Submissions

Author Guidelines

GUIDE FOR AUTHORS 

The Journal of New Zealand Grasslands operates a two-stage submission process.

Readership of the Journal is broad, including farmers, farm advisers, teachers and commercial and scientific personnel. You must engage the interest of all these sectors. Papers must emphasise practical implications/relevance to farming.

The scientific information in a paper must be of a standard that will allow the Journal to retain or enhance its role as a valuable source of reference material for those interested in New Zealand grassland.

1: Submission of a paper offer

Authors are required to submit an initial 400-word paper offer prior to submission of a full manuscript. Download the 2024 paper-offer template here. Paper offers must be submitted online by Friday 16 February 2024.

Paper offers will be assessed by the Executive Committee of the New Zealand Grassland Association in March each year and they will decide whether or not the paper offers are of an appropriate standard and are within the scope of the Journal. Authors will be notified of the Committees decision by the end of March and successful authors will be asked to submit a full manuscript by 21 April 2024 using the appropriate template supplied by the editor.

Where a member of the Executive Committee is on the author list or has any other competing interest regarding a specific paper offer then they will be excluded from the decision-making process. 

2: Manuscript preparation and submission

Successful authors must submit their completed manuscript by 21 April 2024. The critria for the different manuscript types is available here.

There are four types of manuscript available to be selected when offering a paper. They can be dowloaded below.

Research Article: Original research

Literature Revew: A comprehensive review of published literature, that includes details of the scope of the review, highlights knowledge gaps and suggests areas for future work. 

Agricultural Practices: practical and applied demonstration of research on-farm, related to published science.

Perspective: Provides a balanced overview of a topic of interest to the NZGA, supported by published literature.

Submission and review of manuscripts

Please downlad the appropriate template and use this to prepare your manuscript. Guidelines for each section are included in the template.

Where possible, use the Endnote style file available here to format your references.

Peer-review and Editorial Processes

Each manuscript will be checked for novelty using antiplagiarism software. Manuscripts that pass this initial screening will be reviewed by two anonymous reviewers with expertise relevant to the topic plus the Editor. Authors are invited to suggest names of possible referees during the submission process (in the Comments for Editor box).

Authors are required to amend their papers based on the reviewers' and editor's comments or provide detailed reasons why these comments have not been dealt with. Amended papers are re-reviewed by the editor and, if necessary, sent back to referees for further consideration before acceptance. Authors should note that even in light of one positive report, concerns raised by another reviewer may fundamentally undermine the study and result in the manuscript being rejected.

A copy of the manuscript with referees and editors comments will be returned to the corresponding author by late July for them to respond. A revised version is required within 3 weeks of receipt of these comments and should be submitted directly via the online portal http://www.nzgajournal.org.nz/.

Revision and Proofs

When returning their revised manuscript, authors must provide a covering letter that contains a point-by-point response stating how they have dealt with the referees and editors comments. This should be done by listing all recommended changes including those on any marked scripts (when applicable) and then showing how each has been dealt with or reasons provided if not. Ensure that the revised manuscript conforms to the journal style. It is important that files are correctly formatted.

Some manuscripts may require further rounds of revision depending on the issues raised during review. The editor will accept papers once all issues have been addressed. The accepted papers will then be sent for typesetting. Proofs of each paper will be sent out to authors for final sign-off. These must be checked carefully and returned to the editor within 48 hours of their receipt.

Changes to manuscripts at this stage, other than for correction of errors, are not acceptable. Papers will be published online using a digital object identifier once the proofs have been corrected. An updated version of each paper with page numbers will be added after the conference in November.

Conference Presentation

Authors should identify both the lead author and the presenting author with their submission. Presenters are required to register for the conference to present their paper. The NZGA Executive requires that presenters only present data at the conference that has been through the full review process.

Peer-review and Editorial Processes

Each manuscript will be checked for novelty using antiplagiarism software. Manuscripts that pass this initial screening will be reviewed by two anonymous reviewers with expertise relevant to the topic plus the Editor. The Journal of New Zealand Grasslands operates a blind peer-review process where the reviewers know the identity of the authors but the authors do not know the identity of the reviewers. The reviewers are asked to follow the guidelines provided here.

Authors are required to amend their papers based on the reviewers' and editor's comments or provide detailed reasons why these comments have not been dealt with. Amended papers are re-reviewed by the editor and, if necessary, sent back to referees for further consideration before acceptance. Authors should note that even in light of one positive report, concerns raised by another reviewer may fundamentally undermine the study and result in the manuscript being rejected.

A copy of the manuscript with referees and editors comments will be returned to the corresponding author by late July for them to respond. A revised version is required within 3 weeks of receipt of these comments and should be submitted directly via the online portal http://www.nzgajournal.org.nz/.

Where an Editor is on the author list or has any other competing interest regarding a specific manuscript, another member of the Editorial Board will be assigned responsibility for overseeing peer review.

A manuscript will be rejected if one or more of the following issues are found:

• the work falls outside the scope of the Journal of New Zealand Grasslands
• there are insufficient data to support any useful conclusions
• inappropriate methods have been used
• results have been incorrectly interpreted
• data have been inappropriately statistically analysed or not analysed at all (unless there is a very good reason for doing so)
• information in the manuscript is either not new (although review papers will be considered) or there is insufficient information to warrant publication as a full paper.

