Submissions

Author Guidelines

Below are the files you will need during the submission. Please do not use any other type of file.

Required files for submission:

• Title page template
• Manuscript template
• Conflict of interest
• Response to reviewers
• IJPBP EndNote style

Please Note: The authors are responsible for the content of the articles published in IJPBP. IJPBP does not accept any responsibility for the content of the article.

Types of paper​

1. Original research papers​

Original full-length research papers that have not been published previously, except in a preliminary form and should not exceed 7.500 words from introduction to conclusion (excluding references) (additional tables and figures can be submitted as supplementary material).

2. Review articles​

Review articles in fields related to the journals' Aims & Scope will normally focus on literature published over the previous years and should not exceed 10.000 words from introduction to conclusion (excluding references). If it is felt absolutely necessary to exceed these numbers (tables, figures, references), please contact the editorial office (info@ijpbp.com) for advice before submission.

3. Short communications​

Short communications of up to 3.000 words from introduction to conclusion (excluding references), describing work that may be of a preliminary nature but merits publication.

4. Letters to the Editor/Commentary​

Letters are published from time to time on matters of the scope of the journal.

Ethics in publishing

The publication of an article in a peer-reviewed journal is an essential building block in the development of a coherent and respected network of knowledge. It is a direct reflection of the quality of the work of the authors and the institutions that support them. Peer-reviewed articles support and embody the scientific method.

It is therefore important to agree upon standards of expected ethical behavior for all parties involved in the act of publishing: the author, the journal editor, the peer reviewer, the published and the society of society-owned or sponsored journals.

The total similarity rate of the articles sent to IJPBP should not exceed 25% and the similarity rate to each source should not exceed 5%.

Conflict of interest

All authors must disclosure any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. Examples of potential competing interests include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations and grants or other funding. Authors should present the conflict of interest statement in the manuscript right after the 'Acknowledgement' section. If there is no interests to declare, please choose: ‘Conflict of interest: none’. This summary statement will be published within the article if accepted.

Submission declaration and verification

Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract, a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or any other language, including electronically without the written consent of the copyright-holder. To verify originality, your article may be checked by the originality detection service Crossref Similarity Check.

Use of inclusive language​

Inclusive language acknowledges diversity, conveys respect to all people, is sensitive to differences and promotes equal opportunities. Articles should make no assumptions about the beliefs or commitments of any reader, should contain nothing which might imply that one individual is superior to another on the grounds of race, sex, culture or any other characteristics and should use inclusive language throughout. Authors should ensure that writing is free from bias, for instance by using ‘he/she’, ‘his/her’ instead of ‘he’ or ‘his’, and by making use of job titles that free of stereotyping (e.g. ‘chairperson’ instead of ‘chairman’ and ‘flight attendant’ instead of ‘stewardness’).

Author contributions

For transparency, we encourage authors to submit an author statement in the manuscript outlining their individual contributions to the paper using the relevant CRediT roles:

- Conceptualization
- Data curation
- Formal analysis
- Funding acquisition
- Investigation
- Methodology
- Project administration
- Resources
- Software
- Supervision
- Validation
- Visualization
- Writing
- Review & Editing​
- Writing original draft
- Writing-reviewing & editing

Authors statements should be formatted with the initials of the names of authors (e.g. T.H. for Thomas Hunt) and Credit role(s).

Changes to authorship​

All authors should have made substantial contributions to all of the following:

- The conception and design of the study or acquisition of data or analysis and interpretation of data.
- Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content.
- Final approval of the version to be submitted.

If all 3 of these conditions are not met, a person does not qualify as an author and any contribution made by them should be mentioned in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript.

Authors are expected to consider carefully the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript and provide the definitive list of authors at the time of the original submission. Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made only before the manuscript has been accepted and only if approved by the journal editor. To request such a change, the editor must receive the following from the corresponding author:

- the reason for the change in author list and
- written confirmation (e-mail, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement

In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed.

