AGRONOMY JOURNAL AUTHOR INSTRUCTIONS
SCOPE
After critical review and approval by the editorial board, Agronomy Journal (AJ) publishes articles reporting research findings in soil–plant relationships; crop science; soil science; biometry; crop, soil, pasture, and range management; crop, forage, and pasture production and utilization; turfgrass; agroclimatology; agronomic models; integrated pest management; integrated agricultural systems; and various aspects of entomology, weed science, animal science, plant pathology, and agricultural economics as applied to production agriculture.
Notes are published about apparatus, observations, and experimental techniques. Observations usually are limited to studies and reports of unrepeatable phenomena or other unique circumstances. Review and interpretation papers are also published, subject to standard review. Contributions to the Forum section deal with current agronomic issues and questions in brief, thought-provoking form. Such papers are reviewed by the Editor in consultation with the editorial board.
Manuscript Types
Original Research. Papers that present novel findings that advance current knowledge on a specific research topic. See the Scope for a more in-depth list of applicable research areas.
Review and Interpretation. Papers that may be published subject to review. Reviews invited by the editor may have publication fees waived.
Contributions to the Forum. Papers that deal with current agronomic issues and questions in brief, thought-provoking form. Such papers are reviewed by the editor in consultation with the editorial board.
Letters to the Editor. Papers that are published subject to review and approval of the Editor, and provide a forum to discuss specific topics. Letters should be 300 words or less in length.
MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION
Templates
Download the AJ Manuscript Submission Template and Pre-Submission Manuscript Formatting Checklist.
Submission
Submit manuscripts at the AJ Manuscript Submission Site. Submissions to AJ may not be previously published in their entirety or simultaneously submitted to any other scientific or technical journal. American Society of Agronomy (ASA), Crop Science Society of America (CSSA), and Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) journals follow the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA style) for most style points. Consult our Publications Handbook and Style Manual for information on preparing and editing papers.
Creating the Manuscript File
Microsoft Word or LaTeX files may be submitted for review. For your convenience, we encourage you to use our Word template. The manuscript should be double-spaced, using page and continuous line numbers. See our LaTex File Submission Guidelines for instructions on submitting LaTeX files.
Double-Blind Peer Review
AJ has a double-blind review in that the reviewers do not know the author names and the authors do not know the reviewer names. Therefore, authors should prepare the manuscript with no author information (e.g., no byline, addresses/affiliations, acknowledgments, etc.; these items are entered into the Manuscript Central metadata at submission and are hidden from reviewers. They will be added to a manuscript at acceptance).
Take care to label tables and figures with reference to the paper’s title, not author names. Reviewers will be able to download any files that you upload to the system, but will not have access to the protected metadata that you enter into text boxes upon submission. Any identification in headers or footers should be similarly anonymous.
As a last consideration, authorship may be unintentionally revealed through such software features as document summaries. If this is a concern, consult your local software experts. When authors submit, they will be asked to enter author and contact information into the system database, and the Editor and Headquarters Staff will have access to this information so that they can contact the authors about the outcome of the review and will use this information for processing accepted files.
Peer Review and Revision
All manuscripts submitted to AJ undergo double-blind peer review. Papers are assigned to a technical editor, who will assign an associate editor to solicit at least two reviews. After evaluating the completed reviews, the associate editor will recommend a decision to the technical editor. Authors will be prompted to provide a list of potential reviewers. These reviewers must not have a conflict of interest involving the authors or paper, and the editorial board has the right to not use any reviewers suggested by authors. See the editorial policy information page for additional information on review policy.
All revisions to the manuscript during the review process will be made by the author only, and revisions will be given the same manuscript number, with an R number on the end (e.g., AJ-2019-02-0024-A.R1). Each revision has the opportunity for another round of review — the manuscript status “awaiting reviewer selection” is automatic and does not indicate a resubmission. Authors have 30 days to review and return their manuscript following reviewer and associate editor comments. Manuscripts may be released if revisions are not received, and the paper will have to be submitted as a new manuscript. Soon after submission, the editorial board will decide whether send the paper through review. For papers that are reviewed, the average time from submission to final decision is about 60 days. It is common for accepted papers go through at least one revision..
ORCID iD
Corresponding authors are required to use an ORCID iD when submitting a manuscript. More information on ORCID can be found on their website. We encourage all authors to list their ORCID iD in the manuscript.
Plagiarism Screening
Papers submitted to ASA, CSSA, SSSA journals are screened for plagiarism before being sent for review. If there appears to be major repetition from other sources, the editor will evaluate the duplication and take appropriate action as warranted.
Language Editing
Particularly if English is not your first language, you may wish to have your paper edited for language. This is not a mandatory step but may help to ensure that the scientific content of your paper is fully understood by journal editors and reviewers. After you submit to an ASA, CSSA, SSSA journal, if there are language issues with your paper, an editor may recommend the ASA, CSSA, SSSA English Language Editing Service. There are two levels of service available for a fee. Please see the Language and Writing Help page for more details. Language editing does not guarantee that your manuscript will be accepted for publication. Authors are liable for all costs associated with this and other services.
ARTICLE REQUIREMENTS
Full papers must be either reports of Original Research, Reviews, Forum, or Notes and Unique Phenomena. The journal also publishes book reviews and letters to the editor. Authors should follow the Publications Handbook and Style Manual when formatting manuscripts for submission.
Please submit the manuscript file in Word format containing the title, abstract, text, references, figures, and tables. The submission should contain the following elements:
Title
Core Ideas
Abstract
Abbreviations
Text
Supplemental Material statement
Data Availability statement (optional)
Author Contributions
References
Figure captions
Figures* (figures may also be submitted separately as high-resolution image files in the following acceptable formats: EPS, TIF, PDF, or JPEG)
Tables*
*Tables and figures (review quality) with captions should be placed into the text document at first mention. If the manuscript is accepted for publication, figures must also be submitted separately as high-resolution image files in the following acceptable formats: PDF, EPS, TIF, or JPEG.
Paper Structure
On the first page, give the title and a list of all nonstandard abbreviations used in the paper (standard abbreviations available in the Publications Handbook and Style Manual), and any other necessary footnotes (please note: the byline and affiliations are omitted from the first page to keep the authors anonymous during review). An abstract is required and is normally the second manuscript page. After the title page and abstract, the usual order of sections is an Introduction (which includes the literature review), Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions (optional), Acknowledgments (optional, added at acceptance only), and References. Results and Discussion may be combined and conclusions can be given at the close of the Discussion section. Start each section on a new page and number all pages.
Tables and figures (review quality) with captions should be placed into the text document at first mention. If the manuscript is accepted for publication, figures must also be submitted separately as high-resolution image files in the following acceptable formats: PDF, EPS, TIF, or JPEG.
Title. A title gives the reader a clear idea of what the article is about; it should be brief and informative. Use common names for crops and avoid abbreviations. The usual limit for titles is 10 to 12 words (not counting “and,” “of,” and similar conjunctions and prepositions). Titles in a numbered series of articles may be longer.
Core Ideas. Include 3 to 5 summary statements that convey the core findings of the article. The purpose of these short, bullet-pointed statements is to identify the most relevant outcomes of the paper and to provide a synopsis encapsulating the significance of the research and its implications for readers. Each statement must be 85 characters or less (spaces included). If the article is accepted, the core ideas may also be used for promoting and publicizing the research.
Abstract. An informative, self-explanatory abstract, not exceeding 250 words (150 words for notes), must be included. It should state specifically why and how the study was made, what the results were, and why they are important.
……
更多详情：
https://www.agronomy.org/publications/journals/author-resources/aj-instructions
