Revista de la Facultad de Medicina Veterinaria y de Zootecnia

Author Guidelines

GUIDE FOR AUTHORS AND ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Revista de la Facultad de Medicina Veterinaria y de Zootecnia

The Revista de la Facultad de Medicina Veterinaria y de Zootecnia publishes research articles, review and case reports in all areas of veterinary medicine and animal science.

The topic addressed by the journal is included within the Agricultural Sciences area, Animal and dairy sciences area, animal biotechnology, Veterinary Sciences area, according to the classification of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Publication frequency: 3 issues per year.

For manuscript submission to the editorial committee of the journal it is necessary to comply with the following requirements:

1. Contributions must be original and must not have been submitted to any other journal (except when they have been published as theses or as abstracts in a congress).
2. The authors transfer all publication rights to the journal, in both printed and electronic versions. Electronic versions include all databases where the journal has been indexed.
3. The article publication must have been approved by all coauthors and by the authorities where the research took place. It is a requirement to fill out and send together with the manuscript the forms: "Author information form" and "Publication agreement form". The corresponding author is responsible for all the information requested by the journal and must ensure that the article has all the necessary institutional approvals.
4. The submission must comply with all requirements described in the "Guide for authors" which can also be downloaded from the journal web site: http://www.revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/remevez/index. Submissions that do not comply with these requirements will be returned to the authors without consideration for evaluation.
5. After the manuscript is accepted for publication, it is a condition that the authors support and expedite the manuscript correction in the times stipulated by the Journal. All inquiries about the publication of manuscripts should be directed to the email rev_fmvzbog@unal.edu.co
6. Authors should carefully review the list and the order of the authors before submitting their manuscript and before submitting the "Publication agreement form". The addition or deletion of authors will not be accepted except in cases in which an applicable legal or ethical justification is demonstrated and only if approved by the Journal Editor.

TYPES OF CONTRIBUTIONS

The journal accepts the following types of original contributions:

Scientific article: original scientific paper reporting the results of a research conducted under the scientific method. It typically contains the following sections: Abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results and discussion (either individually or combined) and conclusions.

Case report: report of clinical cases that become relevant and publishable due to their specific context. It must contain at least the following sections: Abstract, introduction, description of the case (which involves the discussion) and conclusion or perspectives. The general format of the text, illustrations and references should follow the same standards required for research articles.

Review article: critical review of a specific topic from an analytical, interpretative and critical perspective of the author, who always uses original sources. For this type of manuscript, within the list of authors at least one author must have proven research experience in the subject or area that concerns the article. Ideally, a review should present a critical summary of the research carried out so far and propose new topics to be investigated. It must contain at least the following sections: summary, introduction, methodology, development of the topic and conclusions. The development of the topic must to contain subsections to present the ideas in order. The text must be correctly cited and must contain the authors opinions as a contribution to the manuscript. In addition to undergoing the same rigorous level of academic peer review as research articles, review articles will be critiqued based on the overall impact of the topic being reviewed, the relevance of the topic, pre-existing reviews and the recognition of the authors in the area. The general format of the text, illustrations and references should follow the same standards required for research articles. Review articles will be published in the order of acceptance by the journal, a maximum of 1 review article per issue will be published. This implies that the journal will publish maximum 3 review articles per year.

ARTICLE SUBMISSION

Contributions must be submitted by the journal's platform on the page: https://revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/remevez/index. The corresponding author must register with a username and password to be able to enter and upload the manuscript files and the information of the rest of the authors. All authors must have an ORCID identifier at the time of entering their data on the platform. To create the ORCID you can enter the following link: https://orcid.org/register

Along with the manuscript, the forms of "Author Information form” (one per author) and of "Publication agreement form" must be attached, which must be signed by all authors. The forms can be downloaded at the jorunal home page:

https://revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/remevez/index

Format

The article text must be submitted in MS-Word®, without tables or figures, which shall be sent in separate files. It is recommended that the text is no longer than 25 pages, letter size, numbered consecutively at the bottom right corner with margins of 2.5 cm on each side. Lines shall be numbered consecutively. Use Times New Roman 12 pt font.

Tables and figures shall be number consecutively in the text using Arabic numbers and shall be sent inserted in MS-Word® files as well as in its original format (e.g. jpg o MS-Excel®). All tables and figures must be mentioned in the text. All tables and figures must have the sources when it corresponds.

