 

Types of Papers

The journal welcomes three types of articles.

1. Original research papers are original manuscripts that contain new findings in research consistent with the Journal’s aims and scope. Original research papers should not exceed 10000 words.
2. Review articles should be submitted only after prior consultation with the editors. These should summarize emerging trends or recent developments and critically evaluate and summarize existing data and fields of research. Review articles should not exceed 10000 words.
3. Short Communications are suitable for recording the results of complete small investigations or giving details of new methods of techniques and apparatus. Progress reports are not acceptable. Short Communications should contain about 3000 words of text, a maximum of two tables and/or figures, and no more than 20 references.

Manuscript Structure

Original Research Articles

• Font-11, Times New Roman,   Sentence Case, left-justified

Title and authorship information

The following information should be included:

• Manuscript title
• The name(s) of the author(s)
• The affiliation(s) of the author(s), i.e. institution, (department), city, (state), country
• A clear indication and an active e-mail address of the corresponding author

ORCID

Prior to publication, 16 - digit ORCID iD must be provided for the corresponding author(s). If you haven’t registered with ORCID yet, you can create an iD. The ORCID is not required for submission, or peer review, but we will not be able to publish your article online until an ORCID iD is provided.

Formatting

We recommend that all manuscripts include line numbers and follow the structure below:

Abstract

The manuscript should contain an abstract and should not exceed 300 words. The abstract should be self-contained; clearly explain the novelty of the findings versus current knowledge. The Abstract should not contain any undefined abbreviations or unspecified references.

Keywords

This should include 4 to 6 keywords (in alphabatical order) that can be used for indexing purposes.

Introduction

This section should be concise, with no subheadings. The Introduction should state the purpose of the investigation and clearly identify the gap of knowledge that will be filled in this study.

Materials and methods

The methods section should provide enough detail for others to be able to replicate the study. If you have more than one method, use subsections with relevant headings.

It should include clear descriptions and explanations of sampling procedures, experimental design, essential sample characteristics, descriptive statistics, the hypothesis tested, exact references to literature describing the tests used in the manuscript, the number of data involved in statistical tests, etc.

Results and discussion

This section may be divided into subsections or may be combined.

The Results section should describe the outcome of the study. Data should be presented as concisely as possible. Tables and figures should be used appropriately (refer to the guidelines on tables and figures).  The Discussion should be an interpretation of the results and their significance with reference to work by other authors.

Conclusions

This should clearly explain the main conclusions of the article, highlighting its importance and relevance.

Declarations

All manuscripts must contain the following sections (in the showed order):

·       Acknowledgements

All acknowledgements (if any) should be included at the very end of the manuscript before the references. Anyone who made a contribution to the research or manuscript but who is not a listed author should be acknowledged (with their permission).

• Funding

Authors must state how the research and publication of their article was funded, by naming financially supporting body(s) (written out in full) followed by associated grant number(s) in square brackets (if applicable), for example: “This work was supported by the National Research Council of Sri Lanka [grant number xxxx, yyyy]”.

If the research did not receive specific funding but was performed as part of the employment of the authors, please name this employer. If the funder was involved in the manuscript writing, editing, approval, or decision to publish, please declare this.

• Ethical approval (If applicable)

If the study included human or animal objects ethical clearance should be obtained as appropriate and evidence of ethical approval should be provided.

• Conflicts of interest

Authors must declare all relevant interests that could be perceived as conflicting. Authors should explain why each interest may represent a conflict. If no conflicts exist, the authors should state this. Submitting authors are responsible for coauthors declaring their interests.

Conflicts of interest (COIs, also known as ‘competing interests’) occur when issues outside research could be reasonably perceived to affect the neutrality or objectivity of the work or its assessment. Authors must declare all potential interests – whether or not they actually had an influence – in the conflicts of interest section, which should explain why the interest may be a conflict.

If there are none, the authors should state: “The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest”. Submitting authors are responsible for coauthors declaring their interests. Declared conflicts of interest will be considered by the editor and reviewers and included in the published article.

Author Contributions

The corresponding author takes primary responsibility for communication with the journal during the manuscript submission All authors listed on the manuscript must have made significant contributions to the study.

An author statement indicating the specific details of the contribution from each author (must be listed using their initials only) for the manuscript based on the relevant CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) roles should be included:

Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing–original draft, review and editing

For more information on relevant CRediT roles please visit https://credit.niso.org/

All authors must agree on the sequence of authors listed before submitting the article.

