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Start SubmissionSLJB considers for publication original research that has not been previously published (this generally includes posting the article on a preprint server) or not under consideration for publication elsewhere. However, SLJB accepts submissions that have previously been presented at conferences; or have previously appeared in other “non-journal” formats (for example: blogs or posters). In addition to full papers, short communications and invited reviews are accepted for publication.
Biological research findings of a wide array of sub disciplines including (but not limited to); Anthropology, Agriculture, Animal Behavior, Bioinformatics, Biochemistry, Biodiversity, Biotechnology, Cell Biology, Conservation Genetics, Developmental Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Entomology, Evolution, Ethnomedicine, Freshwater Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Mathematical Modeling of Biological Systems, Marine Biology, Microbiology, Molecular Biology, Nanobiology, Natural Products, Physiology, Plant Sciences, Quantum Biology, Taxonomy, Toxicology, Wildlife, Zoology.
Number of issues per year: Two (in January and June)
Publication charges: There are no submission and publication fees
Online access for the public: Free of charge
Research articles of not more than 8000 words, short communications of not more than 2500 words and review articles of not more than 8000 words are accepted.
Authors should clearly highlight the key findings of the paper and explain their significance to the field in their cover letter.
Journal accepts manuscripts written only in English either American or British; however, a mixture of both should be avoided.
Copyrights for articles are retained by the authors, with first publication rights granted to the journal SLJB. Authors have rights to archive and distribute their own articles after publication in SLJB. SLJB is not responsible for subsequent uses of the work.
Manuscripts should be prepared in Microsoft Word and submitted online.The editors reserve the right to edit or otherwise alter all contributions; however, Managing Editors will send proofs to the corresponding author for approval before publication.
Authors should declare that the manuscript has been seen and approved by all authors and the authorities responsible where the work was carried out. All submissions should contain the author declaration form (which can be downloaded from http://www.iobsl.org/sljb-volume1/paper-submission). If applicable, authors should state in the methods section, that ethical clearance has been obtained and the experiments were conducted in conformity with ethical guidelines.
Responsibility for the accuracy of statements, the authenticity of scientific findings or observations, expressions of scientific or other opinion and any other material published in thejournal rests solely with the author(s) of the article in which such statements, etc., appear. The Institute of Biology of Sri Lanka, editors and reviewers take no responsibility for these matters.
Selection of manuscripts and publication process
a) Upon receipt of a manuscript, the Managing Editor will send an e-mail of confirmation to the corresponding author within five working days.
b) Peer review process will be handled by the Editorial Board lead by the Editor in Chief. A double-blind system of peer reviewing will be used where reviewers’ and authors’ identities remain anonymous. The manuscripts will be reviewed by at least two experts.The peer review process of the articles will take 1-3 months period from the date of submission of the properly formatted article
c) Reviewer’s comments/decisions are notified to the corresponding author by e-mail.
d) If the manuscript is accepted, the authors should revise accordingly and submit the final version within the specified period. Otherwise, the manuscript will be considered as being withdrawn by the corresponding author. Decision of the Editorial Board shall be final in this regard.
e) After publication, the corresponding author will receive an e-mail notification.
f) A PDF version of the journal is available for download on the SLJB/SLJOL webpage (https://sljb.sljol.info/) free of charge.
Guidelines for preparation of manuscripts
Title Page
The title page should only consist of the title of the paper, name of author(s) and affiliation/s of author(s).
The title should be concise and informative enough to indicate the purpose/findings of the paper. The title page should be uploaded as a supplementary file for the editor to review (This will not be sent to reviewers).
Authors’ names and affiliations
The preferred form of an author’s name is last name/family name and initial(s); Omit all titles (e.g., Dr., Professor) and degrees (e.g., BSc, PhD).
The authors’ affiliation at the time of conducting the research should be given, more than two affiliations per author is not allowed. If an author has no institutional affiliation, state the city/state and the country of residence. The names of authors should appear in the order of their contributions. For names with suffixes (e,g., Jr. and II), separate the suffix from the rest of the name with a space instead of a comma.