Essential title page information

This part should be presented on a separate page from the rest of the manuscript. The title must be written in English and Spanish, in bold, and centered. If scientific names are used, they must be written using the binomial system. When applicable, the title should inform the animal species to which the manuscript refers. The name of the authors must be written under the title as follows: given name initials (with periods) follow by the last name with no academic titles. Each author is separated of the next one by a comma. The corresponding author will be identified with an asterisk. Each author’s affiliation shall be shown as a footer including address, city and country as well as the electronic address of the corresponding author.

Manuscript structure

It must contain the title of the manuscript in English and in Spanish (mandatory), in bold and centered without the name of the authors or affiliations (to guarantee the double-blind process in the academic review process). Additionally, the manuscript must contain the following sections in order:

Abstract and key words

Articles shall include an abstract in English and another in Spanish which must contain up to 250 words. The abstract shall include a brief description of all parts of the article including the objectives, materials and methods, results and discussion, and conclusions. The most important findings of the study should be highlighted in the abstract.

Key words (up to four) are terms for indexation of the article on databases and Internet search engines. They shall identify the article contents and. Key words shall be placed after the summary in each language. To select the key words it is recommended to consult the descriptors of the agricultural thesaurus Agrovoc of the Fao http://www.fao.org/agrovoc/es and DeCS https://decs.bvsalud.org/E/homepagee.htm and  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/mesh. These tools help select appropriate key words so that the article is more visible on the Internet.

Introduction

This section shall present a brief review of previous studies related to the topic of research and shall finish with a brief justification of the study and its objectives. The introduction shall not include data or conclusions of the study being described.

Materials and methods

This section must describe in clear, concise and logical form both the materials (animals, laboratory equipment, etc.) used as well as the detailed description of the techniques or protocols followed. This information given shall allow another research to be able to perform the same experiment(s) in detail. This section shall also describe the statistical treatment of the data and shall not include results or discussion of the results. Must include the statement of approval by an ethics committee for animal experimentation to which the project or research was submitted. Indicate the name of the ethics committee (institution, date, act number etc).

Results and discussion

This section shall describe the results in a logical order and in an objective and sequential fashion with the help of tables and figures. This section might include subheadings and shall not discuss the data presented. The results and discussion must be presented in the same session in an orderly manner, discussing each result after it is presented. The discussion shall be a synthesis of the comparison of the observed data against published relevant literature with an interpretation of the similarities and differences found. It will focus on the interpretation of the experimental findings and shall not repeat information presented in the introduction or the results sections. In some cases, it is possible to combine the results and discussion sections in one.

Conclusions

This section describes the most relevant findings of the research conducted, that is, those that make a significant contribution to the advancement of the specific topic investigated. It shall also point out towards future research needed.

Conflict of interests. When it can be reasonably perceived that issues outside the investigation affect the neutrality or objectivity of the work or its evaluation. Authors must declare that they have no relationships of commercial or personal interest within the framework of the research that led to the production of the submitted manuscript. The corresponding author is responsible for the co-authors to review and declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Funding. The types of support or grant received should be described, such as financing, sponsorships, scholarships or equipment supply, among others. For example: “This work was supported by the Natural Sciences Research Council [project number].

Acknowledgements

When necessary, acknowledgements can be given in this section to people or institutions that helped with the satisfactory development of the study being reported.

References

For referring publications in the text, the Council of Science Editors (CSE) style must be used: “author(s) year” system shall be used for one or two authors: (Jiménez 2009), (Pineda y Rodríguez 2010); if the publication has three or more authors the last name of the first author is cited with the latin expression et al. in italic: (Bernard et al. 2003). When more than one reference is cited they shall be organized in alphabetical order, separated by a semicolon (;): (Hänsel and Gretel 1990; Hergé et al. 1983). When the author is cited within the sentence the same notation shall be used but with the year in brackets: Wagner (1982) found out that water wets but Vivaldi and Pergolessi (1988) do not agree. The complete references shall be included at the end of the article according to the format described below. When two or more references of the author are cited they shall be listed in chronological order starting with the oldest one. All references to scientific articles must have the “Digital Object Identifier” (DOI) indicated at the end

Contributions that do not comply with the references’ requirements will be returned to the authors without consideration for publication.

The use of other sources of information such as thesis, graduate work or memories of events is not recommended. Authors are encouraged to use as source of consultation documents that are in indexed databases and preferably that have DOI assigned

For more information about the Council of Science Editors (CSE) style:

http://www.scientificstyleandformat.org/Tools/SSF-Citation-Quick-Guide.html

• Book

     Gilman AG, Rall TW, Nies AS, Taylor P. 1990. The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics. 8th ed. New York: Pergamon Press. 1811 p.

