Georgia Journal of Science
Instructions to Authors
Overview
The Georgia Journal of Science accepts original contributions pertaining to the eight different sections of the Academy. Editors reserve the right to reject submissions without review. If reviewed, manuscripts are reviewed by at least two persons. Senior authors are required to be members of the Academy or a charge of $35.00 per published page will be incurred. Proof of membership or the payment of page charges is due before publication of the article. Membership application is through the academy’s website, gaacademy.org.
What we publish and what we do not publish
Given the breadth of the academy’s eight sections, we publish a wide variety of articles. As a rule, however, we do not accept student term papers unless they contain original work. True review articles are written by experts. We do not publish human subjects research that was not approved by an institutional review board. We do not publish works in which student opinions make up all of the results. If student learning is assessed, authors must address the issues that plague education research. For example, when students choose their course sections, they may be choosing their experimental treatments. Subjects should be randomly assigned to treatments instead. Experimental design features, such as pretest-posttest with control, or a covariate such as prior GPA, can sometimes mitigate the harm caused by the limitations inherent in education research.
Criteria for authorship
We use the American Medical Association’s criteria for authorship. To be an author, “substantial contributions [must] have been made in each of the following areas:
- Conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of the data,
- Drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content, and,
- Approval of the version of the manuscript to be published.” AMA Manual of Style, 10th edition, p. 128.
How to submit
Submissions should be made through the journal’s site in Digital Commons. Along with the manuscript, please upload a cover letter that provides contact information for at least two suggested reviewers. Suggested reviewers should have no association with the research or development related to the manuscript, nor a close professional relationship with any of the authors. To submit an article, enter the submission's title, authors, abstract, and other required information into the corresponding fields in the journal’s Digital Commons webpage. The content of those fields provides metadata for internet search engines.
The submission’s format
The main body of the article itself should be uploaded to Digital Commons as a Microsoft Word file, single-spaced, and with 12 point Georgia font throughout except for figure legends, which should be in 10 point Georgia font. Mathematical equations should not use Georgia fonts, but Calibri or a similar font and preferably developed with the equation function in the Insert bar. Paragraphs should be indented on the first line at 0.5 inches with no open lines between them. The article should begin with the title, centered, in bold typeface, and in uppercase letters. Follow that with the authors and their affiliations, centered, with conventional capitalization, and in regular (not bold) font. The submission must be justified (flush right and left), with 1-inch margins, and without page numbers. Scientific papers should be organized per the following sections: (1) Abstract followed by keywords (2) Introduction (3) Materials & Methods (4) Results (5) Discussion and (6) References. If human subjects were involved in the work, state that the project was approved by an institutional review board in the Materials & Methods section. Acknowledgements may be placed before the references or can be entered into Digital Commons’ cover page footnote field. In the latter case they will appear on a second cover page. Section headings should be in bold, uppercase typeface and centered.
Other types of submissions, e.g., letters to the editor, research notes, historical essays, may be organized per the author’s preference.
Position illustrations and tables where you would like to see them in the final publication. All lettering within the tables and illustrations must be roughly the same size as the 10-point font in the figure legend or larger. All illustrations must be numbered in order of appearance with Arabic numerals. Each illustration’s caption should allow the reader to understand the figure without consulting the text. Tables must be numbered in order of appearance with Roman numerals.
GJS Submission Template
On reproducing the work of others
The journal cannot reproduce any image that is not the authors’ original work unless we have permission from the copyright holder. Examples of such images include figures from papers not published by the Georgia Journal of Science, maps from Google or GIS, screen grabs showing Microsoft Word, the image of a goose that an author found on the internet, and practically anything else that is not an author’s work. It is the author’s responsibility to obtain permission. In many cases, this is as easy as finding a company’s permissions page on the internet and adhering to the requirements that are described. For example, we can publish a map from Google, but we and the author must follow Google’s requirements. Also, many images are freely available for reproduction under Creative Commons license. The author and this journal need only follow the requirements of that license. Sometimes a copyright owner only wants attribution, but a credit line is often not sufficient to secure permission. In some cases the author must correspond with the copyright holder to obtain that permission.
Even images from government websites and GIS maps can present a problem. Third parties may own the copyright to such images or the layers used to construct a map in GIS. It is an author’s responsibility to provide evidence to the editors that such images can be reproduced.
Plagiarism check
Prior to submission of a new manuscript, authors are encouraged to run their to-be-submitted version through Turnitin, Grammarly or other such software to check for plagiarism. In your letter of submission, please note whether such actions were taken. Any quoted material, even as short as two or three words, must be enclosed in quotation marks. It is better for authors to write their own original prose.
References
In the text, references should be cited by author and year. If more than two authors are listed, then the citation in the main text should be as first author followed by “et al.” and the year. Examples of citations in the main text are as follows: (1) author’s name referenced in the sentence, Santos et al. (2008) or (2) author’s name not directly referenced (Harvey 1999; Santos et al. 2008, 2009). Provide page numbers as follows in references to books, (Zar 1999, p. 204). In the final list, all references should be listed alphabetically. Formatting of references should be as below. Take careful note of punctuation and the placement of initials and surnames. If available, a DOI should be placed after a reference. If a DOI is not available, then a URL is sufficient.
Research Articles Santos, B.A., C.A. Peres, M.A. Oliveira, A. Grillo, C.P. Alves-Costa, and M. Tabarelli. 2008. Drastic erosion in functional attributes of tree assemblages in Atlantic forest fragments of northeastern Brazil. Biological Conservation, 141(1), 249–260.
Schmidt, A. and J. Smith. 1911. Stonefly subspecies in northern Nevada. doi:10.8610.508525.
Samuel, C.E. and D.A. Farris. 1977. Mechanism of interferon action: Species specificity of interferon and of the interferon-mediated inhibitor of translation from mouse, monkey, and human cells. Virology, 77(2), 556–565. http://www.sciencedirect .com/science/article/pii/0042682277904810.
Books
Ricklefs, R.E. and D. Schluter. 1993. Species Diversity in Ecological Communities: Historical and Geographical Perspectives. University of Chicago Press.
Reputable web pages Coosawattee Crayfish. 2015. Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Wildlife Resources Division. http://www.georgiawildlife.org/sites/default/files/uploads/ wildlife/nongame/pdf/accounts/invertebrates/cambarus_coosawattae.pdf
Technical reports Hebert, R.T. and D.L. Bechler. 1994. A survey of the physicochemical parameters and the zooplankton community of the lower Sabine River as related to the needs of Polyodon spathula. Report submitted to Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Austin, TX. 76 pp.
Letters Connell, C. to G. Leiby, February 8, 1965. Archival Collections, Odum Library, Valdosta State University (Letter).
Research Notes are accepted if they relate new and important findings. To submit a note, follow the instructions for a full-length article, but combine the introduction, materials and methods, results, and discussion into a continuous narrative without divisions. Enter an abstract in Digital Common’s abstract field but omit the abstract from the article you upload. Notes should not exceed three pages including figures and tables. In the letter to the editor, identify your submission as a research note.
Letters to the Editor may be included if written concisely in GJS style with appropriate references. Letters will be limited to 1) Issues of scientific integrity or 2) Expansion of theses presented in a previous paper published by GJS. The editorial board of GJS may accept or reject a letter based on its scientific relevance and accuracy.
Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Trinanjan Datta Department of Chemistry and Physics Augusta University Augusta, Georgia, 30912 (706) 667-4516
Associate Editor, Dr. Frank Corotto Department of Biology University of North Georgia Dahlonega, Georgia, 30597 706-846-1698