GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORS
Submission
The journal Advances in Biology & Earth Sciences considers only papers submitted online through journal submission system, using Submission button.
New users will need to create an account. Once logged on to the site authors may make a submission and track the status of the manuscript.
Peer-review and decisions
The journal uses double-blind peer review. For details, see the journal policies Peer review.
After submission all articles are evaluated by the editorial office. The paper may be immediately rejected if it is considered to be out of the journal's scope or otherwise unfit for consideration. Articles which passed initial evaluation will be sent to external review process. Reviewer reports with a decision from the editor will be returned to the authors.
After review, the Editor-in-Chief makes one of the following decisions: reject, accept, or revise (major or minor). If a decision of revision is made, authors are asked to make their revisions in two weeks. In some cases after the author’s request, this period can be expanded. Revised articles will be sent to the reviewer for the final reviewer decision. Editor-in-Chief will make the final acceptance/rejection decision.
Publication fee
Along with the official acceptance letter the authors will be also asked to pay the publication fee of USD 500.
Publication Frequency
The journal is published three times in a year: in April, August and December. The publication schedule is strongly followed.
Copyright
All papers will be published open access under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license. This ensures that they receive the maximum dissemination because there are no barriers to access. This license allows readers to disseminate and reuse the paper, but always requires them to grant the authors and the first publication full credit.
Article types
The journal welcomes all submissions of original articles and reviews that comply with the Aims and Scope of the journal.
All submissions must be original, not be published and not be under consideration by a journal elsewhere.
If any part of the paper has already been published then this must be declared and authors are responsible for obtaining relevant permissions to republish.
Length of a Manuscript
The papers with up to 25 pages is appropriate. In some special cases defined by the Editor-in-Chief the number of pages can be increased.
Template of a manuscript
Authors should download and use the template file to prepare their manuscripts: Word Template.
General guidelines
Only English language articles are accepted. Authors are responsible for the language quality in their article. The journal strongly recommends to submit only articles with acceptable English language.
Preparing the paper the author should include the information below following the journal template:
– Full name
– Affiliation
– Address
– Email address
– ORCID (unique author identifier that ensures that all your works are correctly attributed to you – see https://orcid.org)
– Clear identification of the corresponding author (who will be responsible for ensuring that the correct version is submitted and that all authors agree to publication and approve any corrections during peer review and after acceptance).
Each article must comprise:
– An informative title clearly explaining what the article is about (not exceed 15 words)
– An abstract of approximately 200 words summarizing the article
– 3-6 keywords defining the exact topic of the paper
The authors are encouraged to include the following sections while preparing the article:
- Introduction
- Methodology and/or theoretical framework
- Results
- Discussion and interpretation of results obtained
- Conclusions
- Acknowledgements, funding, declarations of conflict of interest, authors' contribution, etc.
- References
Text sections should be numbered sequentially for clarity. Acknowledgements and References are not numbered.
Tables
Tables should be created in Word or Excel and should be designed so that they easily fit a regular journal page. Each table should be numbered sequentially throughout the article and mentioned in the main text.
Each table must have an informative caption to describe the table.
Figures
Each figure should be numbered sequentially throughout the article and mentioned in the main text. Each figure must have an informative caption to describe the figure.
The authors are asked to prepare all figures at the appropriate resolution: 1200 dpi for line art, 600 dpi for grayscale and 300 dpi for colour.
Author Contributions and Acknowledgments
Each person without which the main results of the article could not be obtained should be named as author.
People who contributed to the work (but do not fulfil the authorship criteria) should be listed in the Acknowledgments, along with their contributions. The corresponding author must ensure that anyone named in the acknowledgments agrees to being named.
See the journal policies Authorship and Contribution Policy
Conflict of Interest
Authors must also provide a disclosure statement within the article which will acknowledge any financial, professional, personal interest or benefit they have arising from the direct applications of their research.
References
The Journal uses the APA Style (author–date method) system for citations in the text. The reference list should be given at the end of the paper in the alphabetical order. Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list and vice versa. Please check if all reference details are correctly provided.
