Guide for Authors

IRAN AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH

Instructions for Authors

GENERAL INFORMATION

Aims and Scope

Iran Agricultural Research (Iran Agric Res: IAR), an international journal, publishes articles on original research in agriculture and related fields including agricultural extension and education, animal science, crop production and breeding, economics, food science, horticulture, machinery, plant biotechnology, plant protection, soil science and water engineering. Manuscripts related to the mentioned areas are considered, if they contain information of direct significance to agriculture and related to living products. The aims of IAR Journal are: (i) to stimulate scientific research among Iranian scholars and their colleagues in other countries, and (ii) to provide a forum for the exchange of information and dissemination of knowledge in the agricultural sciences.

Publication Schedule

Iran Agricultural Research is published as one volume per year. At the present time, each volume consists of two issues.

Publication fees

The publication is fully free in this journal. It is open access and the content is also available to all readers. 

Submission of Manuscripts

Manuscripts should be submitted in the version of MS Word 2010 to the IAR Editor-In-Chief through the journal website (http://iar.shirazu.ac.ir/). Authors are urged to refer to ‘Instructions to Authors’ (see below) before submission of their typescripts or the format of the articles in the latest issue of the IAR Journal.

General Publication Policies

Manuscripts must be written in English and prospective authors should consult a recent issue of IAR for style and format. Articles sent to IAR must not be previously or simultaneously submitted to or published in any other scientific journal.

All manuscripts will be carefully reviewed by the Editorial Board and reviewers to prevent duplication and to maintain high standard for the journal. Reprinting and quotation of IAR articles are permitted on conditions that full credit is given to both the authors and the journal and that the volume and date of publication are indicated.

Types of Papers

Three types of papers will be considered for publication:

  1. Articles

Papers reporting original research findings in all fields of agriculture and related subjects are acceptable for publication after critical review by reviewers (at lease three reviewers) and approval by the Editorial Board. Such articles should not exceed 12 pages of printed text, including tables, figures and literature cited. Short papers of 3-4 pages long (excluding abstract and references) covering experimental techniques, apparatus, observations or preliminary results may be or accepted as ‘Short Communications’. They should not exceed four pages when printed and include a brief Abstract of no more than 150 words excluding References. There are no restrictions on the number of references. ‘Short Communications’ contain Abstract and References, but the main text is not divided into sections (The text should lack heading and subheadings). Methods should be described briefly within the text, not within figure legends. Authors should explain in a cover letter why publication is urgent. The editorial review will be accelerated, and proofs will be checked by the Editor-in-Chief.

  1. Review papers

Review papers will be published in IAR. They should cover a part of the subject active current interest. Review papers may be submitted or invited. This Journal, like many international journals, usually considers articles as review articles whose authors have done extensive research in the field of the article and have already published at least 10 to 15 articles on the title of the review article. The published articles must be cited in the review article and be existed in the reference list of the review article. Please contact the Editor-in-Chief for more information (iar1971@shirazu.ac.ir).

  1. Letters to the editor

Letters to the editor will be published without any change by the Editorial Board upon approval by the Executive Director or the administrative authorities of Shiraz University. Therefore, the Editorial Board accepts no responsibilities as to the contents of such letters which merely express the views of individuals or organizations. For consultation or suggestions, please contact the Editor-in-Chief.

Your Paper, Your Way

The manuscripts should be submitted as a single Word file to be used in the reviewing process. Only when the manuscript is at the revision stage, the authors are requested to provide the items required for the publication according to the journal instructions.

Before You Begin

Ethics in Publishing

Authorship of a manuscript should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the design, conception, execution, and interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors and others who have participated in certain aspects of the reported study should be acknowledged or listed as contributors.

The corresponding author should ensure that all co-authors are listed appropriately and no inappropriate co-author is included, and all listed co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the manuscript and agreed to its submission.

Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

This journal is committed to upholding the integrity of the scientific record. As a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) the journal will follow the COPE guidelines on how to deal with potential acts of misconduct.

