All manuscripts should be submitted via ScholarOne Manuscripts.
Animal Production Science welcomes the submission of papers presenting original and significant research that are within the Journal´s scope.
- Journal policy and scope
- Review papers
- Comment papers
- Licence to publish
- Open access
- Citing personal communications and statistical software
- Animal experimentation
- Preparing your manuscript
- Summary text for the Table of Contents
- Mathematical formulae
- Figures and computer graphics
- Statistical evaluation of results
- Submission of research manuscripts
- Post acceptance of manuscript
- Proofs and Reprints
- Style guide for references
Journal policy and scope
Research papers in Animal Production Science focus on improving livestock and food production, and on the social and economic issues that influence primary producers. The journal is predominantly concerned with domesticated animals (beef cattle, dairy cows, sheep, pigs, goats and poultry); however, contributions on horses and wild animals may be published where relevant. Animal Production Science publishes original research papers, critical review articles, and viewpoints; it does not publish technical and research notes, or short communications.
High quality original contributions are encouraged on:
- animal breeding and genetics
- animal nutrition and reproduction
- livestock farming systems, sustainability and natural resource management
- meat science and consumer acceptability
- behaviour, health and welfare
- feed quality and nutritional value
- bio-pharmaceuticals derived from animals
The subject scope extends from the molecular level through to the role of animals in farming systems. The target readership is animal scientists, and administrators and policy-makers who interface with this discipline.
Prestigious, invited reviews are commissioned from authors who are world leaders in the animal sciences. Reviews should summarise a body of knowledge and, from it, formulate ideas and recommendations which would be useful to international research community. If you are interested in preparing a Review article, please discuss the subject matter with the Editor-in-Chief or the appropriate Associate Editor.
A perspective is a pithy (but balanced) opinion piece about current or future directions in animal science. A perspective can critically assess current scientific topics or report on future issues that may arise from the discipline. The intent is to stimulate discussion and possible rethinking of current views in the animal sciences. Perspectives that address interdisciplinary research areas with relevance to a broader audience are of particular interest to the Editors. The Perspective should be accompanied by an abstract and generally range from 1000 to 4000 words; tables and figures can be included.
Editorials are usually commissioned. Editorials are opinion pieces which reflect on papers previously or currently published in Animal Production Science, or on issues of general interest to the animal sciences community. They should be written in a crisp, lively style. They should have a maximum of 800 words, and not more than 5 references.
A brief comment or critique on a paper recently published in Animal Production Science. No abstract required. Authors of the original paper will be invited to submit a response.
Licence to publish
Submission of a paper is taken to mean that the results reported have not been published and are not being considered for publication elsewhere. A summary of the findings in the proceedings of a conference or in an extension article is not necessarily regarded as prior publication. However, if substantial parts of the data, such as those in Tables and Figures, have been published before, the inclusion of extra peripheral data does not alter the judgment that the paper is not new. The Editor assumes that all authors of a multi-authored paper have agreed to its submission. For details regarding copyright, please see Copyright/Licence to Publish.
Citing personal communications and statistical software
Citation of submitted manuscripts, unpublished data and personal communications should be avoided but if essential, they should be cited parenthetically in the text thus (e.g. PA Smith, pers. comm.). In such cases, the authors must obtain permission from the data owner to quote his or her unpublished work. Likewise, any statistical software used to process your data should be cited in brackets in the text, providing the name and version of the package and the name, city, state and country of the company that produced it.
Experiments involving animals are expected to have been conducted in accordance with the guidelines set out in the joint publication of the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, CSIRO and the Australian Agricultural Council entitled ´Code of Practice for the Care and Use of Animals for Experimental Purposes´ (National Health and Medical Research Council: Canberra, 1997). Editors will take account of animal welfare issues and reserve the right not to publish.
Preparing your manuscript
All authors should read at least one book on scientific writing. The titles of some suitable books are listed at the end of these notes. The work should be presented concisely and clearly in English. Introductory material, including a review of the literature, should not exceed that necessary to indicate the reason for the work and the essential background. However, a short statement explaining the broader relevance of the study can be helpful to readers. Sufficient experimental detail should be given to enable the work to be repeated, and the discussion should focus on the significance of the results. Poorly prepared or unnecessarily lengthy manuscripts have less prospect of being accepted. Authors should note the layout of headings, references, Tables and Figures in the latest issues of the Journal and follow the Journal style. Strict observance of these and the following requirements will shorten the interval between submission and publication.
The title should be concise and informative and contain all keywords necessary to facilitate retrieval by modern searching techniques. Additional keywords not already contained in the title or abstract may be listed beneath the abstract. A short title of less than 50 letter spaces, to be used as a running head at the top of the printed page, should be supplied. The title, author(s), address(es) and short title should comprise a separate title page.