Only in exceptional circumstances will the editor consider the addition, deletion or rearrangement of authors after the manuscript has been accepted. While the editor considers the request, publication of the manuscript will be suspended. If the manuscript has already been published in an online issue, any requests approved by the editor will result in a corrigendum.

Copyright and licensing information

The Contributor(s) or, if applicable, the Contributor's Employer retains all proprietary rights, including copyright.

To learn about IJPBP's license terms, please click here.

Posting accepted and published works on websites and repositories

A digital file of the Accepted Work and/or the Published Work may be made publicly available on websites or repositories (e.g. the Author's personal website, preprint servers, university networks or primary employer's institutional websites, third party institutional or subject-based repositories, conference websites that feature presentations by the Author(s) based on the Accepted and/or the Published Work), and on Private Research Collaboration Groups.

Archiving policy

IJPBP uses LOCKSS for the archiving and preservation of its online content.

Role of funding source​

The corresponding author is requested to identify who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article and to briefly describe the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the article for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement then this should be stated.

Submission

The manuscript file prepared in .doc/.docx should be sent to IJPBP, together with the cover letter and all other attachments, if any, by using the online manuscript submission system.

Peer-review

This journal operates anonymized review process. All contributions will be initially assessed by the editor for suitability for the journal. Papers deemed suitable are then typically sent to a minimum of two independent expert reviewers to assess the scientific quality of the paper. The editor is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance of rejection of articles. The editor’s decision is final. Editors are not involved in decisions about papers which they have written themselves. Any such submission is subject to all of the journal’s usual procedures, with peer review handled independently of the relevant editor and their research groups.

Review Policy

The editor have the right to decline formal review of a manuscript when it is seemed that the manuscript

- is on a topic outside the scope of the journal
- makes no contribution to the advancement of the field of plant-based pharmaceuticals
- is lacking technical or scientific merit
- is focused on the plant-based pharmaceuticals that are of narrow regional scope and significance
- is fragmentary and providing marginally incremental results,
- reports only routine work (lacks novelty) or is poorly written.​

Please pay attention to the following points so that you can pass the editorial pre-check process smoothly:
- Name and surname of all the authors should be available.
- Affiliations of all the authors should be available.
- ORCID numbers of all the authors should be available.
- The postal addresses of the authors should be correct and up-to-date.
- E-mail address of the corresponding author should be available.
- The subject matter should be original.
- Abstract should begin with a rationale and have a maximum of 350 words.
- The number of keywords should be between 3-6.
- Introduction should be in enough length and has appropriate citations and an aim sentence.
- Experimental should be in enough length and detail and has appropriate citations.
- The name of the senior taxinomist and herbarium number of the plant should be available (if applicable).
- The plant extraction procedure (if applicable) should be sufficiently clearly defined.
- The results should be evaluated by statistical analysis methods.
- The scientific methods applied should be quantitatively sufficient in depth.
- The results should be clear.
- The language quality should be adequate.
- Figure resolutions should be adequate.
- All the headings should be numbered.
- Citations should not be numbered.
- The discussion should be of sufficient length and adequately compared with literature data.
- Conclusions should be clear and adequate.
- Acknowledgment should be appropriate (if applicable).
- Conflict of interest statement and document together with the manuscript should be available.
- Statement of ethics should be available (if applicable).
- Availability of data and materials section should be available.
- Funding information with the grant number should be available (if applicable).
- CRediT authorship contribution statement should be available.
- iThenticate similarity score should be acceptible.
- Supplementary file should be available (if applicable).
- References should be in correct format.

Use of word processing software​

It is important that the file be saved in the native format of the word processor used. The text should be in single-column format. Keep the layout of the text as simple as possible. Most formatting codes will be removed and replaced on processing the article. In particular, do not use the word processor’s options to justify text or hyphenate words. However, do use bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts etc. When preparing tables, if yo are using a table grid, use only one grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row. If no grid is used, use tabs, not spaces, to align columns. The electronic text should be prepared in a way very similar to that of conventional manuscripts. Note that source of files and figures, tables and text graphics will be required whether or not you embed your figures in the text. To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the ‘spell-check’ and ‘grammar-check’ functions of your word processor.

