GENERAL INFORMATION
Wayamba Journal of Animal Science (WJAS) is an open-access peer-reviewed journal published by the Society of Animal Science, Wayamba University of Sri Lanka. The WJAS provides a forum for the rapid dissemination of significant novel and high impact research in all disciplines of Animal Production. The journal will cover the fields of Animal Production, Nutrition, Physiology, Genetics & Breeding, Animal Products, Animal Behaviour, etc. Articles typically report research with dairy and beef cattle, goats, sheep, pigs, poultry (chicken, turkey, duck, goose, guinea fowl, pigeon, etc.), and companion animals; however, studies involving other farm animals and laboratory animal species that address fundamental questions related to livestock will also be considered.
Audience
Academics, scientists, industrialists, technologists, policymakers and other relative stakeholders engaged in animal production
Scope
The journal publishes novel and original research articles, invited reviews, letters to the editor and other scholarly work encompassing a broad range of research topics in animal production.
Types of Papers
Research papers – original full-length research articles which have not been published previously except in a preliminary form, and which should not exceed 7000 words excluding the abstract and references (with no more than 8 tables, figures and illustrations in combination)
Review articles – will be accepted in areas of topical research covered by the scope of the journal. Comprehensive and definitive reviews will only be considered. Reviews must contain a critical assessment of literature including authors’ views on the subject. They should not exceed 10,000 words (excluding abstract, references, and no more than 8 tables and illustrations in combination)
Short communications – up to 3,000 words from Introduction to Conclusion (excluding Abstract and References). These papers should describe work that may be preliminary but merits publication, and should not contain more than 40 references.
BEFORE YOU BEGIN
Ethics in publishing
The WJAS fully adheres to the Code of Conduct (https://publicationethics.org/core-practices) and Best Practice Guidelines (https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Guidelines) of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The journal adopts a rigorous peer-review process along with strict ethical policies to ensure a quality scholarly publication. Authors who wish to publish their papers in WJAS should adhere to the following:
- All authors must disclose any conflict of interest in the paper before the submission.
- Authors should accurately present their research findings along with a sufficient discussion on the significance of their findings.
- Methods used in the study must be adequately described in a way that another researcher can replicate the work.
- Authors should have their data readily available for the presentation to the referees and the Editors of the journal whenever requested. Authors should retain experimental data for a reasonable period even after publication.
- Simultaneous submission of the same manuscript to more than one journal should be strictly avoided.
- Plagiarism, data fabrication and manipulation are zero tolerated. Copying text, ideas, images, and/or data from other sources, even from your own publications, without giving any credit to the original source should be avoided. Copied text from another source must be between quotes and the original source should be cited. If plagiarism is detected during the peer review process, the manuscript will be rejected. If irregular image manipulation (e.g., amending features of the original image) is identified and confirmed during the peer review process, the manuscript will be rejected.
Studies using Humans and Animals
Research work involving human subjects should be carried out in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki (https://www.wma.net/what-we-do/medical-ethics/declaration-of-helsinki/). Accordingly, approval from an ethics review committee should be obtained before undertaking the research. The ethical statement: “The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of XXX (Project identification code) and was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Written consent was obtained from all subjects before they participated in the study.” Should be included in the manuscript.
Ethical guidelines for the use of animals
Experiments involving animals should comply with the ARRIVE Guidelines (https://arriveguidelines.org/) and should be conducted in accordance with the U.K. Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act, 1986 and associated guidelines, EU Directive 2010/63/EU for animal experiments, or the National Research Council’s Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. Accordingly, approval from an ethics review committee should be obtained before undertaking the research.
Editors reserve the right to reject any submitted article that does not comply with these requirements.
Use of Inclusive Language
The WJAS encourage its authors to produce articles using inclusive language by avoiding expressions that are considered to express or imply ideas that are sexiest, otherwise biased, prejudiced or denigrating to any particular group (please refer). Authors should ensure that the manuscript is free from bias, stereotypes, slang, and reference to the dominant culture and/or cultural assumptions. Authors are recommended to maintain gender neutrality by using plural terms (e.g., doctors, scientists, researchers, etc.) wherever possible to avoid using “he” or “she”.
SUBMISSION OF ARTICLES
Manuscripts for the WJAS should be submitted online at info@wayambajournal.com. The corresponding author is responsible for the manuscript during the submission and peer-review process. The submitting author must ensure that all eligible co-authors have been included in the author list. All the typeset documents should be submitted in editable format (e.g., Microsoft Word). When preparing manuscripts, Microsoft-word template file must be used. All correspondence, including the Editor’s decision and instructions for any revisions, is communicated by e-mail.
