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BS Instruction to Authors

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Instruction to Authors

Scope

Breeding Science was first established as the Japanese Journal of Breeding in 1951 by the Japanese Society of Breeding. In the long history of this journal, Breeding Science has been an open space where all the findings and technologies related to breeding can interact and merge to generate new knowledge and ideas for breeding. Breeding Science is published to enrich the lives of people throughout the world by biological production in harmony with the global environment.

Types of articles

Breeding Science publishes Research papers, Notes, and Reviews. Research papers are original articles related to breeding. Notes report new cultivars, breeding lines, germplasms, genetic stocks, mapping populations, and useful techniques as well as short original reports. Reviews summarize recent and past events related to plant breeding.

Online submission of manuscripts

Manuscripts should be submitted by a corresponding author. The corresponding author must have obtained permission from all authors prior to submission. Correspondence, proofreading, and charge payment should be handled by the corresponding author. The corresponding author is requested to submit the manuscripts to Breeding Science via the online system (https:// www.editorialmanager.com/jsbbs). The manuscript, related source files and cover letter should be uploaded following the onscreen instructions. Breeding Science accepts manuscripts which were deposited on non-commercial pre-print servers like bioRxiv. Note that posting a preprint does not affect the consideration of the manuscript for publication in Breeding Science. If you have any questions about submission, please contact the Breeding Science Editorial Office (jsbbs（at）nacos.com).

Publishing charges

Manuscripts accepted for publication are assessed a publication charge of ¥15,000 (JPY) for members for the first six printed pages (Research Papers), four printed pages (Notes) or ten printed pages (Reviews), and ¥50,000, ¥40,000, and ¥60,000 for non-members for the first six printed pages (Research Papers), four printed pages (Notes), and ten printed pages (Reviews), respectively. About 900 words (or 5,400 letters including spaces between words) correspond to one printed page. Authors are requested to consider additional area for tables and figures. Excess page charge of ¥9,000 per printed page will be charged to authors. Online publication of color illustrations is free of charge. For color in the print version, the extra cost of ¥15,000 for each color illustration will be charged to authors. Electronic supplementary material (ESM) will be published on the web in PDF format. Handling charges of ¥1,000 for each ESM figure and table will be charged to authors.

To receive a member rate, the corresponding author or the first author of the manuscript must be a member of the Japanese Society of Breeding.

The author(s) or the author’s institution/company must agree to pay the publication charge, and if necessary, charges of excess page, color page, and reprint. The author(s) must pay the charges above even if the manuscript is invalidated after acceptance/publication or withdrawn by the author(s) after acceptance. If the page charges are not paid, the already-published manuscript might be canceled.

Please note that manuscript acceptance in Breeding Science is not contingent upon the author’s ability to pay the charges. With any exceptional circumstances, authors may not request full or partial waiver of the charges.

General instructions

  1. Manuscripts for Research Papers should be arranged in the following order: Title Page, Abstract, Key Words, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgments, Literature Cited, Tables, Figure Legends, and Figures. Separate Results section from Discussion. Notes should have the same headings as Research Papers. Notes should be no more than 3,600 words. Reviews may include sections with appropriate headings.
  2. All the manuscripts should be written in standard scientific English. Non-native English authors are highly recommended to use a scientific English-editing service to improve the manuscript prior to submission. Manuscripts of low linguistic quality will be returned to authors without review. Manuscript of low quality or out of scope may not be assigned to Editors and returned without review.
  3. Acceptable format for text is MS Word. Text should be typed using 12-point Times New Roman on A4 (210 mm by 297 mm), double-spaced with approximately 30 mm margin. Page number and line number should be given. No footer or header should be given in text except for page numbers. A word or URL should not be divided.
  4. Scientific names should be written out in full (Genus, species) in the abstract and again in the main text the first time used. Cultivar epithet should be bounded by single quotation marks, which is regulated by the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants, and added to the full scientific name (e.g. Oryza sativa L. ‘Nipponbare’). After first mention, the generic name may be abbreviated or commonly understood name used.
  5. SI units should be used. The first time an abbreviation is used, it is in parenthesis after the non-abbreviated name. Don’t abbreviate a term that is used only once or twice in the manuscript.
  6. Accession No. and public repositories of the germplasm used should be provided in Materials and Methods section of the manuscript to permit others to check results.
  7. Nucleic acid and protein sequences must be deposited in a public database such as DDBJ/EMBL/Genbank and Swiss-Prot and the accession numbers for these sequences should be provided in the manuscript.
  8. Main headings should be written in bold type. Second-level headings should be written in italic characters.
  9. In the text, cite references by author name and year of publication. If there are more than two authors, list the first name followed by et al. Personal communications should be cited with permission only in the main text. All figures, tables, and supplementary data files must be mentioned in the text.
  10. If misconduct on submitted manuscript including dual submission is found after the manuscript is accepted, acceptance will be withdrawn and a note to announce withdrawal will be published.
  11. Complete data sets from microarray or next-generation sequencing must be deposited in an accepted format in a permanent public repository with free access (e.g., GEO or NCBI’s Short Read Archive sequence database). Links to web sites other than a permanent public repository are not an acceptable alternative because they are not permanent archives.