Authors should refrain from misrepresenting research results which could damage the trust in the journal, the professionalism of scientific authorship, and ultimately the entire scientific endeavour. Maintaining integrity of the research and its presentation is helped by following the rules of good scientific practice, which include*:

  • The manuscript should not be submitted to more than one journal for simultaneous consideration.
  • The submitted work should be original and should not have been published elsewhere in any form or language (partially or in full), unless the new work concerns an expansion of previous work. (Please provide transparency on the re-use of material to avoid the concerns about text-recycling (‘self-plagiarism’).
  • A single study should not be split up into several parts to increase the quantity of submissions and submitted to various journals or to one journal over time (i.e. ‘salami-slicing/publishing’).
  • Concurrent or secondary publication is sometimes justifiable, provided certain conditions are met. Examples include: translations or a manuscript that is intended for a different group of readers.
  • Results should be presented clearly, honestly, and without fabrication, falsification or inappropriate data manipulation (including image based manipulation). Authors should adhere to discipline-specific rules for acquiring, selecting and processing data.
  • No data, text, or theories by others are presented as if they were the author’s own (‘plagiarism’). Proper acknowledgements to other works must be given (this includes material that is closely copied (near verbatim), summarized and/or paraphrased), quotation marks (to indicate words taken from another source) are used for verbatim copying of material, and permissions secured for material that is copyrighted.
  • If, during the initial review of the manuscript, the editor-in-chief or editorial board discovers an unethical aspect of the manuscript's context or methodology, the manuscript will be removed from the review process. Also, no new manuscripts from its author(s) will be accepted in the future.
  • Provided that the manuscript is under review, if the editor-in-chief or any referee perceives an unethical aspect in the manuscript, it will be withdrawn from the review process and no new manuscripts from its author(s) will be accepted in the future.
  • If the journal notices any unethical aspects in the article after the acceptance letter is issued by the journal office, the article will be withdrawn from the publication process and no new manuscripts will be accepted by its authors.
  • On the condition that the article is published and indexed, whenever it is approved any unethical document towards that, the published article officially retracted and it will be announced to related officials and those organizations which have indexed the article. Meanwhile, its author(s) will be put on the IAR blacklist.

Conflict of Interest

All authors of IAR are requested to disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest including any personal, financial or other relationships with other people or organizations within four years of beginning the submitted study that could inappropriately influence their study. In this regard, the authors are requested to fill out the “Form of conflict of interestand send its scan as a "Supplementary file" when submitting their manuscript. (Please also see the “New Submission” section below)

Submission Declaration and Verification

Submission of a manuscript to the Journal of IAR implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis or as an electronic preprint), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and responsible authorities where the study was carried out, and if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language. To verify originality, the manuscript may be checked by the Editorial Board using appropriate tools. (Please also see the “Statements and Declaration” Section below).

Changes to Authorship

Before the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue of IAR, requests to add or remove an author, or to rearrange the author names must be sent to the Editor-in-Chief from the corresponding author of the accepted manuscript. It must include: (i) the reason the name should be added or removed, or the author names rearranged and (ii) written confirmation (e-mail, letter, or fax) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of the addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed. Requests that are not sent by the corresponding author will be forwarded by the Editor-in-Chief to the corresponding author, who must follow the procedure as described above. Please note that changes to authorship cannot be made after acceptance of a manuscript.

Copyright

Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be informed by an e-mail confirming the acceptance of the manuscript. Authors of an accepted manuscript should accept 'the Journal Publishing Agreement' and fill out the related form sent by the Editor-in-Chief.

Language

Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these). Authors who feel their manuscript may require editing to eliminate possible grammatical or spelling errors and to conform to correct scientific English may wish to use the English Language Editing services.

Submission

Our online submission system guides you stepwise through the process of entering manuscript details and uploading the files. Editable files (i.e., Word) are required to typeset the manuscript for final publication. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, is sent by e-mail.

Please submit your article via http://iar.shirazu.ac.ir/

Suggesting three reviewers’ expert in the manuscript subject is required for submission including full contact details and e-mail addresses. Note that the Specialist Editor or Editor-in-Chief retains the sole right to decide whether or not the suggested reviewers are used.

PREPARATION OF A MANUSCRIPT

New Submissions

Submission to IAR proceeds totally online and authors will be guided stepwise through the creation and uploading of files.

The authors are requested to fill out the Manuscript Submission Form and Form of conflict of interest and send their scans separately as "Supplementary files" when submitting their manuscript.

Please ensure the text of your paper is 1.5-spaced and has consecutive line numbering. The margins should be 25 mm, typed with Times New Roman (or Times) 12 pt. Please use Word symbols for special codes. This is an essential style for peer review.

Please ensure the figures and the tables included in the single file are placed next to the relevant text in the manuscript, rather than at the bottom or the top of the file.