Example:
Perera L.A.1, David A.C.1,2 *, Andersson P II1 & Erickson J Jr.2
1Department of Biology, University of XXXX, Colombo, Sri Lanka.
2 Institute of Genetic Engineering, University of yyyyyyy, Riverside, CA 92541, USA.
Corresponding author: Department of Biology, University of XXXX, Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Tel: 0112xxxxxx. E-mail: pererala@xxx.ac.lk Orchid id- 0000-0002-6413-3627
Manuscript
Manuscripts should be organized in the following order:
Title, Abstract, Keywords (indexing terms), Introduction, Material and Methods, Results,
Discussion, Conclusion, Acknowledgements, References.
General Rules for formatting the text
The entire text should be in the following text format.
Font: Times New Roman; Size: 10 pt.
Paragraph Spacing: Above paragraph - 0 pt.; below paragraph -4 pt.
Line Spacing: Exactly, 12 pt.
Heading 1: Times New Roman; 10 pt.; Bold; for example, 1. First-level Heading
Heading 2: Times New Roman; 10 pt.; Italic; for example, 1.1 Second-level Heading
Heading 3: Times New Roman; 10 pt.; for example, 1.1.1 Third-level Heading
Abstract
A concise abstract between 150 and 250 words (A review should contain a summary of not more than 300 words) should be written for full length articles briefly indicating the purpose of the research, the principal findings and conclusions. References should be avoided. The abstract must be able to stand alone.
Keywords
Immediately after the abstract, 3-6 keywords should be included in alphabetical order, avoiding general and plural terms and multiple concepts (e.g., “and,” “of”). Avoid abbreviations unless they are firmly established in the field of publication (e.g. PCR).
Tables
Number the tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text. Place the caption above the body of the table and its description (if any) below the body. Avoid vertical lines. The data presented in tables should not duplicate the results described elsewhere in the article. Tables should fit the size of the page. Tables in the final revised version of the article need to be in both JPEG/TIFF and Microsoft Word format.
Example:
Table 1. Test concentrations (μg) used 95% CI | |||
Concentration | M ± SD | LL | UL |
Paracetamol | 14.5 ± 28.6 | 5.4 | 23.6 |
Diazepam | 31.8 ± 33.2 | 21.2 | 42.4 |
Note. M = Mean; SD = Standard Deviation; CI=Confidence Interval; LL=lower limit, UL=upper limit.
Figures and illustrations
Number the figures consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text. Place the caption and description below the figure. A minimum resolution of 300 dpi is required.
Figures should fit the size of the page. If previously published figures/illustrations are included, the copyright holder’s written permission should be submitted. Figures in the final revised version need to be in JPEG or TIFF format. Microsoft Word (DOC or DOCX) files are also need to be submitted for figures, that have been drawn in Word.
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments of people, grants, funds etc. should be placed in a separate section before the reference list. The names of funding organizations should be written in full.
References
References must be indicated in the text and tables as per the Harvard System, by the first author’s surname and year in parenthesis (i.e. Silva, 1990; Dutta & Manamendra-Arachchi, 1996).When there are more than two authors, surname of first author should be followed by et al. (i.e. Liyanage et al., 2005). Multiple citations should be in chronological order separated by a semi-colon (i.e. Perera et al.,1990; Able et al., 2002). Multiple publications by the same first author in the same year should be coded by letters (i.e. Erickson, 2002a, 2002b). Reference to unpublished work, work in preparation or work under review should be avoided as much as possible. In unavoidable circumstances those may be cited in italics as (Unpublished data) with the author’s name with initials; such work should not be included in the Reference section. Personal communications may be mentioned in the text with the name and the date of the communication (i.e. Perera, D., Personal communication, 14 June 2015).