Preparation of manuscript

Title Page

Provide the following items and information in this order on page 1.

  1. Manuscript type: Indicate Review, Research Paper or Note.
  2. Title: Usually begin ONLY the first word with capital letters. Subtitle should not be used.
  3. Author(s): Full names. Superscript number after author’s name may indicate multiple affiliations. Numbers should appear in order. Corresponding author should be identified with an asterisk (*). Authors contributing equally to the paper should be identified with dagger (†).
  4. Author affiliation: Department, institution, complete address, and postal code should be included for each author.
  5. *Corresponding author: The full name, affiliation, complete address, email address, and telephone number should be given. The information will be used for contacting the author by the Breeding Science Editorial Office.
  6. Manuscript information: Numbers of figures and tables should be indicated.
  7. List of authors’ last names: Will be used for making headers of pages.
  8. Running title: Abbreviated title with no more than 10 words.
  9. Member or nonmember of the Japanese Society of Breeding (Corresponding author or first author).

Abstract

All manuscripts should include abstract and key words. Abstracts should be a single paragraph with no more than 200 words on page 2. State the principal scope and objective of the investigation, summarize materials and methods, outline the results, and state the conclusions. No references should be cited in the Abstract. The Abstract should be followed by up to seven Key Words.

Introduction

State the background and aim of the present research. A short relevant review of literature should be provided.

Materials and Methods

Include full description of the sources of materials including gene bank accession numbers and all experimental procedure to allow reproduction.

Results

Concisely summarize the data, emphasizing the patterns supported by figures and tables.

Discussion

Interpret the results, supporting the conclusions with evidence. Address the importance of the major findings of the work.

Author Contribution Statement

Authors must provide a short description of the contributions made by each listed author (please use initials). This will be published in a separate section in front of the Acknowledgments. Please be aware that changes to the list of authors are not possible after final acceptance of the manuscript.

Acknowledgments

Should be brief. Funding sources should be listed.

Literature Cited

List all the references cited in the paper. NLM Abbreviations of journal titles may be searched by ‘Search Journals’ command in PubMed (http://www.pubmed.gov/). Papers accepted for publication can be listed with the name of the journals followed by “In press”. If a referenced work has more than 10 authors, list the first 10 followed by et al. References should be listed alphabetically by the names of first authors, years, then the name of second authors. The title and the journal name for references published in any other non-English language should be followed by a description of the original language in parenthesis, e.g., (in Japanese), (in Japanese with English summary), at the end.

Journal articles are cited as follows:

Lin, H.X., Z.W. Liang, T. Sasaki and M. Yano (2003) Fine mapping and characterization of quantitative trait loci Hd4 and Hd5 controlling heading date in rice. Breed Sci 53: 51–59.