• Book chapter

     Diaz GJ. 2001. Naturally occurring toxins relevant to poultry nutrition. In: Leeson S, Summers JD editores. Scott’s Nutrition of the Chicken. 4th ed. Guelph: University Books. p. 544-591.

• E-Book

     Rollin, BE. 1998. The unheeded cry: animal consciousness, animal pain, and science [Internet]. Ames(IA): Iowa State University Press; [Citado 2008 agosto 9]. Disponible en: http://www.netlibrary.com.

• Journal article

     Hepworth PJ, Nefedov AV, Muchnik IB, Morgan KL. 2010. Early warning for hock burn in broiler flocks. Avian Pathology 39:405-409. Doi: 10.1080/03079457.2010.510500.

     Please note that the initials of all author’s given names must be included. For journal title abbreviations: 

http://www.zxlei.cn/science/isi/M_abrvjt.html

• Journal article or document published only online

     Leng F, Amado L, McMacken R. 2004. Coupling DNA supercoiling to transcription in defined protein systems. J Biol Chem [Internet]. [citado 2007 July 24]; 279(46):47564-47571. Disponible en: http://www.jbc.org/cgi/reprint/279/46/47564.

Tables

-   Too large tables shall be avoided. If there is too much information in a table, it is recommended to split it in two or more.

-   Each table shall have a short but explicative title on top (without abbreviations and with a period at the end).

-   No vertical lines shall be included in the tables.

-   Any additional explanation to the table shall be presented as a note at the bottom.

-   Column titles shall be short but explicative.

-   Each table must be referenced in the text.

-  All tables must indicate the source of the information, if the source is not declared, it is assumed that they are the result of the work that is being published.

Figures

-   Figures must be black and white with grayscale to show variations. The following symbols can be used for graphs: p, ¢, ˜, ¿, ◊, ™, £, ∆.

-   Photographs or maps (either originals or scanned) must be sent as individual files, in tiff or jpg format and a minimum of 600 dpi of resolution. Additionally, these graphs must be sent embedded in a MS Word® file with the title of the figure at the bottom.

-   Figures shall be numbered with Arabic numbers, consecutively and each one must be referenced in the text.

-  Each figure must have a short and explanatory title at the top, without abbreviations

-  All figures must indicate the source of the information, if the source is not declared, it is assumed that they are the result of the work that is being published.

Nomenclature

-   Units must be expressed in the International System of Units (SI).

-   Authors must follow the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, the International Code of Nomenclature of Bacteria, and the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature.

-   All living organisms must be identified with the binomial system, except for common domestic animals.

-   Drugs, biocides and all substances of commercial use shall be named by the active chemical ingredient or generic name (not the commercial name).

-   For chemical notation authors must follow the rules of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry and the Commission on Biochemical Nomenclature.

Other Requirements

• Italic font must be used for Latin names (binomial system) and words or expression written in a different language.
• The meaning of abbreviations must be explained in full the first time they are used. Afterwards use only the abbreviation.
• Abbreviations do not have a plural form: one NGO, two ELISA.
• SI abbreviations shall not have a period at the end or be written in plural or upper case letters: 1 kg, 25 g, 10 cm, 30 m, etc. Please see: https://bit.ly/3n5W8Qp
• Always insert a space between the numeric value and the symbol: 35 g (not 35g), p > 12 (not p>12); except for the signs %, +, - (these last two when meaning positive and negative). For example: 99%, +45, -37.
• In a series of measurements the symbol goes at the end. For example: 3, 6 and 9 m (except for the percentage sign which is always written: 14%, 16% and 18%).
• The slash bar (/) is a linguistic sign used sometimes instead of the word per: ten chicks /pen, 4 tablet/d, 10 fruits/branch. This symbol can be used in a no linguistic context to express quotients of measurement and unit magnitudes: 80 km/h, 10 ml/min, 10°C/h.
• The sign period can be used in a no linguistic context to indicate multiplication. In this case it is used separated and in the middle: 6 · 3 = 18; 2 · (x + y) = 30.
• En English language the period (.) is used to separate decimals and the comma (,) to separate thousands.
• Name-based units must be written in lower case (for example: one siemens), except when they are derived from a proper name: °C, degrees Celsius.

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS 

Authorship. Only a person who has made a significant and substan­tial contribution to the manuscript shall be included as author. This contribution shall include his/her participation in tasks such as the conception of the experiment and the experimental design, raw data collection, data validation, writing, review and editing, data reduction, analysis and interpretation of results, application of the appropriate statistical model, elaboration of the manuscript and bibliographical search. Every author shall be able to explain his direct involvement with the manuscript and be able to defend its contents if the Editorial Committee so requires. Including honorary authors (improper author contribution) is considered unethical and unacceptable. Contribution of each author in the manuscript must be declared in the "Author information form". The addition or deletion of authors will not be accepted except in cases in which an applicable legal or ethical justification is demonstrated and only if approved by the Editor of the journal.