Summary text for the Table of Contents
This is a three-sentence paragraph of 50 to 80 words written for interested non-experts, such as journalists, teachers, government workers, etc. The text should be free from scientific jargon, and written at the level of an article in a science magazine. Your first sentence should engage the reader, convincing them that this is an important area. The second sentence should introduce the problem addressed in the paper, and state your main discovery. The final sentence should describe how the results fit into the bigger picture (i.e. implications or impact of the discovery).
The abstract (preferably less than 250 words) should state concisely the scope of the work and the principal findings and should not just recapitulate the results. It should be complete enough for direct use by abstracting services. Acronyms and references should be avoided.
Please suggest 3-6 keywords, noting that all words in the title and abstract are already considered to be keywords. Keyword should list alternative spellings, e.g. defense for defence, aluminum for aluminium etc.
References are cited by the author and date (Harvard system); they are not numbered. All references in the text must be listed at the end of the paper, with the names of authors arranged alphabetically; all entries in this list must correspond to references in the text. In the text, the names of 2 co-authors are linked by ´and´; for 3 or more, the first author´s name is followed by ´et al.´. Where more than one reference is cited in the text, they should be listed chronologically. No editorial responsibility can be taken for the accuracy of the references. The titles of papers and the first and last page numbers must be included for all references. Papers that have not been accepted for publication cannot be included in the list of references and must be cited in the text as ´unpublished data´ or ´personal communication´; the use of such citations is discouraged. Authors should refer to the latest issues of the Journal for the style used in citing references in books and other literature. Full titles of periodicals must be given.
Examples of common references can be found in the ´Style guide for references´.
Use of referencing software. To obtain the style file for this journal, please go to the following websites.
If using ´Reference Manager´, visit http://www.refman.com/support/rmoutputstyles.asp.
If using ´ProCite´, visit http://www.procite.com/support/pcoutputstyles.asp.
If using ´EndNote*´ software, visit http://www.endnote.com/support/enstyles.asp.
*You will find the style file under the ´Agriculture´ category, listed as Animal Production Science.
The SI system of units should be used for exact measurements of physical quantities and, where appropriate, elsewhere. The double solidus must not be used in complex groupings of units (i.e. use mg/sheep.day, not mg/sheep/day or mg sheep-1 day-1). This Journal uses the abbreviation ´L´ for litre; ´mL´ for millilitre. When using non-standard abbreviations, define the abbreviation where it first occurs in the text.
Spell out numbers lower than 10 unless accompanied by a unit, e.g. 2 mm, 15 mm, two plants, 15 plants, but 2 out of 15 plants. Do not leave a space between a numeral and %, ‰ or oC.
Formulae should be carefully typed with symbols correctly aligned and adequately spaced. If special symbols must be hand-written, they should be inserted with care and identified by pencilled notes in the margin. Judicious use should be made of the solidus to avoid 2 mathematical expressions wherever possible and especially in the running text. Each long formula should be displayed on a separate line with at least 1 line of space above and below.
Tables must be numbered with Arabic numerals and each must be accompanied by a title. A headnote containing material relevant to the whole Table should start on a new line.
Tables should be arranged with regard to the dimensions of the Journal columns (8 by 21 cm), and the number of columns in the Table should be kept to a minimum. Excessive subdivision of column headings is undesirable and long headings should be avoided by the use of explanatory notes which should be incorporated into the headnote. The first letter, only, of headings should be capitalised.
The symbol of unit of measurement should be placed in parentheses beneath the column heading. The prefixes for units should be chosen to avoid an excessive number of digits in the body of the Table or scaling factors in the headings. When scaling factors cannot be avoided, the quantity expressed should be preceded by the power of 10 by which the value has been multiplied. For example, the value 0.05 would appear as 5 under the heading 102 x N and the value 500 would appear as 5 under the heading 10-2 x N. Footnotes should be kept to a minimum and be reserved for specific items in the columns.
Horizontal rules should be inserted only above and below column headings and at the foot of the Table. Vertical rules should not be used. Each Table must be referred to in the text, and the preferred position of the Table in the text should be indicated by a note in the margin.
Short tables can frequently be incorporated into the text as a sentence or as a brief untitled tabulation. Only in exceptional circumstances will the presentation of essentially the same data in both a Table and a Figure be permitted: where adequate, the Figure should be used.