 Revised Submissions

Please use of word processing software. Regardless of the file format of the original submission, at revision authors must provide us with an editable file of the entire manuscript. Please keep the layout of the text as simple as possible. The electronic text should be prepared in a way very similar to that of conventional manuscripts.

Manuscript structure

Please divide the manuscript into clearly defined sections. Headings of main sections are bold, and subsections should be bold without numbers and appear on their own separate line.

Title page

Please provide a separate page containing the following information.

Title

Concise and informative. Titles are often used in information-retrieval systems. Please avoid abbreviations and formulas where possible.

Author names and affiliations

Where the family name may be ambiguous (e.g., a double name), please indicate this clearly. Please provide the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names. Please indicate the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name and, if available, the e-mail address of each author. The affiliations should be shown by adding numbers (1, 2, etc.) as superscripts on the author(s) name(s) if the affiliation addresses of authors are different.

Corresponding author

Clearly indicate who will handle correspondence at all stages of reviewing and publication, also post-publication. Ensure that the e-mail address is given and that contact details are kept up to date by the corresponding author.

Present/permanent address

If an author has moved since the work described in the manuscript was done, or was visiting at the time, a 'Present address' (or ‘Permanent address’) may be indicated after the author's name. The address at which the author actually did the work must be retained as the main affiliation address.

Text

Abstract

A concise and factual abstract is required. The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the study, the principal results and major conclusions. It should not exceed 250 words and should be typed on a different page. The Iranian authors are requested to submit an abstract in Persian as well. Such an abstract will be prepared by the Editorial Board for authors not familiar with Persian. An abstract is often presented separately from the main body, so it must be able to stand alone. For this reason, References should be avoided, but if essential, then cite the author(s) and year(s). Also, non-standard or uncommon abbreviations should be avoided, but if essential they must be defined at their first mention in the abstract itself.

Keywords

Immediately after the abstract, please provide a maximum of 5 keywords in alphabetical order, avoiding general and plural terms and multiple concepts (avoid, for example, 'and', 'of'). Be sparing with abbreviations: only abbreviations firmly established in the field may be eligible. These keywords will be used for indexing purposes.

Introduction

Please state the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.

Materials and Methods

Provide sufficient detail to allow the work to be reproduced. Methods already published should be indicated by a reference: only relevant modifications should be described.

Results

Results should be clear and concise.

Discussion

This should explore the significance of the results of the work, not repeat them. Please avoid extensive citations and discussion of published literature. Results and Discussion may be in two separate sections or presented together.

Conclusions

The main conclusions of the study may be presented in a short Conclusions section, which should stand alone from the ‘Discussion’ or ‘Results and Discussion’ section.

Acknowledgements

Please collate acknowledgements in a separate section at the end of the manuscript before the references and do not, therefore, include them on the title page, as a footnote to the title or otherwise. Please list those individuals who provided help during the research (e.g., providing language help, writing assistance, proofreading the article, etc.). If an article has a financial sponsor, the authors should acknowledge the organization that financially supported the research. Similarly, if the authors or the relevant institution have received any fees from a third party including government, commercial and private foundation, etc. for each part of the article submitted to IAR (including funding, data monitoring, study design, work preparation, analysis and statistical analysis, etc.) the authors should also acknowledge the third party who provided the fees. (Please also see the “Statements and Declaration” Section below)

Appendices

If there is more than one appendix, they should be identified as A, B, etc. Formula and equations in appendices should be given separate numbering: Eq. (A.1), Eq. (A.2), etc.; in a subsequent appendix, Eq. (B.1) and so on. Similarly for tables and figures: Table A.1; Fig. A.1, etc.

References (see below)

Headings and subheadings

Main headings and subheadings must start from the leftmost margin. The title and main headings are all Bold on their own separate lines. Subheadings are as follows: separate lines and capitalize the first letter of each main word.

Abbreviations

Please define abbreviations that are not standard in this field in a footnote to be placed on the relevant page of the manuscript. Such abbreviations that are unavoidable in the abstract must be defined at their first mention there, as well as in the footnote. Ensure consistency of abbreviations throughout the manuscript.

Nomenclature and units

Please follow internationally accepted rules and conventions: use the international system of units (SI). For compound units (e.g., micrograms per millimeter), please µg ml-1 not µg/ml. The term ‘%’ should be defined as ‘w/v’, ‘v/v’ and ‘w/w’ if this is necessary to avoid ambiguity. Authors are obliged to accept the rules governing biological nomenclature, as laid down in the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (ICBN), the latest report of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV), the International Code of Nomenclature of Bacteria (ICNB), and the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN). All biotic (crops, plants, insects, birds, mammals, etc.) should be identified by their scientific names when the English term is first used, with the exception of common domestic animals. All biocides and other organic compounds must be identified by their Geneva names when first used in the text. Active ingredients of all formulations should be likewise identified. For chemical nomenclature, the conventions of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry and the official recommendations of the IUPAC-IUB Combined Commission on Biochemical Nomenclature should be followed.