Suggesting Reviewers
Authors can suggest names and institutional e-mail addresses of a maximum of three potential referees review the manuscript. The referees should not be from the same institution where the work was carried out or should not have been co-authors in previous publications. Editors do not invite reviewers who have potential competing interests with the authors. However, the Editor decides whether or not to invite referees suggested by the authors.
Authorship contributions
Please note that those who have substantially contributed to the concept or design of the work, the acquisition, analysis or interpretation of the results, drafted or critically revised the work for important intellectual content, approved the final version to be published and agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work are eligible for the authorship. Authors should be named based on their individual contributions to the manuscript using the relevant CRediT Roles: Conceptualization; Data curation; Formal analysis; funding acquisition; Investigation; Methodology; Project administration; Resources: Software; Supervision; Validation; Visualization; Writing-original draft; and Writing – review and editing (please refer to https://casrai.org/credit/ for more information). The authorship statement should be incorporated above the acknowledgement section. Authorship statements should be formatted with the names of authors first followed by CRediT Roles. A sample CRediT author statement is mentioned below:
Zhang San: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software; Priya Singh: Data curation, Writing-original draft; Wang Wu: Visualization: Sun Qi: Writing – Reviewing and Editing.
Changes to authorship
Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names must be made only before the manuscript has been accepted. However, any alteration to the original list of authorship can only be made if approved by the journal editor upon producing a written confirmation (e-mail or letter) from all authors that they agree with the proposed alternation.
Supplementary Materials
Upon a request made by the reviewers and/or Editor-in-chief, the authors are requested to provide any experimental data or any other supplementary material necessary to evaluate the claims made in the paper but not have included in the paper.
Peer Review
The WJAS adapts a double-blind review process. The manuscripts submitted to the WJAS will initially be screened by the editorial and if suitable, will be sent to a minimum of two independent expert reviewers to assess the scientific quality of the paper. When revision of a manuscript has been requested, the revised manuscript should be submitted on or before the stated deadline. The authors’ response to the reviver’s comments should be given in the tabulated form (comments, responses and line numbers should be given). All the alterations made to the original text must be in blue-coloured font for easy recognition. If the revised manuscript was not received within the stated time, the manuscript will not be processed further. Based on The Editor-in-chief is responsible for the final decision regarding the acceptance or rejection of articles.
Article publication fees
No fees are involved.
Author’s declaration
When an article is accepted for publication, the authors are required to submit the Author’s Declaration signed by all the authors.
Copyright
The copyright of the article is retained with the Society of Animal Science, Wayamba University of Sri Lanka. Authors secure the right to reproduce any material that has been published or copyrighted elsewhere. When an article is accepted, the authors are required to submit the transfer of copyrights statement signed by the corresponding author on behalf of all authors.
PREPARATION
Use of Word Processing Software
All the manuscripts should be prepared using Microsoft Word and saved in the native format of the word processor used. Authors are strongly advised to use the “spell-check” and “grammar-check” functions to avoid unnecessary errors.
Manuscript layout
The manuscript should be prepared using the template provided. Manuscripts should be typed in single-column format with double-line spacing with wide margins (2.5 cm). Times New Roman (TNR) 12 should be used for the text and TNR 11 for tables and references. Every page of the manuscript should be numbered. However, in the text, no reference should be made to page numbers and if necessary, may refer to sections.
Style
The manuscript should be written clearly and concisely in a style conforming to scholarly writing. Poor usage of language will result in the rejection of the manuscript at initial screening. The manuscript should be written either in British or American English, but should not be a mix of the two.
Subdivision of the sections
Divide your article into clearly defined and numbered sections. Subsections should be numbered 1.1 (then 1.1.1, 1.1.2, 1.1.3, ….), 1.2 (then 1.2.1, 1.2.2, …..). The abstract is not included in section numbering. Use this numbering for internal cross-referencing. Each heading may be given a heading that should appear on its own separate line.
Article structure
Manuscripts in general (excepting review articles) should be organized in the following order: Title, Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion, Conclusions and Recommendations (if any), Acknowledgements, and References.
Essential title page information
- Title: Should be concise, informative and reflect the content of the article. Avoid abbreviations and formulae.
- Author names and affiliations: Clearly indicate the given name(s) and family name(s) of all authors in English using correct spelling. Mention the authors’ affiliations (where the actual work was done) below the names. Indicate all the affiliations with a lower case superscript letter immediately after the author’s name and in front of the appropriate address. Provide the full postal address of each affiliation including the country name and email address of each author.