Article structure

Follow this order when typing manuscript: Title, Authors, Affiliations, Abstract (maximum 350 words), Keywords, Main text (Introduction, Material and Methods, Results and Discussion, Conclusion, Acknowledgments, Conflict of interest, CRediT authorship contribution statement, ORCID Numbers of the Authors, References, Tables, Figures and supplementary file (if any). The corresponding author should be identified with an asterisk and footnote. All other footnotes (except for table footnotes) should be identified with superscript numbers. The title of the paper should unambiguously reflect its contents.

Artwork

Electronic artwork

General points

- Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of your original artwork.
- Embed the used fonts if the application provides that option.
- Aim to use the following fonts in your illustrations: Arial, Courier, Times New Roman, Symbol, or use fonts that look similar.
- Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text.
- Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files.
- Size the illustrations close to the desired dimensions of the published version.
- Submit each illustration as a separate file.
- Ensure that color images are accessible to all, including those with impaired color vision.

Formats

If your electronic artwork is created in a Microsoft Office application (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) then please supply 'as is' in the native document format.

Regardless of the application used other than Microsoft Office, when your electronic artwork is finalized, please 'Save as' or convert the images to one of the following formats (note the resolution requirements for line drawings, halftones, and line/halftone combinations given below):

- EPS (or PDF): Vector drawings, embed all used fonts.
- TIFF (or JPEG): Color or grayscale photographs (halftones), keep to a minimum of 300 dpi.
- TIFF (or JPEG): Bitmapped (pure black & white pixels) line drawings, keep to a minimum of 1000 dpi.
- TIFF (or JPEG): Combinations bitmapped line/half-tone (color or grayscale), keep to a minimum of 500 dpi.

Please do not:

- Supply files that are optimized for screen use (e.g., GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG); these typically have a low number of pixels and limited set of colors;
- Supply files that are too low in resolution;
- Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.

Color artwork

Please make sure that artwork files are in an acceptable format (TIFF (or JPEG), EPS (or PDF) or MS Office files) and with the correct resolution. If, together with your accepted article, you submit usable color figures then our editorial office will ensure, at no additional charge, that these figures will appear in color online (e.g., ScienceDirect and other sites).

Figure Captions

Ensure that each illustration has a caption. A caption should comprise a brief title (not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used.

Tables

Please submit tables as editable text and not as images. Tables can be placed either next to the relevant text in the article, or on separate page(s) at the end. Number tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text and place any table notes below the table body. Be sparing in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in them do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article. Please avoid using vertical rules and shading in table cells.

References

Citation in text

Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Any references cited in the abstract must be given in full. Unpublished results and personal communications are not recommended in the reference list, but may be mentioned in the text. If these references are included in the reference list they should follow the standard reference style of the journal and should include a substitution of the publication date with either 'Unpublished results' or 'Personal communication'. Citation of a reference as 'in press' implies that the item has been accepted for publication.

In-text citation examples should be as follows: Smith, 2020; Smith et al., 2020; Smith & Johnson, 2020

Reference links

Increased discoverability of research and high quality peer review are ensured by online links to the sources cited. In order to allow us to create links to abstracting and indexing services, such as Scopus, CrossRef and PubMed, please ensure that data provided in the references are correct. Please note that incorrect surnames, journal/book titles, publication year and pagination may prevent link creation. When copying references, please be careful as they may already contain errors.

A DOI is guaranteed never to change, so you can use it as a permanent link to any electronic article. An example of a citation using DOI for an article not yet in an issue is: VanDecar J. C., Russo R. M., James D. E., Ambeh W. B., & Franke M. (2003). Aseismic continuation of the Lesser Antilles slab beneath northeastern Venezuela. Journal of Geophysical Research,https://doi.org/10.1029/2001JB000884.

