Author Guidelines

Instructions for preparing and sending contributions.

Agronomía Tropical journal will receive contributions from the authors through the forms submitted on the journal's OJS portal. Contributions may be submitted in Spanish, English or Portuguese, accompanied by the Letter of Originality, signed by all authors. All authors must register on the journal portal and validate their ORCID code.

FORMAT

Drafts must be written using word processors such as Libre Office Writer or Microsoft Office Word®. The pages will be numbered consecutively in the lower right side, as well as each line of the text, starting from the title; Arial font size 12; 1.5 spacing; margins 2.5 cm on all four sides.

In relation to the headings, the title of the contribution is the only one of the first order, it will be written centered in bold with the first letter in capital letters. The main section titles (second order): Abstract, Introduction, Materials and methods, Results and discussion, Conclusions, Acknowledgments and Literature cited, will be indicated centered in bold and capital letters. The third order title, aligned to the left, in bold and only the initial letter in capital letters; the text will continue below the title. The fourth order title, aligned to the left, in bold followed by a period and only the initial letter in capital letters, the text will continue on the same line

The tables will be presented in the same text file, accompanied by the respective title, located at the top, which must be specific and express its content, in Arial font size 11; progressively identified with Arabic numerals, with order of appearance immediately after the paragraph where it is mentioned for the first time. The content of the tables should not be duplicated in the figures. The column headings must be concise and clearly indicate the units in which the content is expressed. The meaning of the abbreviations used will be developed as a table caption. When numerical results are presented, they must be accompanied by the name of the statistical test performed. The tables will be prepared using applications such as Libre Office Writer, Microsoft O ffice Word®, Libre Office Calc or Microsoft Office Excel®; and not be presented in the form of a scanned image.

The figures refer to any illustration included in the work such as: graphs, drawings, photographs, diagrams, maps or other representations, indicated consecutively in the text. The title must be placed at the bottom, in Arial font size 11. Photographs must be presented in JPEG format, and graphs, maps, drawings and other representations will be presented in PNG format. All tables and figures must be indicated in the text. In addition to the tables and figures inserted in the text, it is required to send the original files separately, in the format in which they were prepared and duly identified. Likewise, the original file with the data that originates each graph is required. Minimum resolution for all figures is 300 dpi

Qualification. It will be presented in Spanish, English or Portuguese, with its respective translation, in accordance with the language of the manuscript. Identify and describe the content of the work, without abbreviations, with a maximum of 20 words. Scientific names will be included only for rare species or when essential.

Author (s) and affiliation (s). Full names and surnames in lowercase except for initials. When authors publish with two surnames, they must be separated with a space, except for foreign surnames or those that traditionally use the script. They will be accompanied with numbers in superscripts to identify the institution to which the author (s) belongs and emails. The full name of the institution and its acronym in parentheses, city and country will be included. The corresponding author will be identified with an asterisk.

Summary, Abstract or Resumo. Paragraph between 200 and 250 words, clear and understandable. Studies with a quantitative approach should briefly indicate: problem and justification, objective (s), experimental methods, results and conclusions, without exceeding the use of numerical values. For studies with a qualitative approach, the following must be indicated: object of study, purpose, methodology, results and approximations. The language of the abstract will be as follows:

Keywords. Simple or compound terms are recommended (maximum six), which allow the content of the article to be identified and which have not been used in the title. To select the keywords, it is suggested to consult and use the descriptors of the multilingual agriculture thesaurus AGROVOC, created by FAO or a similar one. The scientific names of biological organisms should be included as keywords

Introduction. It constitutes a brief reference of the antecedents that motivated the accomplishment of work; likewise, the literature review can be included with the most recent investigations that contribute fundamental ideas for the realization of the work. It will also include the objective of the same.

Materials and Methods or Methodology. This section must be clear and precise, sufficiently to allow repeatability of the test. For studies with a quantitative approach, follow a logical ordering of the techniques used and the materials used. The analytical and statistical procedures used must be cited as bibliographic references, describing only the modifications or the novelty. Field investigations should include a brief agroclimatic description of the location where the work was carried out. When the contributions have a qualitative approach, the theoretical framework that briefly describes concepts and models that guided the research should be indicated; as well as methods, techniques and procedures for gathering information, as well as data processing and validation.

Results and discussion o Results and findings. The content must be consistent with the objectives stated in the introduction. It is necessary to detail the results in a logical order and in an objective and sequential way. The quantitative information may be presented in tables and figures. The cited literature should not exceed three authors per idea to discuss.

Acknowledgments.  Will be included for those people who have made substantial contributions to the work, such as: technicians, producers, communities and reviewers, among others. Likewise, to recognize the institutions that partially or totally funded the research. The paragraph in this section should be short, up to a maximum of 10 lines.