The list of references should be written in the following format and should be arranged in the alphabetical order of the surname of the first author. Authors should check whether all references mentioned in the reference list are cited in the text, and vice versa.
Journal article:
Jayasuriya, A.H.M., Kitchener, D.J., Biradar, C.M. (2011) Viability status of biosphere reserves in Sri Lanka, Journal of the National Science Foundation of Sri Lanka 39 (4): 303-319. http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/jnsfsr.v39i4.3880
Note: Journal name should be given in full and italicized
Books:
Dutra, S.K., Manamendra-Arachchi, K. (1996) The Amphibian Fauna of Sri Lanka, Wildlife Heritage Trust of Sri Lanka, Colombo, Sri Lanka, 230 p.
Note: Name of the book should be italicized.
Chapter of a book:
Gunatilleke, N. (2014) Forests and current status. In: Sri Lanka’s Forests-Nature at Your Service, First Edition, pp. 2-30, Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science, Colombo, Sri Lanka
Note: Name of the book should be italicized. If book is edited follow the sequence as for an article from an edited volume given below.
Article from an edited volume:
Amarasinghe, U.S., Nguyen, T.T.T. (2009) Enhancing rural farmer income through fish production: Secondary use of water resources in Sri Lanka and elsewhere. In: S.S. De Silva and F.B. Davy (eds), Success Stories in Asian Aquaculture. pp. 103-130, Springer Science,
The Netherlands.
Note: Name of the edited volume should be italicized.
Conference paper:
Kumari, A.M.M.T., Suwadarathna, N.I., Fernandopulle, M.N.D. (2009) Determination of larval and pupal development of the two colour leaf beetle Plesispa reichei (Chapuis) under three different temperatures, Proceedings of the 9th Agricultural Research Symposium, Wayamba University of Sri Lanka, Gonawila, Sri Lanka, pp 177-180.
Note: Name of the Conference/Proceedings should be italicized.
Webpage:
Goolsby, D.A., Battaglin, W.A. (2000) Nitrogen in the Mississippi Basin – Estimating sources and predicting flux to the Gulf of Mexico. http://ks.water.usgs.gov/pubs/factsheets/fs.135-00.html , Retrieved on 24th December 2015.
References should be cited as ‘in press’ only if the paper has been accepted for publication.
Page numbering:
Number all pages consecutively including Figures and Tables.
Publication Ethics and Best Practices
Please see our information page on ‘SLJB policy on publication best practices and publication ethics’ before you begin a submission.
Declaration of completing interest
To maintain the transparency and judgements of potential bias, journal requires authors to declare any competing financial and/or non-financial interest in relation to the work described in their manuscript. It should be included in the manuscript after acknowledgements under the title ‘Conflict of interest/Competing interest’.
If no conflict of interest/completing interest, a statement as follows should be included
- Authors declare that they have no conflict of interest
- The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
If any, Declaration of interests
The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: ………………………………………………….
Changes to author list
Authors are expected to consider carefully the list and order of the authors before submitting their manuscript and provide a precise list of authors at the time of the original submission. Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the list should be made only before the manuscript has been accepted and only if approved by the Editorial Board of the journal.
To request for a change in the author list the corresponding author should send the following to the sljbiob@gmail.com addressed to the Editor-in-Chief.
a.) The reason for the change in the author list
b.) Consent from all authors for the change
c.) In the case of addition or removal of authors, should include confirmation from the author being added or removed.
Permissions-Copyrights
If authors include figures, tables or text passages that have already been published elsewhere, authors need to take necessary permission from the copyright owner(s) and include evidence that such permission has been granted when submitting their paper. Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors. Publisher will not take any responsibility or able to refund any costs that may occur to receive these permissions.
Author rights
Copyrights for articles are retained by the authors, with first publication rights granted to the journal SLJB. Articles in the Sri Lankan Journal of Biology are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Authors have rights to archive and distribute their own articles after publication in SLJB. SLJB is not responsible for subsequent uses of the work.