Math formulae

Please provide simple formula in the line of normal text, where possible. In principle, variables are to be presented in italics. Please number consecutively any equations that have to be displayed separately from the text (if referred to explicitly in the text). Please refer to an equation in the text (e.g., Eq. 2), where necessary. Please note that subscripts and superscripts should be clear. Greek letters and other non-Roman or handwritten symbols should be explained in the margin where they are first used. Please take special care to show clearly the difference between zero (0) and the letter O, and between one (1) and the letter I.

Please give the meaning of all symbols immediately after the equation in which they are first used. For simple fractions, please use the solidus (/) instead of a horizontal line. Equations should be numbered serially at the right-hand side in parentheses. In general, only equations explicitly referred to in the text need to be numbered.

The use of fractional powers instead of root signs is highly recommended. Also, powers of e are often more conveniently denoted by exp. Levels of statistical significance that can be mentioned without further explanations are: * p-valuep-valuep-value2+, not as Ca++. Isotope numbers should precede the symbols, e.g., 18O.

Electronic artwork

Figures

General points

-        Please make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of your original artwork.

-        Preferred font: Times New Roman (or Times).

-        Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text.

-        Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files.

-        Prepare figures according to the page size of the journal (column width is 75 mm and the print area is 160 × 245 mm,).

-        For Word submissions only, you may provide figures and their captions, and tables within a single file.

-        Please note that individual figure files larger than 10 MB must be provided in separate source files.

Formats

Regardless of the application used, when the electronic artwork is finalized, please 'save as' or convert the images to one of the following formats:

PDF (or EPS): Vector drawings. Embed the font or save the text as 'graphics'.

TIFF (or JPG): Colour or grayscale photographs (halftones) (a minimum of 300 dpi).

TIFF (or JPG): Bitmapped line drawings (a minimum of 1000 dpi).

TIFF (or JPG): Combinations of bitmapped line/half-tone (colour or grayscale) (a minimum of 500 dpi).

Please do not:

-         Supply files that are optimized for screen use (e.g., GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG); the resolution is too low.

-         Supply files that are too low in resolution.

-         Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.

Colour artwork

Please make sure that artwork files are in an acceptable format [TIFF (or JPEG), PDF, or MS Office files] and with the correct resolution. If you submit usable colour figures then IAR will ensure, at no additional charge that these figures will appear in colour online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. Please indicate your preference for colour: in print or online only. For further information on the preparation of electronic artwork, please contact the Editor-in-Chief.

Please note that because of technical complications that can arise by converting colour figures to 'grayscale', please submit in addition usable black and white versions of all the colour illustrations.

Figure captions

Please ensure that each illustration has a caption. A caption should comprise a brief title (not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Please keep text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used.

Tables

Please submit tables as editable text and not as images. Tables should be placed next to the relevant text in the manuscript when submitting the manuscript as a single Word file. Please number tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text and place any table notes below the table body. Be sparing in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in them do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the manuscript. Please avoid using vertical rules.

References

Citation in text

Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list and vice versa. Any references cited in the abstract must be cited by the author(s) name(s) and year(s). Unpublished results and personal communications are not recommended in the reference list. The citation of a reference as 'in press' implies that the item has been accepted for publication.

Reference links

Increased discoverability of research and high-quality peer review are ensured by online links to the sources cited. In order to allow IAR to create links to abstracting and indexing services (such as Scopus, CrossRef and PubMed), please ensure that the data provided in the references are correct. Please note that incorrect journal/book titles, surnames, publication years and pagination may prevent link creation. When copying references, please be careful as they may already contain errors. Please use the DOI or DOR at the end of each reference..

Web references

As a minimum, the full URL should be given and the date when the reference was last accessed. Any further information, if known [DOI, author(s) name(s), dates, reference to a source publication, etc.], should also be given. Web references can be listed separately (e.g., after the reference list) under a different heading or can be included in the reference list if the author(s) name(s) are available.