Figures and computer graphics
Lettering should be in sans-serif type (Helvetica or Arial type 1 font) with the first letter of the first word and proper names capitalised. The x-height after reduction should be 1.2-1.3 mm. Thus for the preferred reductions of graphs to 30, 40 or 50% of linear dimensions, the initial x-height of lettering should be 4, 3 or 2.5 mm respectively. Symbols and grid marks should be the same respective sizes, and curves and axes should then be either 0.8, 0.7 or 0.6 mm thick respectively. Proportionally smaller sizes of type, symbols, grid marks and curve thicknesses should be used for lesser reductions. The following symbols are readily available and should be used: . The symbols + or × should be avoided. Explanations of symbols should be given in the caption to the figure, and lettering of graphs should be kept to a minimum. If information is given in a caption instead of a legend describe the lines and symbols in words (e.g. solid lines, dashed lines, dot-and-dash lines, open circles, solid circles, striped bars, cross-hatched bars and so forth).
Photographs must be of the highest quality, with a full range of tones and of good contrast. Before being mounted, photographs must be trimmed squarely to exclude features not relevant to the paper and be separated from neighbouring photographs by uniform spaces that will be 2 mm wide after reduction. Lettering should be in a transfer lettering sans-serif type (Helvetica font) and contrast with its background; thus, white lettering should be used on dark backgrounds. The size of lettering should be such that the x-height after reduction is 1.5-l2 mm. A scale bar must be inserted on each photomicrograph and electron micrograph. Important features to which attention has been drawn in the text should be indicated (i.e. by coded upper case letters and/or arrows). Colour photographs will be accepted if they are essential, but the cost of production must be borne by the author.
Statistical evaluation of results
Manuscripts must contain a clear and concise description of the experimental design used; with sufficient detail such that, in the case where analysis of variance or regression models are to be used in the statistical evaluation, the reader is quite clear as to how the error term was estimated. The statistical tests should be briefly described and, if necessary, supported by references. Numbers of individuals, mean values and measures of variability should be stated. It should be made clear whether the standard deviation or the standard error has been given.
The nomenclature of compounds such as amino acids, carbohydrates, lipids, steroids and vitamins should follow the recommendations of the IUPAC-IUB Commission on Biochemical Nomenclature. Other biologically active compounds, such as metabolic inhibitors, plant growth regulators and buffers should be referred to once by their correct chemical name (which is in accordance with IUPAC Rules of Chemical Nomenclature) and then by their most widely accepted common name. For pesticides, the latest issue of ´Pesticides - Synonyms and Chemical Names´ (Australian Government Publishing Service: Canberra) should be followed. Where there is no common name, trade names or letter abbreviations of the chemical may be used. The first letter of a trade name must be capitalised.
Submission of research manuscripts
To submit your paper, please use our online journal management system ScholarOne Manuscripts, which can be reached directly through this link or from the link on the journal´s homepage. If a first-time user, register via the ´Register here´ link, or use your existing username and password to log in. Then click on the ´Author Centre´ link and proceed.
A covering letter must accompany the submission and should include the name, address, fax and telephone numbers, and email address of the corresponding author. The letter should also contain a statement justifying why the work should be considered for publication in the journal, and that the manuscript has not been published or simultaneously submitted for publication elsewhere. Suggestions of possible referees are welcome.
Post acceptance of manuscript
When asked to submit production files, please provide the Production Editor with the original figure files separately from the manuscript, and in highest resolution.
Ensure that figures are in their original file format (i.e. Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Excel, CorelDraw, SigmaPlot, etc.) rather than embedded in a Word document or converted to a derived format. However, if your figures are in a format that we do not accept, high-quality high-resolution PostScript or PDF files are acceptable. Sending files in more than one format is fine; we will use the format that will reproduce the best.
Scanned photographs must be saved as .tif files; all supplied .tif files must be compatible with Adobe Photoshop, which is the preferred program. If figures are prepared in a ´paint´ program, line art should be saved at 600 dpi, and greyscale or colour images should be saved at 300 dpi. Electronic photographic work should be submitted at the intended print size (85 mm wide for one column and up to a page width of 175 mm) (on CD-ROM if necessary). These will be returned after use if requested at the time of submission.
Colour photographs will be accepted if they are essential but the cost of colour reproduction on the printed copy must be borne by the author. The Production Editor will provide an estimate of the cost with the page proofs. Colour figures must be supplied in CMYK, not RGB, format.
Proofs and Reprints
Approximately two weeks after the paper is accepted, the corresponding author will receive an edited MSWord document that has undergone formatting and copyediting. Questions from the Production Editor should be answered. Minor corrections can be made at this stage. The paper is then typeset, and page proofs sent to the corresponding author for checking prior to publication. At this stage only essential alterations and correction of typesetting errors may be undertaken. Excessive author alterations will be charged back to the author. Reprint order forms and prices are sent with the proofs and should be returned to the Production Editor with the proofs.