- Corresponding author: Indicate who will handle correspondence at all stages of the review process, publication and post-publication. The corresponding author is responsible for answering any future queries about the manuscript. Ensure that the email address is given and that contact details are kept up to date by the corresponding author.
- Present/permanent address: If an author has moved to somewhere else other than the place where the work was done, a “present address” may be indicated as a footnote to that author’s name.
Abstract
Should be between 200 – 250 words written as a single paragraph. Should be concise, factual, and state briefly the purpose of the research, the principal results and major conclusions. References and non-standard or uncommon abbreviations should be avoided. If essential, they must be defined at their first mention in the abstract.
Keywords
Indicate immediately after the Abstract, provide 5 keywords (no more or no less) relevant to your study, but should be different from the words in the title. Should be short and specific. Avoid general and plural terms and multiple concepts. Only abbreviations firmly established in the field may be incorporated.
Introduction
The introduction should define the purpose of the work and why it is important with a brief review of already published literature related to the research field being discussed in the article. In addition, clearly mention the objectives of the research. Please keep the introduction comprehensible to scientists outside your particular field of research.
Materials and Methods
This section should provide information on how you conduct your research to allow others to replicate the same. New methods and protocols should be described in detail whereas, well-established methods can be briefly described and appropriately cited. The statistical analysis of the results should be presented in a separate sub-section at the end of the “Material and Methods” section. Statistical software used, and models and methods of statistical analysis used must be described. Sufficient statistical information must be given to allow replication of the statistical analysis.
Results and Discussion
Results: Should be concisely and logically presented. Repetition of the same results presented in figures and tables should be avoided. Statistical summaries of the results should be given with statistical significance.
Discussion: Should deal with the interpretation of the results. Data essential for the conclusions of the study should be discussed and logically relate to the already published research work with appropriate citations. Lengthy discussions are discouraged. Conclusions not supported by results should be avoided.
Conclusions
Should be brief and aligned with the objectives of the study.
Acknowledgements
Acknowledge those who provided specific scientific, financial and technical assistance to the work but do not meet the full criteria for authorship. If the research was conducted as a part of a thesis, it should be acknowledged here. If there are no acknowledgements, included “None”.
Funding
Please provide details of financial support received for all authors, including grant numbers. This section is mandatory. Example of statement: This work was supported by the National Research Council of Sri Lanka [Grant number XXXXX] and National Science Foundation of Sri Lanka [Grant number YYYYY].
If no funding has been provided for the research, please include the following statement: “This research received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.”
Conflict of interest statement
Authors must declare any personal circumstances or interests that may be perceived as inappropriately influencing the representation or interpretation of reported research results. All sources of financial support for the study/project should be disclosed. If there are no conflicts of interest to declare, please state “The authors declare no conflict of interest”.
References
Please note that every reference cited in the text must be present in the reference list. Unpublished results and personal communications are not recommended in the reference list but can be mentioned in the text. Citation of a reference as “in the press” means that the article has been accepted for publication.
Reference Style
Citing references in the text
References to the literature must be indicated in the text and tables as per the Author-Year System, by the author’s last name and year of publication.
- One author: Alex (2012) states that…… OR …..(Alex, 2012)
- Two authors: Alex and Thomson (2012) state that……. OR …….. (Alex & Thomson, 2012)
- Three or more authors: Alex et al. (2012) state that…… OR…….. (Alex et al., 2012)
- No author: Use italics. Do not use ‘anonymous’ or anything similar. Give the title of the reference, year of publication and page number separated by commas. For example, it is maintained that medicine has greatly improved (Medicine in old ages, 1985, p.74).
- Multiple citations should be made in chronological order and separated by a semi-colon (e.g., Thomson et al., 2007; Alex, 2010; Lee & Bender, 2012).
- Multiple publications by the same author in different years: Last name of the author followed by years of publication in chronological order, separated by commas (e.g., Thomson, 2007, 2010, 2015)
- Multiple publications by the same author in the same year: should be coded by letters (e.g., Thomson et al., 2007a; b)
- Reference to unpublished work, work under review or work in preparation should be cited in italics as (unpublished data). Such works should not be included in the Reference List.
- Personal communications may be included in the text with the date of communication as (Personal communication, 10 March 2022).
List of references
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. Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) should be included for all references where available.