Please note the format of such citations should be in the same style as all other references in the paper.

Web references

As a minimum, the full URL should be given and the date when the reference was last accessed. Any further information, if known (DOI, author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.), should also be given. Web references can be listed separately (e.g., after the reference list) under a different heading if desired, or can be included in the reference list.​

Data references

This journal encourages you to cite underlying or relevant datasets in your manuscript by citing them in your text and including a data reference in your Reference List. Data references should include the following elements: author name(s), dataset title, data repository, version (where available), year, and global persistent identifier. Add dataset immediately before the reference so we can properly identify it as a data reference. The dataset identifier will not appear in your published article.

References in a special issue

Please ensure that the words 'this issue' are added to any references in the list (and any citations in the text) to other articles in the same Special Issue.

Reference management software

Most of the journals have their reference template available in many of the most popular reference management software products. These include all products that support Citation Style Language styles, such as Mendeley. Using citation plug-ins from these products, authors only need to select the appropriate journal template when preparing their article, after which citations and bibliographies will be automatically formatted in the journal's style. If no template is yet available for this journal, please follow the format of the sample references and citations as shown in this Guide. If you use reference management software, please ensure that you remove all field codes before submitting the electronic manuscript.

Reference style

Text: Citations in the text should follow the referencing style used by the American Psychological Association (APA) 6 (IJPBP EndNote style).

List: 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.

Examples:

Reference to a journal publication:

Van der Geer, J., Hanraads, J. A. J., & Lupton, R.A. (2010). The art of writing a scientific article. Journal of Scientific Communications, 163(1), 51–59.

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(1), Article e00205.

Reference to a book:

Strunk, W., & White, E. B. (2000). The elements of style (4th ed.). Longman (Chapter 4).

Reference to a chapter in an edited book:

Mettam, G. R., & Adams, L. B. (2009). How to prepare an electronic version of your article. In B.S. Jones, & R.Z. Smith (Eds.), Introduction to the electronic age (pp. 281–304). E-Publishing Inc.

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 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.

Reference to a conference paper or poster presentation:

Engle, E. K., Cash, T. F., & Jarry, J. L. (2009). 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 software:

Coon, E., Berndt, M., Jan, A., Svyatsky, D., Atchley, A., Kikinzon, E., Harp, D., Manzini, G., Shelef, E., Lipnikov, K., Garimella, R., Xu, C., Moulton, D., Karra, S., Painter, S., Jafarov, E., & Molins, S. (2020). March 25. Advanced Terrestrial Simulator (ATS) v0.88 (Version 0.88). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3727209.

Journal abbreviations

Journal names should not be abbreviated.

Supplementary material

Supplementary material such as applications, images and sound clips, can be published along with your article to enhance it. Submitted supplementary items are published exactly as they are received (Excel or PowerPoint files will appear as such online). Please submit your material together with the manuscript (at the end of the manuscript) and supply a concise, descriptive caption for each supplementary file. If you wish to make changes to supplementary material during any stage of the process, please make sure to provide an updated file. Do not annotate any corrections on a previous version. Please switch off the 'Track Changes' option in Microsoft Office files as these will appear in the published version.

Proof correction

To ensure a fast publication process of the article, we kindly ask authors to provide us with their proof corrections within two days. Corresponding authors will receive an e-mail containing proof produced by our editorial office and will review this file and identify the sections to be corrected. We will do everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately. Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text, tables and figures. Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the editor. It is important to ensure that all corrections are sent back to us in one communication. Please check carefully before replying, as inclusion of any subsequent corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility.

Access to the final version of the article

The corresponding author will be notified and receive a link to the published version of the open access article at https://ijpbp.com/. This link is in the form of an article DOI link that can be shared via email and social networks.

Publisher’s Note: All claims expressed in the article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.