Ethics committee approval: All research that uses animals in their experimentation, must declare in the materials and methods section, the Ethics Committee for experimentation with animal’s approval (name of the ethics committee, act and date of approval).

Manuscript submission. Documents submitted for evaluation and possible publication must not be submitted to other journal(s) simultaneously. This voids its originality and compromises the publication rights.

Manuscript integrity. Fabrication or making up results through instrument, materials or research processes manipulation, changing or omitting results or data, plagiarism (citation of his/her own or other’s results without clarification according to citation rules), fragmented submission (submission of fragments as independent articles, also known as “salami science”) are all considered unethical practices and are unacceptable.

Manuscript evaluation. Reviewers will only accept to review manuscripts that are within their area of expertise. Their opinions shall be objective and based only on academic and scientific grounds, without any personal consideration. During the evaluation process the reviewer must keep the contents of the manuscript confidential and shall not assign the reviewing task to any other person (co-researcher, graduate student, etc.). If during the reviewing process the referee finds any conflict of interest or any ethical conflict, he/she shall stop the evaluation process and let the Editorial Committee know about this.

Conflict of interests. Authors need to declare that they do not have any commercial or personal interest with the research that resulted in the production of the submitted manuscript.

Acknowledgements. Any type of support received, including financial resources, scholarships, and equipment shall be mentioned and acknowledged.

Publication ethics

The Editors are committed to identify and avoid the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred. It would be considered a serious lack of ethics if the publisher allows the publication of articles in which any situation of misconduct has been identified. For this reason, the Editors will make use of the tools available to identify this kind of situations, including the application of software intended to identify plagiarism in every manuscript received. The Editorial Board will immediately reject any manuscript that has been identified to be engaged in any kind of scientific misconduct, reporting the corresponding evidence to the authors. In any event, the author should be given the opportunity to respond to any allegations.

The Editors of the journal shall ensure that the good editorial practices described in this statement are accomplished. This is an institutional commitment involving not only the journal itself but also the name and prestige of the “Universidad Nacional de Colombia” as publisher.

When needed, the Editors shall publish any corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies.

PEER REWIEW PROCESS:

All manuscripts submitted to the journal must comply with the presentation, style and citation standards of the journal described in this document. Otherwise, the documents will be returned and the peer review process will be postponed until the authors have made the pertinent correction.

In the first instance, the submitted manuscripts will be reviewed by the journal editor to determine if the manuscript is into the interest area, if so, the assignment and sending to academic peers will be approved through the double-blind modality with at least two evaluators by manuscript; otherwise, an email will be sent to the authors indicating that the article is not accepted to continue with the academic peer review process.

The evaluation by academic peers will try to identify the contributions to the scientific, technological or pedagogical innovation of the proposals, compared to the current state of knowledge in a discipline; the academic reviewers must give a concept of approval, modification or disapproval. In case of a divided concept by the evaluators, the manuscript will be sent to a third expert reviewer in the area to define if the manuscript is accepted or rejected. The Editorial Committee or the editor-in-chief may recommend or deny the publication of the manuscript, or request the correction of its form or material.

The criteria considered during the evaluation will be:

• Compliance with the style rules of the journal
• Relevance of content: the texts should address the issues that are relevant, directly or indirectly, for the understanding of any of the disciplines of health and animal production.
• Originality, novelty, relevance of the topic.
• Scientific quality: Appropriate methodologies must be used to the subject studied, be understandable and possible to reproduce.
• Rigor of argumentation: the works must have a coherent and logical formal thought.
• Methodological coherence: agreement between the problem statement, the objectives, results and interpretations.
• Conceptual clarity: correspondence between scientific or technical terms used in the thematic purpose.

If the articles are accepted for publication, the authors must correct them according to the observations of the peers and / or the editorial committee within the time allotted for it. The observations that are not accepted by the authors must have an appropriate support and sent in a document attached to the corrected manuscript indicating the page and the line number to which it refers, these changes and clarifications will be evaluated by the corresponding editor. The editor and editorial committee reserve the right to reject or accept materials submitted for publication.

The forms to complete the academic review of articles can be downloaded at the following links:

Personal data reviewer format

Research article evaluation format

Review article evaluation format

Case report evaluation format