Cited literature. It must be updated and correspond to the last five years, with the exception of classic works that are required to be included. In this case, it should not exceed 20% of the references. Their citation in the text and their wording in this section must comply with the conventions of the manual “Writing bibliographic references: Technical standards for agri-food sciences / IICA, CATIE” (2016). 5th ed. Available at: IICA - CATIE Standards.

If gray literature or documentation is used, it is recommended that it does not exceed 20% of the total references in the article. Below are examples of gray documentation: undergraduate and graduate theses, conference proceedings, research reports, annual reports, projects, patents, standards, scientific translations, documents from scientific societies, newsletters, workbooks, technical reports, programs of computing, autobiographies, reprints, weblogs, and catalogs of products and services of companies, dossiers, posters, surveys and other documents different from books and serial magazines.

For the list of literature cited, below are some examples of the most commonly used references:

• Journal

Nery, FC; Paiva, R; Silva, DPC; Campos, ACAL; Chalfun-Júnior, A; Campos, JMS. 2011b. Nuclear DNA integrity of cryopreserved embryonic axes of Anadenanthera colubrina (Vell.) Brenan. Acta Horticulturae 908:139-142.

• Digital Journal

Fajardo, L; Lovera, M; Arrindell, P; Aguilar, VH; Hasmy, Z; Cuenca, G. 2015. Morphotype-based characterization of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities in a restored tropical dry forest, Margarita island-Venezuela (en línea). Revista de Biología Tropical 63(3):859-870. Consultado 24 jul. 2015. Disponible en http://revistas.ucr.ac.cr/index.php/rbt/article/view/15940/20146.

• Book

Balzarini, M; Di Rienzo, JA; Tablada, M; González, L; Bruno, C; Córdoba, M; Robledo, W; Casanoves, F. 2011. Introducción a la bioestadística: aplicaciones con InfoStat en agronomía. Córdoba, Argentina, Brujas. 383 p.

• Book chapter

Toledo, JM; Schultze-Kraft, R. 1985. Metodología para la Evaluación Agronómica de Pastos Tropicales. In Manual para la Evaluación Agronómica. Cali, Colombia, RIEPT- CIAT. p. 91-110.

• Book chapter whose author is not the publisher of the document

Panta, A; Zea, B; Sánchez, D; Tay, D; Roca, W. 2013. Crioconservación de recursos genéticos de tubérculos y raíces andinos en el Perú. In González-Arnao, MT; Engelmann, F (eds.). Crioconservación de plantas en América Latina y el Caribe. San José, Costa Rica, IICA. p. 175-196.

For more information, we remind you to consult the IICA-CATIE standards for writing bibliographic references, 5th edition.

STYLE CONSIDERATIONS

• The writing of the manuscript will be in the active voice and the impersonal or third person singular form must be used.
• Restrict the use of the gerund, use this verb form only to demonstrate two actions that are performed at the same time.
• The words box and figure are written, in the text, with the first letter capitalized.
• The acronyms must be written in capital letters and between parentheses in their first appearance in the text and preceded by the complete term to which it refers, with the exception of the units of measurement.
• The names of varieties, cultivars and hybrids should be accompanied by single quotes only when they are mentioned for the first time in the abstract, abstract or body of the article. This as long as the word variety or cultivar does not precede it, in which case they will not be used.
• Soils must be taxonomically identified; if the name of the series is not known, the family must be indicated
• The names of commercial products should be avoided, using the generic name or active principle. If strictly necessary, its use must be accompanied by the ® symbol.
• Symbols do not have a plural nor do they have a period (.) After them, and only those derived from proper names (Celsius, Kelvin, Joule, among others) are written in capital letters. The acronyms also have no plural, this will be shown with the accompanying words, example: SNPs.
• Decimals must be separated with a comma (,) and units of one thousand or million will be expressed with a period (.).

Nomenclature. The use of the Metric Decimal System (SI) is recommended for the expression of the units. For their papers, the authors will use the conventions of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, the International Code of Nomenclature of Bacteria, and the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. For the chemical nomenclature the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry will be used, as well as the Commission on Biochemical Nomenclature. For the nomenclature of genes and proteins, it is recommended to use internationally accepted symbols; specific symbols can be obtained from the Pubmed gene database. Naming standards for cattle and other species are available from Genenames, while for mice and rats they are available from Strains. As for simple nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), they must be identified with their unique reference number (rs) or presentation number (ss), as indicated in the public database dbSNP. In reference to the nomenclature of mutations and other variations in the DNA sequence, please visit the official page of the Genome Variation Society HGVS.