Examples:
Reference to a journal publication:
Priyashantha, H., Ranadheera, C. S., Rasika, D. M. D., & Vidanarachchi, J. K. (2021). Traditional Sri Lankan fermented buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) milk gel (Meekiri): technology, microbiology and quality characteristics. Journal of Ethnic Foods, 8(1), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1186/s42779-021-00105-4.
Reference to a journal publication with an article number:
Van der Geer, J., Hanraads, J. A. J., & Lupton, R. A. (2018). The art of writing a scientific article. Heliyon, 19, Article e00205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2018.e00205.
Reference to a book:
Strunk, W., Jr., & White, E. B. (2000). The elements of style (4th ed.). Longman (Chapter 4).
Reference to a chapter in an edited book:
Rasika, D. M. D., Munasinghe, M. A. D. D., Vidanarachchi, J. K., da Cruz, A. G., Ajlouni, S., & Ranadheera, C. S. (2020). Probiotics and prebiotics in non-bovine milk. In Advances in Food and Nutrition Research (Vol. 94, pp. 339-384). Academic Press.
Reference to a website:
Powertech Systems. (2015). Lithium-ion vs lead-acid cost analysis. Retrieved from http://www.powertechsystems.eu/home/tech-corner/lithium-ion-vs-lead-acid-cost-analysis/. Accessed January 6, 2016
Reference to a conference paper or poster presentation:
Engle, E.K., Cash, T.F., & Jarry, J.L. (2009, November). The Body Image Behaviours Inventory-3: Development and validation of the Body Image Compulsive Actions and Body Image Avoidance Scales. Poster session presentation at the meeting of the Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Therapies, New York, NY.
Reference to a dataset:
[dataset] Oguro, M., Imahiro, S., Saito, S., & Nakashizuka, T. (2015). Mortality data for Japanese oak wilt disease and surrounding forest compositions. Mendeley Data, v1. https://doi.org/10.17632/xwj98nb39r.1.
For other reference types not included above, please follow the referencing style used by the American Psychological Association (APN).
Tables
Tables are recommended when exact numerical values are important and the same data should not be repeated elsewhere in the article. Number tables consecutively with Arabic numerals and should be placed in the main text near the first time they are cited. Any table notes should be placed below the table body and should be indicated by superscript lower case italic letters (e.g., a, b, c). Each table should have a title that reflects the content in the table. All Table columns should have explanatory headings followed by units of measurements in parenthesis if any. Avoid using vertical rules and shading in table cells.
Figures
All the illustrations (e.g., graphs, images, photographs, drawings, etc.) are considered figures and should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals. Figures should be placed at the appropriate position in the manuscript and be cited as Figure 1, Figure 2, etc., in the main text. Uniform lettering should be used in all the figures. Graphs with results should present statistical summaries that easily show statistical differences among treatments/groups. Photographs and image files should be of high quality (300 dpi) and should fit the margins of the page. Each figure should have a caption that comprises a brief title and a description of the illustration. Any symbols or abbreviations used in the figure must be defined in the caption.
Abbreviations
All the abbreviations that are not standard in the field of study must be defined at their first mention in the text. Ensure consistency of abbreviations throughout the article.
Units
The International System of Units (SI) must be used throughout the article. If other units are mentioned, please give their equivalent in SI within brackets, e.g. 100 ft (30.48 m).
Nomenclature of the organisms
The scientific names of the animals and plants should be typed in italics as per the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (IUBMB). For the nomenclature of bacteria, please follow the guidelines given by the International Committee on Systematics of Prokaryotes (ICSP). The genus, species and the strain of the organism must be given in the first citation (e.g., Helicobacter pylori K164:K7). The generic name may be abbreviated in later citations (e.g., H. pylori K164:K7). The abbreviations “sp” and “spp” refer to a single unnamed species and more than one species, respectively. Please refer https://iubmb.qmul.ac.uk/iubmb.html and https://www.the-icsp.org/ for more details.
Formulae and equations
Equations should be typewritten and in line with normal text. Use the solidus (/) instead of a horizontal line for small fraction terms (e.g., X/Y). Present variables in italics. Equations should be numbered serially on the right-hand side in parentheses.
AFTER ACCEPTANCE
Proof correction
Corresponding authors will receive an e-mail with a print-ready version of the article for correction of proofs. At this stage, the corresponding author may comment on figures/tables, do necessary corrections, and answer questions from the copy editor. All information needed for proofreading will be given in the e-mail and please use this proof for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text. For fast publication, the authors are kindly requested to send their proof corrections within three (03) days.
Notification of the published articles
The corresponding author will be informed by e-mail as soon as the article has been published online.