Reference formatting

Where applicable, author(s) name(s), journal title/book title, chapter title/article title, year of publication, volume number/book chapter and the pagination must be present. Providing the DOI is highly encouraged. The reference style used by the journal should be applied to the accepted article by IAR at the proof stage. Please note that missing data will be highlighted at the proof stage for the author to correct. If you do wish to format the references yourself they should be arranged according to The American Psychological Association (APA) style.

Reference style

This journal uses The American Psychological Association (APA) style and for more information, please refer to the latest APA version (http://www.apastyle.org/).

Text

All citations in the text should refer to:

-         Single author

The author's name (without initials, unless there is ambiguity) and the year of publication; for example: (Jones, 2013)

-         Two authors

Both authors' names and the year of publication; for example: (Jones and Allan, 2010)

-         Three or more authors

First author's name followed by 'et al.' and the year of publication; for example: (Kramer et al., 2010)

Citations may be made directly (or parenthetically). Groups of references should be listed first alphabetically, then chronologically.

Examples:

-         …as demonstrated (Allan, 2010a, 2010b, 1999; Jones and Allan, 2010; Kramer et al., 2011).

-         Kramer et al. (2010) have recently shown ... 

List

References should be arranged first alphabetically and then further sorted chronologically, if necessary. More than one reference from the same author(s) in the same year must be identified by the letters 'a', 'b', 'c', etc., placed after the year of publication. If a reference is in Persian, please mention the language at the end in  parentheses.

Examples:

Reference to a journal publication:

-         Jadhav, U., Khot, L. R., Ehsani, R., Jagdale, V., & Schueller, J. K. (2014). Volumetric mass flow sensor for citrus mechanical harvesting machines. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 101, 93-101.

-         Zare Hosseini, H., Ghorbani, R., Rashed Mohassel, M. H., & Rahimi, H. (2014). Effects of weed management strategies on weed density and biomass and saffron (Crocus sativus) yield. Saffron Agronomy and Technology, 2, 45-58. (In Persian)

Reference to a book:

-         Fayaz, A. (2014). Encyclopaedia of tropical plants: The identification and cultivation of over 3000 tropical plants (1st ed.). Ontario: Firefly Books.

Reference to a chapter in an edited book:

-         Cuq, B., Gontard N., & Guilbert, S. (1995). Edible films and coatings as active layers. In Rooney, M. L. (Ed.), Active food packaging (pp. 111-135). London: Springer.

-         Wyllie, A. H., Kerr, J. F. R., & Currie, A. R. (1980). Cell death: the significance of apoptosis. In Bourne, G.H., Danielli, J.F. and Jeon, K.W. (Eds.), International review of cytology (pp. 251-306). London: Academic Press.

Reference to a conference publication:

- Last name, FM. (Year published). Title of Paper or Proceedings, Title of Conference, Location. Place of publication: Publisher.

Example:

- Cloyd, AM. (2014). Surveying students: A look at citation habits of college students, presented at EasyBib Info Lit Conference, New York City. New York, NY: EasyBib Publishing.

Reference to a dissertation:

- Ignatov, I. (2013). Eastward voyages and the late medieval European worldview (Master’s thesis, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand).

- Bekker, T. F. (2007). Efficacy of water soluble silicon for control of Phytophthora cinnamomi root rot of avocado (Doctoral dissertation, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa).

Statements & Declarations

The following statements must be included in your submitted manuscript under the heading 'Statements and Declarations'. This should be placed after the References section. Please note that submissions that do not include required statements will be returned as incomplete.

Funding

Please describe any sources of funding that have supported the work. The statement should include details of any grants received (please give the name of the funding agency and grant number).

Example statements:

“This work was supported by […] (Grant numbers […] and […]). Author A.B. has received research support from Company A.”

“The authors declare that no funds, grants, or other support were received during the preparation of this manuscript.”

Competing Interests

Authors are required to disclose financial or non-financial interests that are directly or indirectly related to the work submitted for publication. Interests within the last 3 years of beginning the work (conducting the research and preparing the work for submission) should be reported. Interests outside the 3-year time frame must be disclosed if they could reasonably be perceived as influencing the submitted work.

Example statements:

“Financial interests: Authors A and B declare they have no financial interests. Author C has received speaker and consultant honoraria from Company M. Dr. C has received speaker honorarium and research funding from Company M and Company N. Author D has received travel support from Company O. Non-financial interests: Author D has served on advisory boards for Company M and Company N.”

“The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.”

Please refer to the “Competing Interests” section below for more information on how to complete these sections.