Articles or chapters in books are cited as follows:

Bothmer, R.V., K. Sato, T. Komatsuda, S.Yasuda and G. Fischbeck (2003) The domestication of cultivated barley. In: Bothmer, R.V., T.V. Hintum, H. Knüpffer and K. Sato (eds.) Diversity in Barley (Hordeum vulgare), Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp. 9–27.

Books are cited as follows:

Allard, R.W. (1999) Principles of plant breeding, 2nd edn. Wiley, New York, p. 254.

Tables

Each Table should be in a separate page and be numbered Table 1, Table 2 etc. followed by a complete caption at the top. Each entry within tables should start with a capital letter. Vertical lines should be avoided. Footnotes should be identified by superscript italicized letters a, b, c, etc. Use asterisks for significant values. Tables set by MS Excel should be copied into MS Word files prior to submission.

Figure Legends

Figure legends should be on a new page. If figures consist of multiple panels, a brief overview of the entire figure should be provided in the first sentence. All symbols and abbreviations used in figures should be explained in figure legends. Place Figure Legends immediately before figure pages. Indicate figure size [e.g. 12.5 cm (H) × 8.5 cm (W)] below each Figure Legends.

Figures

All images (e.g. photographs, line drawings, graphs) are considered to be ‘Figures’. Each figure should be prepared in a separate file, and each figure should be numbered (Fig. 1, Fig. 2, etc.) according to the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. When a figure consists of several panels, each panel should be labeled capital A, B, C, etc. (Fig. 1A, Fig. 1B, Fig. 1C, etc.) Magnifications should be indicated by scale bars in photographs.

All images submitted must be the final physical size they would appear in the Journal. Height and width should be chosen for either single (8.5 cm wide) or double (up to 17.4 cm wide) column reproduction. Indicate their size below each figure caption. The title or footnotes should not be included in the figure files but in the Figure Legends section.

Acceptable formats for figures are JPEG (.jpg or .jpeg), TIFF (.tif or .tiff), BMP (.bmp) or PowerPoint (.ppt or .pptx). Resolution of JPEG, TIFF or BMP required is 1200 dpi (dots per inch) for line arts, 600 dpi for images that combine line art and photographs, and 300 dpi for photographs. The file name (one file for each figure) should include the figure number followed by extension (Fig. 1.jpg, Fig. 2.tif, etc.).

Supplemental materials

Large amounts of additional information (data) can be submitted for the web publication only. Supplemental materials should be numbered (Supplemental Fig. 1, Supplemental Table 1, Supplemental Text 1. etc.), and should be submitted as separate files which are ready for web publication. Acceptable format is PDF (.pdf) adjusted to A4 (21 cm × 30 cm). Supplemental materials should be placed after figures, and will be subjected to review.

Cover letters

Cover letter to Editor-in-Chief should be sent with each new submission. Three Editorial Board members should be recommended for handling the review in the cover letter. Cover letter to the Editor who conducts the review process of the manuscript should be sent with the submission of revised manuscript.

Review procedure

A manuscript submitted to the Editorial Office will be assigned to one of the Editorial Board Members after checking the journal style and linguistic quality. Each manuscript will be reviewed by two referees with relevant expertise. On the basis of reviewers’ comment, the Editor will recommend a decision (accept or reject) to Editor-in-Chief or request a revision of manuscript to authors. Authors should submit the revised manuscript online within 30 days. On submission of revised manuscripts, authors should provide details of changes made to their manuscript and use track changes mode in MS Word on the revised manuscript so that the Editor can see these changes in the manuscript. Revised manuscripts will then be reviewed by the Editors for a final decision on whether to recommend the acceptance of the manuscript.

Proof reading and reprints

Proof reading by authors should be done immediately on receipt. Authors will be charged for extensive alterations on proofs. Reprints will be available at a cost. Reprint order form will be sent with proofs to the corresponding author.

Copyrights

Copyright on any materials published in Breeding Science is owned by the Japanese Society of Breeding. Please note that articles published in Breeding Science after January 1, 2022, are licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 license. Authors are required to comply with the provisions of the license. Details of the license can be found at the following URL https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/deed.en

(These instructions are effective from August 27, 2023.)