In the text the authors should use the following reference style:
(Lopez, 2022) – single author
(Lopez & Navarro, 2022) – two authors
(Lopez et al., 2022) – 3 or more authors
(P. Lopez, 2022; S. Lopez, 2023) - where items have similar author names
(Lopez, 2022a, 2022b) - where two or more items are published in the same year
Reference examples:
Book
Abel, R. L. (1973). Law Books and Books About Law. Teylor & Francis.
Book chapter
Karimov, R. M. (2018). Geological processes in mountain regions. In T. Hasanov (Ed.), Advances in Earth Sciences (pp. 112–130). Baku University Press.
Journal article
Karimov, R. M. (2019). Soil erosion processes in semi-arid regions. Advances in Earth Sciences, 4(2), 56–70.
Conference proceedings
Karimov, R. M. (2018, May). Geological mapping of the Caspian basin. In Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Earth Sciences (pp. 45–52). Baku State University.
Publication Ethics
The journals published by Jomard Publishing all adhere to the Core Practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE, https://publicationethics.org/core-practices) and follow all their guidelines and rules in respect of publication ethics and managing problems when they arise.
All authors are expected to comply with good practice in regard to their research and the reporting of their research. See further in the Policies.
Corrections after publication
If any technical errors are discovered after publication, the Editor-in-Chief will purpose a proper way to correct them. For the serious errors the authors can submit an ERRATUM to be published in the next issues of the journal. See the Policies.
GUIDELINES FOR REVIEWERS
Peer review methodology
Jomard Publishing journals use external experts to help evaluate articles and assist the editors to make a decision.
After submission of the articles they will be checked and will be rejected immediately if they are out of scope of the journal, or unsuitable for consideration.
All other original articles will be passed for the review process. Reviewers are selected based on their experience of expertise of the subject matter of the article. The reviewers may be selected from the Editorial Board of the journal as well as from elsewhere. The journal editors will identify suitable experts and invite them to review. If authors have a good reason to request that a particular person should be excluded from review (due to some conflict situations), then the editors should be informed about this when they submit the article. However, the editors’ judgement of reviewer is final.
The journal uses a double-blind peer review method. This means that the authors’ names are not disclosed to the reviewer and the reviewer names are not disclosed to the authors.
Invitations include the title page of the paper are sent to reviewers and the articles are sent to them after receiving their agreement. Reviewers are given up to 4 weeks to send their review. However, the journal cannot guarantee a time to decision since reviewers may be late, or there may be problems in finding the right reviewer. In all cases the journal editorial office will try to manage the process as speedily as possible. When the editors have received at least 2 reviews they will make a decision.
Peer Review Ethics – guideline for reviewers
The reviewers are asked to follow the following ethical principles:
Purpose of Peer Review
Peer review is an essential part of maintaining the quality and integrity of scholarly publishing. Reviewers assist the editorial board in evaluating manuscripts for originality, scientific accuracy, ethical soundness, and overall contribution to the field.
Reviewer Responsibilities
• Confidentiality:
All manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shared or discussed with anyone except with the permission of the Editor-in-Chief.
• Objectivity:
Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Comments should be clear, constructive, and supported by evidence.
• Timeliness:
Reviewers should complete their review within the assigned timeframe. If an extension is needed, the reviewer should inform the editor immediately.
• Conflict of Interest:
Reviewers must disclose any potential conflicts of interest (financial, personal, academic, or other) and decline the review if such conflicts could affect their impartiality.
Evaluation Criteria
Reviewers are expected to assess manuscripts according to the following criteria:
• Originality and novelty of the research
• Relevance to the journal’s scope
• Scientific soundness and validity of the methodology
• Clarity of data presentation and interpretation
• Appropriateness of references and literature review
• Ethical compliance (e.g., plagiarism, data integrity, animal/human studies)
• Quality of English and overall readability
Structure of the Review Report
A good review should include:
- Summary of the paper: A brief overview of the research purpose and main findings.
- Major comments: Issues that affect the validity, interpretation, or significance of the study.
- Minor comments: Smaller issues such as wording, grammar, references, or formatting.
- Recommendation:
∗ Accept
∗ Accept after
° Minor revision
° Major revision
∗ Reject
Ethical Standards
Reviewers should be alert to potential ethical issues in the manuscript such as plagiarism, data fabrication, duplicate publication, or unethical research practices. Any suspected misconduct should be reported confidentially to the Editor-in-Chief.