All authors must agree to designate one author as the corresponding author for the submission. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to communicate with the co-authors during the peer-reviewing and proofing stages and to also act on their behalf.

If the article is accepted for publication, after acceptance, no changes in authorship, the order of authors, or the designation of the corresponding author will be permitted.

References 

References should be cited using the American Psychological Association (APA) 7th edition style. All references in the body of the manuscript should be included in the References section in alphabetical order. If several papers by the same author/s are cited, use a, b, etc. after the year of publication to distinguish papers published by the same author/s in the same year.

Guide for APA referencing:

https://apastyle.apa.org/instructional-aids/reference-examples.pdf

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Guidelines on Figures and Tables

• All figures and tables must be placed within the text at the appropriate points rather than at the end.
• In the body of the paper, all figures and tables must be cited consecutively in numerical order. Tables and Figures should be numbered with Arabic numerals (Figure 1, Table 1, etc.).
•  Use (a), (b), (c), etc., to label the parts of figures (Figure 1(a), Figure 1(b), etc.)
• For each table/figure, supply a table caption (title) explaining the components of the table/figure
• Figures should be supplied in either vector art formats (Illustrator, EPS, WMF, FreeHand, CorelDraw, PowerPoint, Excel, etc.) or bitmap formats (Photoshop, TIFF, GIF, JPEG, etc.). Bitmap images should be of at least 600 dpi resolution 
• Tables should be created using the table functionality tools in Microsoft Word. The journal will not accept tables created in spreadsheets or presentation programs such as Excel and PowerPoint.
• Tables should be typed in portrait orientation and should be in the same font as the rest of the manuscript.
• Tables should be presented as three-line tables (i.e. Each table should contain only the top horizontal line, bottom horizontal line and column line. The tables should not include vertical lines). Refer to the example click here
• Footnotes can be used where necessary to supply additional information for the entire table, a row, a column, a category, or a single data entry.
• For detailed information on the preparation of tables, please refer to the APA guide on preparation of Tables (https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/tables-figures/tables)
• If the article is accepted, authors will be asked to provide the source files of the figures

Guidelines on Equations

Equations that are important, long, complex, or referenced later in the paper are set off from the text (displayed) and may be numbered consecutively with right-justified Arabic numbers within parentheses (1), (2), (3), etc.

Guidelines on Scientific Names, Abbreviations, and Units

Scientific names of microorganisms, plants, and animals must be used in accordance with the international rules of nomenclature and given in full. SI units and symbols should be used for physical properties. 

Proofs

Page proof must be corrected immediately on receipt and returned to the Editor-in-Chief.

Manuscripts should be submitted through the SLJOL online system (http://www.sljol.info/index.php/JOSUK). Please register as an author in SLJOL online system to submit your manuscripts.
The Editor-in-Chief,
Journal of Science of the University of Kelaniya,
Faculty of Science,
University of Kelaniya,
Kelaniya GQ 11600,
Sri Lanka.
E-mail: eic_jsuk@kln.ac.lk

Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

1. The submission has not been previously published, in part or in whole, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
2. All third-party-owned materials used have been identified with appropriate credit lines, and permission has been obtained from the copyright holder for all formats of the journal. Authors acknowledge their responsibility to gain all permissions prior to submission.
3. All authors qualify as authors and have given permission to be listed on the submitted paper.
4. Tables are all cited in the main text and are included within the text document.
5. Figures are all cited in the main text and are uploaded as supplementary files. Figures/images have a resolution of at least 150dpi (300dpi or above preferred). The files are in one of the following formats: JPG, TIFF, GIF, PNG, EPS (to maximise quality, the original source file is preferred).
6. All respondents included within case reports or other article types in which an individual or a group of individuals can be identified have signed informed consent forms, or had had their legal guardian do so, giving permission to publish the submitted content under a CC-BY licence.
7. The corresponding author is submitting an ORCID identifier in their author data and co-authors have been recommended to also provide an ORCID, as per the journal policy.
8. The author declares the absence of any conflict of interest.
9. The submission does not contain identifying information about the author, to ensure the viability of the double blind peer review.

Copyright Notice

• Copyright on any research article is transferred in full to University of Kelaniya upon publication in the Journal of Science of the University of Kelaniya. The copyright transfer includes the right to reproduce and distribute the article in any form of reproduction (printing, electronic media or any other form).
• Articles in the Journal of Science of the University of Kelaniya are Open Access articles published under the Creative Commons CC BY License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
• This license permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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