GUIDE TO AUTHOR(S)
Manuscripts/articles submitted to the Journal must be original work that has not been published or under consideration for publication elsewhere. The manuscript must be written in good English and should not be more than 20 pages length inclusive of tables, figures and illustrations. All submissions will be peer reviewed. Each submission must include a short cover letter that clearly states the significance of the work presented in their manuscript. The abstract and conclusion section must also highlight what is new and/or novel in the paper.
All authors are requested to disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest of the submitted work including any financial or other relationships with people or organisations within three years.
1. Regular article
Definition: Full-length original empirical investigations, consisting of introduction, literature reviews, materials and methods, results and discussion, conclusions. Original work must provide references and an explanation on research findings that contain new and significant findings.
Preferable Size: Preferably not exceeding 5000 words (excluding the abstract, references, tables and/or figures).
2. Short communications
Definition: Significant new information to readers of the Journal in a short but complete form.
Preferable Size: Preferably not exceeding 2000 words, and is intended for rapid publication. They are not intended for publishing preliminary results or to be a reduced version of Regular Papers or Rapid Papers.
3. Review article
Definition: Critical evaluation of materials about current research that have already been published by organising, integrating, and evaluating previously published materials. Reanalyses as meta-analysis and systemic reviews are encouraged. Review articles provide systemic overview, evaluation and interpretation of research in a given field.
Preferable Size: Preferably not exceeding 4000 words.
The paper must be in British English.
Manuscripts/articles should be headed by a concise title. Please include the full name(s) of the authors(s), complete mailing address, telephone and fax numbers as well as e-mail address. In case of multiple authorship, please specify the main author to whom all correspondence concerning the paper should be directed.
Where the family name may be ambiguous (e.g. double name), please specify this clearly. Present the authors’ affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names. Specify all 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 the e-mail address of each author, if available.
Clearly state who will handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also post-publication. Ensure that phone numbers (with country and area code) are provided in addition to the e-mail address and the complete postal address. Contact details must be kept up to date by the corresponding author.
Define abbreviations that are not standard in this field in a footnote to be placed on the first page of the article. Such abbreviations that are unavoidable in the abstract must be defined at their first mention there, as well as in the footnote. Ensure consistency of abbreviations throughout the article.
Please list not more than five keywords for indexing purposes.
An abstract of not more than 250 words is to accompany the manuscript. The abstract should encapsulate the research objective(s), the methodology or Materials and Methods and findings.
1. MS Word with format A4 paper.
2. Font Arial, size should be 12 pt. and 1.5 spacing with 1” margin for each side.
3. Main title: CAPITAL.
4. Sub-title: Upper lower case.
5. Table should be numbered and have appropriate titles.
6. All Tables, Figures, Appendix cited in the text must be in italics e.g. Table 1.
7. Leave space between numbers and units, e.g. 20 ha, 5-8 ml, kg m-1.
8. Metric unit of measurements or the international system of units should be used.
A brief acknowledgment should be included at the end of the manuscripts/articles before the list of references. List here those individuals who provided help during the research (e.g., providing language help, writing assistance or proof reading the article, etc.).
1. Each reference cited should be from an original source. Secondary sources should be cited together with the original references.
2. Authors are to provide hyperlinks to all articles referred to in the List of References.
3. The MPOB House Style of citation should be used in the text. e.g. Name of authors(s) (Year of publication). Title or article. Abbreviated name of journal (italics), volume (italics), first and last page of article. Salmiah, A; Zahariah, I and Jasmin, S (1998). Palm-based sulphonated methyl ester soap. J. Oil Palm Res., 10(1): 15-35
4. The reference list should be in alphabetical order by first authors. There is no numbering.
1. Tables should be on separate sheets and properly numbered. The same applies to figures, diagrams and other illustrations.
2. Tables must not duplicate material in text or figures.
3. The word TABLE and the remainder of the table heading should be in capitals.
4. Each table should have a brief title; explanatory notes should be in the legend, not in the title.
5. Tables should only have three horizontal lines.
6. Non-significant decimal places in tabular data should be omitted.
7. Short or abbreviated column heads should be used and explained if necessary in the legend.
8. Table footnotes should be listed in order of their appearance and identified by standards symbols: *, ‡, § for three or fewer; for four or more, consecutive superscript lower case letters should be used (e.g., a, b, c, etc.).
9. Authors are encouraged to view a recent issue of the Journal for table layouts.
1. All illustrations should be cited consecutively and referred to in the text.
2. All photomicrographs should be supplied with a suitable scale.
3. All illustrations should be numbered in sequence with Arabic numerals, in order of appearance in the text, as Figure 1, Figure 2, etc. Terms such as ‘Chart’ or ‘Plate’ should be avoided.
4. The word ‘Figure’ and the caption should be italicised.
5. High resolution digital photographs (>300 dpi) are acceptable.
6. All graphics should be in JPEG format.
OPIEJ is pleased to provide authors with template, in both Word and PDF formats, to aid with submissions. The templates can be found at the below link.
Word: Download OPIEJ Template
PDF: Download OPIEJ Template
All manuscripts/articles will be referred to appropriate reviewers. Authors are encouraged to nominate possible reviewers, but the final say would be with the Journal’s Committee.
One set of proof will be sent to the corresponding authors for printer’s errors checking and it is under the responsibility of the author(s) to submit corrections (if any) to the editor within the stipulated time.
Copyright of articles belongs exclusively to Oil Palm Industry Economic Journal (OPIEJ). This copyright covers the rights to reproduce the article, including reprints, electronic reproductions or any other reproductions of similar nature.
Here is an example of a cover letter
To, The Editors “[write journal’s title here, ex: Oil Palm Industry Economic Journal (OPIEJ)]”
Subject: Submission of [Review Article, Original Article, Short Report, Case Series, Case Report, Letter to Editors], titled, ” [Type or copy/paste here the title of the manuscript] “.
We are submitting a [Review Article, Original Article, Short Report, Case Series, Case Report, Letter to Editors], titled ” [Type or copy/paste here the title of the manuscript] ” for consideration for publication in ” Oil Palm Industry Economic Journal (OPIEJ)”. I, [Insert name of the corresponding author here] (Corresponding author) certify that:
- The manuscript is original work of all authors.
- All authors made a significant contribution to this study.
- This manuscript has not been submitted for publication and has not been published in any other journal.
- All authors have read and approved the final version of the manuscript.
Potential reviewers for this submission are: [Please suggest three potential reviewers with their e-mails]
Thank you
Sincerely,
Ensure that the following items are present:
(1) One author has been designated as the corresponding author with contact details:
- E-mail address
- Full postal address
- Phone numbers
(2) All necessary files have been uploaded, and contain:
- Keywords
- All figure captions
- All tables (including title, description, footnotes)
(3) Further considerations
- Manuscript has been ‘spell-checked’ and ‘grammar-checked’.
- References are in the correct format for this Journal.
- All references mentioned in the Reference list are cited in the text, and vice versa.
- Permission of using copyrighted material from other sources has been obtained.