Revision and Proofs

When returning their revised manuscript, authors must provide a covering letter that contains a point-by-point response stating how they have dealt with the referees and editors comments. This should be done by listing all recommended changes including those on any marked scripts (when applicable) and then showing how each has been dealt with or reasons provided if not. Ensure that the revised manuscript conforms to the journal style. It is important that files are correctly formatted.

Some manuscripts may require further rounds of revision depending on the issues raised during review. The editor will accept papers once all issues have been addressed. The accepted papers will then be sent for typesetting. Proofs of each paper will be sent out to authors for final sign-off. These must be checked carefully and returned to the editor within 48 hours of their receipt.

Changes to manuscripts at this stage, other than for correction of errors, are not acceptable. Papers will be published online using a digital object identifier once the proofs have been corrected. An updated version of each paper with page numbers will be added after the conference in November.

Conference Presentation

Authors should identify both the lead author and the presenting author with their submission. Presenters are required to register for the conference to present their paper. The NZGA Executive requires that presenters only present data at the conference that has been through the full review process.

Authorship Criteria

It is a requirement that a summary or a selected aspect of every paper published in the journal is presented orally by one of the co-authors at the Association's annual conference in November.

At least one of the contributing authors must be a current member of the New Zealand Grassland Association.  Go to https://www.grassland.org.nz/membership.php to join the Association.

Authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process.

To give appropriate credit to each author, the individual contributions of authors should be specified in the manuscript.

An 'author' is generally considered to be someone who has made substantive intellectual contributions to a published study. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html has produced the following guidelines that to qualify as an author one should have:

1. made substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data;
2. been involved in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
3. given final approval of the version to be published. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content; and
4. agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group, alone, does not usually justify authorship.

Acknowledgements

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help or writing assistance, or a department chair who provided only general support.

Citations/References

Articles must cite appropriate and relevant literature in support of the claims made. Excessive and inappropriate self-citation or coordinated efforts among several authors to collectively self-cite is strongly discouraged.

Authors should consider the following guidelines when preparing their manuscript:

• Any statement in the manuscript that relies on external sources of information (i.e. not the authors' own new ideas or findings or general knowledge) should use a citation
• Authors should avoid citing derivations of original work. For example, they should cite the original work rather than a review article that cites an original work
• Authors should ensure that their citations are accurate (i.e. they should ensure the citation supports the statement made in their manuscript and should not misrepresent another work by citing it if it does not support the point the authors wish to make)
• Authors should not cite sources that they have not read
• Authors should not preferentially cite their own or their friends, peers, or institutions publications
• Authors should not use an excessive number of citations to support one point
• Ideally, authors should cite sources that have undergone peer review where possible

• Authors should not cite advertisements or advertorial material

Abstracts/posters

Published abstracts should be cited. Prior publication of abstracts presented at, or published as part of, academic meetings may not preclude consideration for peer review of a full manuscript but will be considered on a case-by-case basis depending on length and content.

References

Where possible, use the Endnote reference style file available here to format your references. Do not cite unpublished material such as internal or client reports.

Reference examples:

Journal Article:

Alias AN, Smith HH, Jones KC. 1992. Prairie grass control in the Waikato. New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research 12: 96-104.

Book Section:

Francis SM, Peddie JP, McDonald CA, Hofflich MJ. 1974. Control of Ovis aries (woolly aphid) in North Canterbury hill country. In: Bloggs J & Doe K. Eds. Plant pests of New Zealand. Auckland, New Zealand: Kiwi Press, pp. 55-62.

Conference paper:

Furneaux RH, Pickering TD, Stevenson DE. 1998. Agars from three Fijian Gracilaria species. Presented at the 17th International Seaweed Symposium, Cape Town, South Africa, 13 July.

Book:

Bolger JM, Moore MK. 1993. How to win and lose an election in three years. Beehive Press, Wellington, New Zealand. 260 p.

Report:

Foot D. 1997. New Zealand Agrichemicals [Report 97-0105]. Acme Chemsafe Ltd, Wellington, New Zealand. 400 p.

Website:

Bloggs J. 2010. Page name. Retrieved 12 May 2018 from: http://grassland.org.nz/downloads.php

Plagiarism/Duplicate publication

Any manuscript submitted must be original and the manuscript must not be under consideration by any other journal. In any case where there is the potential for overlap or duplication, the Journal requires that authors are transparent. Authors should declare any potentially overlapping publications on submission and, where possible, upload these as additional files with the manuscript. Any overlapping publications should be cited. Any in press or unpublished manuscript cited, or relevant to the Editors and reviewers' assessment of the manuscript, should be made available if requested by the Editor. The Journal of New Zealand Grasslands reserves the right to judge potentially overlapping or redundant publications on a case-by-case basis.

Manuscripts submitted to the Journal of New Zealand Grasslands must not already have been formally published in any other journal or in any other citable form. All manuscripts will be checked for plagiarism using specialised antiplagiarism software.

Text recycling

Authors should be aware that replication of substantial amounts of text from their own previous publications is text recycling (also referred to as self-plagiarism), and in some cases is considered unacceptable. Where overlap of text with authors own previous publications is necessary or unavoidable, duplication must always be reported transparently and be properly attributed and compliant with copyright requirements.

Confidentiality

Editors and reviewers will treat all submissions in confidence except in cases of suspected misconduct where third parties may be contacted and informed of possible issues.