Data availability
Journal encourages authors to share all relevant raw data that supports your research publication where appropriate, freely available to any researcher wishing to use them for noncommercial purposes. Authors need to ensure that their datasets are either deposited in publicly available repositories or presented in the main manuscript or additional supporting files whenever possible. Authors should also include a statement where the data supporting the results reported in the article can be found including, where applicable, hyperlinks to publicly archived repositories. If it is not possible to share the dataset publicly, in such cases data availability should still be stated in the manuscript along with any conditions for access. Raw data also should be available for reviewers on request.
Data availability statements can take one of the following forms:
- The relevant datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available in the [name of the repository] repository, [weblink]
- The relevant datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are not available publicly due to [give reason] but can obtain from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
- The relevant datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
- No datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study, thus data sharing is not applicable to this article.
- All data analyzed or generated during the current study are included in this published article.
Editorial and Peer Review Process
The journal follows a double-blind peer-review process. Upon submission of a correctly formatted article, it will be sent to a relevant Subject Editor by the Managing Editor. The Subject Editor will initially assess the article for plagiarism and its suitability for the journal. Manuscripts warrant peer-review will be sent to a minimum of two independent subject expert reviewers to assess the scientific content and quality, originality of the research and ethical considerations of the paper. In a case of receiving mixed reviews, Section Editor can decide to send the manuscript for another reviewer. In such a situation the time for the peer-review process may lengthens than the usual period given. The Section Editor is responsible for the final decision regarding the acceptance or rejection of the articles. The Editor-in-Chief’s decision is the final and it will be conveyed to the corresponding author by the Managing Editing.
Erratum and Retraction
Any changes requested after publication of the article will be published as an erratum. An erratum is a statement by the authors of the original paper that briefly describes any correction/s resulting from errors or omissions. The article will not be removed from the online journal but a notice of erratum is given. The erratum is freely available for all readers and will be linked to the original article.
A notice of retraction will be published if a published article found or informed to be unreliable due to misconduct or honest error, published previously elsewhere without proper referencing or permission, work is plagiarized or unethical. In such case the published article will be removed from the online journal, leaving the bibliographic information. A notice of retraction will be published linked to the issue.
If an author requests to withdraw an article before publication, such requests will be accepted by the Editorial Board and the article will not be processed further.
Revised submissions/re-submissions
If the author is informed by email to send a revised submission, sending a document containing a point-by-point responses for the reviewers’ concerns/comments is a must. Revised or resubmissions without the point-by-point responses to reviewer comments document, the article will not be processed further. The instructions given by the email while requesting the revised submission also need to be followed by the author. Articles with the decision ‘Cannot be accepted in the present form’, can be re-submitted after revising. However, these resubmitted articles will be sent again for another peer-review process.
Submission
Submit the completed manuscript, the Manuscript Submission Form and a scanned copy of the Author Declaration Form (JPG or PDF format) through e-mail to the Managing Editor (sljbiob@gmail.com) or through https://sljb.sljol.info/about/submissions/. Upon receiving the submission, the Managing Editor will acknowledge the submission and a Manuscript Id will be provided through email. Managing Editor will return any un-reviewed manuscript which falls outside the scope and policy of SLJB to the corresponding author. If no Manuscript Id/or rejection email was received within two weeks of the submission, corresponding author can inquire about their submission by emailing to sljbiob@gmail.com .
Process for complains by authors
The authors can complain or ask explanations of any misconduct by the journal by sending a letter/email to sljbiob@gmail.com email address. All complaints or requests will be replied according to the prevailing publication practices of the journal.
As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.
Copyright for articles is retained by the authors, with first publication rights granted to the journal SLJB.
Articles in the Sri Lanka Journal of Biology are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors have rights to archive and distribute their own articles after publication in SLJB. SLJB is not responsible for subsequent uses of the work.
The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party. The full privacy policy can be viewed here.