Upon publication, corresponding authors will be sent a free PDF of the paper. You may send copies of this PDF to individual colleagues for non-commercial purposes, print out and distribute copies to colleagues, or include the PDF in a course pack, subject to the usual copyright licensing agency arrangements.
We would also like to send your colleagues an alert to its publication + PDF. Our objectives for such action are to acknowledge authors, and stimulate the use and citations of the paper. This offer will be activated if you send a list of email addresses (i.e. up to 20 colleagues) to the Production Editor. This list will not be used for any other purpose other than to promote your research.
General inquiries, please contact:
Animal Production Science
Locked Bag 10
Clayton South, Vic. 3169
Telephone +61 3 9545 8468
Fax +61 3 9545 8578
Hubick KT, Farquhar GD, Shorter R (1986) Correlation between water-use efficiency and carbon isotope discrimination in diverse peanut (Arachis) germplasm. Australian Journal of Plant Physiology 13, 803-816.
Wagner TE (1985) The role of gene transfer in animal agriculture and biotechnology. Canadian Journal of Animal Science 65, 539-552.
Lodge GM, Murphy SR, Harden S (2003a) Effects of grazing and management on herbage mass, persistence, animal production and soil water content of native pastures. 1. A redgrass-wallaby grass pasture, Barraba, North-West Slopes New South Wales. Australian Journal of Experimental Agriculture 43, 875-890.
Lodge GM, Murphy SR, Harden S (2003b) Effects of grazing and management on herbage mass, persistence, animal production and soil water content of native pastures. 2. A mixed native pasture, Manilla, North-West Slopes New South Wales. Australian Journal of Experimental Agriculture 43, 891-905.
Blackmore DJ (1996) Are rural land practices a threat to the environment? In ´Soil science - raising the profile´. (Ed. N Uren) pp. 22-30. (ASSSI and NZSSS: Melbourne)
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Lucas GB (1963) ´Diseases of tobacco.´ (University of North Carolina: Raleigh, NC)
Attiwill PM, Adams MA (Eds) (1996) ´Nutrition of eucalypts.´ (CSIRO Publishing: Melbourne)
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Silver MW (1970) ´An experimental approach to the taxonomy of the genus Enteromorpha (L.) Link.´ PhD thesis, University of Liverpool, UK.
Harrison AJ (1961) ´Annual reproductive cycles in the Tasmanian scallop Notovola meridionalis.´ BSc (Hons) thesis, The University of Tasmania, Australia.
Report or Bulletin
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Australian Bureau of Statistics (2000) Australian Demographic Statistics, March Quarter 2000. Cat. No. 3101.0 (ABS: Canberra)
Commonwealth of Australia (1999) National Greenhouse Response Strategy. (AGPS: Canberra)
Hayman PT, Collett IJ (1996) Estimating soil water: to kick, to stick, to core or computer? In ´Proceedings of the 8th Australian agronomy conference´. (Ed. M Asghar) p. 664. (The Australian Society of Agronomy Inc.: Toowoomba, Qld)
Kawasu T, Doi K, Ohta T, Shinohara Y, Ito K (1990) Transformation of eucalypts (Eucalyptus saligna) using electroporation. In ´Proceedings of the VIIth international congress on plant tissue and cell culture´. pp. 64-68. (Amsterdam IAPTC: Amsterdam)
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On-line electronic sources
Give the author, year and title and then give further information as for a chapter or journal article, but adding the essential on-line address URL and the date the information was posted or accessed (or when the address was last verified).
De Vries FP, Jansen M, Metslaar K (1995) Newsletter of agro-ecosystems modelling [Online]. November edition. Available by e-mail Listserv (email@example.com) or Web link to gopher archives (http://www.bib.wau.nl/camase/cam-news.html) (verified 1 November 1996)
Downing MD, Langseth R, Stoffel R, Kroll T (1996) Large-scale hybrid poplar production economics: 1995 Alexandria Minnesota, establishment cost and management [Online]. In: ´Bioenergy 1996´. Proceedings of the 7th national bioenergy conference in Nashville, TN. 15-20 September, 1996. Available at http://www.esd.ornl.gov/bfdp/papers/bioen96/downing.html. (posted 10 December 1996; verified 24 November 1998)
National Agricultural Statistics Service (1997) Crops country salinity data [Online]. Available at: http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/data-sets/crops/9X100 (verified 30 November 1998)
University of California (1996) Tomato pest management guidelines. University of California Pest Management Guidelines, Publication 154. [Online] (Available on-line with updates at http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/selectnewpest.tomatoes.html) (verified 30 November 1998)