Author Contributions

Authors are required to include a statement that specifies the contribution of every author to the research and preparation of the manuscript.

Example statement:

“All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by [full name], [full name] and [full name]. The first draft of the manuscript was written by [full name] and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.”

Please refer to the “Authorship Principles ” section below for more information on how to complete this section.

Data Availability

This journal encourages authors to provide an optional statement of data availability in their article. Data Availability Statements should include information on where data supporting the results reported in the article can be found, including, where applicable, hyperlinks to publicly archived datasets analysed or generated during the study. Data availability statements can also indicate whether data are available on request from the authors and where no data are available, if appropriate.

Example statements:

“The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available in the [NAME] repository, [PERSISTENT LINK TO DATASETS]”

“The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.”

Please refer to the “Research Data Policy and Data Availability” section below for more information on how to complete this section.

In addition to the above, manuscripts that report the results of studies involving humans and/or animals should include the following declarations:

Ethics approval

Authors of research involving human or animal subjects should include a statement that confirms that the study was approved (or granted exemption) by the appropriate institutional and/or national research ethics committee (including the name of the ethics committee and reference number, if available). For research involving animals, their data or biological material, authors should supply detailed information on the ethical treatment of their animals in their submission. If a study was granted exemption or did not require ethics approval, this should also be detailed in the manuscript.

“This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval was granted by the Ethics Committee of University B (Date.No....).”

“This is an observational study. The XYZ Research Ethics Committee has confirmed that no ethical approval is required.”

For detailed information on relevant ethical standards and criteria, please refer to the sections on “Research involving human participants, their data or biological material”, and “Research involving animals, their data or biological material”.

Consent to participate

For all research involving human subjects, freely given, informed consent to participate in the study must be obtained from participants (or their parent or legal guardian in the case of children under 16) and a statement to this effect should appear in the manuscript.

Example statement:

“Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.”

“Written informed consent was obtained from the parents.”

Please refer to the section on “Informed Consent” for additional help with completing this information.

Consent to publish

Individuals may consent to participate in a study but object to having their data published in a journal article. If your manuscript contains any individual person’s data in any form (including any individual details, images or videos), consent for publication must be obtained from that person, or in the case of children, their parent or legal guardian. This is in particular applicable to case studies. A statement confirming that consent to publish has been received from all participants should appear in the manuscript.

Example statement:

“The authors affirm that human research participants provided informed consent for publication of the images in Figure(s) 1a, 1b and 1c.”

Please refer to the section on “Informed Consent” for additional help with completing this information.

Submission checklist

The following list will be useful during the final checking of a manuscript prior to sending it to IAR for review. Please consult this Guide for Authors for further details on any item. Please ensure that the following items are present:

One author has been designated as the corresponding author with contact details:

-         E-mail address

-         Full postal address

All necessary files have been uploaded, and contain:

-         Keywords

-         All figure captions

-         All tables (including title, description, and footnotes)

Further considerations

-         Manuscript has been 'spell-checked' and 'grammar-checked'

-         All references mentioned in the Reference list are cited in the text, and vice versa

-         Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Internet)

-         Printed version of figures (if applicable) in colour or black-and-white

-         Indicate clearly whether or not colour or black-and-white in print is required.

-         For reproduction in black-and-white, please supply black-and-white versions of the figures for printing purposes.

AFTER ACCEPTANCE

Online proof correction

Corresponding authors will receive an e-mail with the necessary corrections. In addition to editing text, the corresponding author can also comment on figures/tables and answer questions from the Copy Editor. Web-based proofing provides a faster and less error-prone process by allowing the corresponding author to directly type the corrections, eliminating the potential introduction of errors. If preferred, the corresponding author can still choose to annotate and upload the edits on the PDF version. All instructions for proofing will be given in the e-mail IAR send to authors, including alternative methods to the online version and PDF.

We will do everything possible to get an article published quickly and accurately. Please use the galley proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text, tables and figures. Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the Editor-in-Chief. It is important to ensure that all corrections are sent back in one communication. Please check carefully before replying, as the inclusion of any subsequent corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely the corresponding author’s responsibility.

Offprints

The corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided with a personalized link providing an access to the final published version of the article on the IAR website. This link can also be used for sharing via email and social networks.

Author inquiries

Authors can track the submitted article at http://iar.shirazu.ac.ir/. Authors can also track the accepted article at http://iar.shirazu.ac.ir/. You are also welcome to contact the Editor-in-Chief via http://iar.shirazu.ac.ir/journal/contact.us.