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Guide for authors

 
FILES TO DOWNLOAD
Guide for authors in a PDF file: SSA_GUIDE_FOR_AUTHORS.pdf
Article template: SSA_template_ENG.doc



OPEN ACCESS STATEMENT
Soil Science Annual is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access.



COPYRIGHTS AND CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSE STATEMENT
The copyrights for the articles belong to authors. The articles in Soil Science Annual journal are open access articles distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY NC ND 4.0) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).



ETHICS IN SOIL SCIENCE ANNUAL
Both authors and reviewers are requested to become acquainted with the Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement applied in Soil Science Annual, available at: http://www.soilsa.com/Publication-ethics,1876.html

The mechanisms have been introduced in Soil Science Annual to combat the “ghostwriting” and “guest authorship” phenomena. “Ghostwriting” is a phenomenon where someone has made a substantial contribution to the publication, without revealing his participation as one of the authors or without mentioning their role in the acknowledgments. “Guest authorship” (“honorary authorship”) occurs when the author's share is negligible or even non-existent, and yet they are the author or co-author of the publication.
"Ghostwriting" and "guest authorship" phenomena represent scientific dishonesty. In order to counteract these phenomena, Editors require authors (1) to disclose the contribution of all authors in the creation of the publication and (2) to determine the role played by the author when preparing the publication (this information is provided in the Editorial System when submitting the article to the editorial office). Authors are also required to insert in their articles, information about the sources of funding, contribution of research institutions, associations and other entities.


GENERAL INFORMATION

Papers which were not previously published in other journals should be submitted. The Soil Science Annual publishes original and review articles written in English. The authors should consistently use American or British English throughout the text. Editors recommend that the text of the article is checked before submission by a native speaker in order to avoid stylistic and grammatical errors.
Once editors or reviewers recognize that a manuscript is written in poor English, such manuscript will be sent for a proofreading to native English speaker with author’s additional contribution 50 EUR (that cost will be added to the total cost of publication). The proofreading will not be done if the Authors make it on their own and send us a certificate of linguistic correction from proofreading company or responsible person if made it on own way.
In exceptional cases (e.g. when the issue of the article is very domestic in nature), the papers written in Polish language will be published. The volume of the text should not exceed 70,000 characters including spaces. References are not included in this volume.

Complete articles (including manuscript, tables, figures, etc.) should be submitted via the Editorial System https://www.editorialsystem.com/soilsaen . In order to log in to the system for the first time, you must first create a new account.

During the article submission, authors are asked to propose at least three potential referees. Please send us the following information about the potential referees: scientific title (degree), first name and surname, affiliation, email address. Any referee should not be related with the author in any way, either personally, or professionally (e.g. referees should be affiliated in another institution to the author).



During preparation of the article, authors should be sure that:
• the scientific problem presented in the article relates to soil science,
• the article is structured like a typical scientific article, that includes following sections: introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion (or results and discussion), conclusions, acknowledgments, and references,
• the title is as short as possible, and at the same time, fully reflects the article,
• the abstract presents the objective of the research, the main results and conclusions concisely,
• keywords are relevant; keywords should be generally different that words in the title,
• the objective of the study is well-specified,
• results and conclusions are supported by the data presented in tables and figures,
• conclusions are clearly defined,
• the references cited in the paper are related to the research topic,
• only the necessary results discussed in the text are presented in tables and figures,
• figures are of very good quality and clearly show the results of research,
• the article is written in good English.


PUBLICATION FEE

Authors should pay for publication of an article in the Soil Science Annual journal.

Members of the Soil Science Society of Poland
Publication of an article, in which a SSSP member is the first and/or corresponding author, containing up to 6 pages costs 150 EURO (+ tax) (pages after technical editing, i.e. in the final version of the article available in PDF format; the article consisting of six pages in this form should contain up to 42,000 characters with spaces, excluding tables and figures). Each additional page requires a surcharge of 25 EURO per page (+ tax).

Non-members of the Soil Science Society of Poland
Publication of an article, in which a SSSP non-member is the first and/or corresponding author, containing up to 6 pages costs 240 EURO (+ tax) (pages after technical editing, i.e. in the final version of the article available in PDF format; the article consisting of six pages in this form should contain up to 42,000 characters with spaces, excluding tables and figures). Each additional page requires a surcharge of 40 EURO per page (+ tax).

Students and PhD students – members of the Soil Science Society of Poland – can publish their articles FOR FREE, if the following conditions are fulfilled:
• the first author of the publication is a student or a PhD student,
• any number of students/PhD students can be a co-author of the article,
• no more than one person who is not a student or a PhD student is allowed to be a co-author of the article (preferably, if it is a promoter or scientific tutor of a student/PhD student).
Students and PhD students who want to take advantage of free publications are asked to send scan of a statement that they are students or PhD students to ssa@ptg.sggw.pl. The statement should be legibly signed by the student/PhD student and his/her promoter/tutor.

Students and PhD students – non-members of the Soil Science Society of Poland
Publication of an article costs 70 EURO (+ tax), (regardless of the number of pages) if the following conditions are fulfilled:
• the first author of the publication is a student or a PhD student,
• any number of students/PhD students can be a co-author of the article,
• no more than one person who is not a student or a PhD student is allowed to be a co-author of the article (preferably, if it is a promoter or scientific tutor of a student/PhD student).

Articles in which figures containing high quality images can fit on one page (in the final version of the article) are without additional charge. Publication of an article containing more pages with such figures may require extra payment. The Editorial Office will contact in this case if necessary. In order to reduce the cost of the publication containing more than one page containing high quality figures, there is a possibility to publish colour figures in the electronic version of an article, and their black and white counterparts in the hard copy of the article. Please contact the Editorial Office for details on the additional fee for each (black and white) figure. Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to choose their preferred option. The figures should be prepared according to the instructions presented below in the section "PREPARATION OF FIGURES".

Fees for the article should be paid upon acceptance of an article for publication. Authors will be informed about the charge after the preparation of the final version of an article by the Technical Editor.
The appropriate amount should be transferred to the account of the Polish Society of Soil Science:
Bank name: Bank Millennium S.A. in Warsaw
Bank address: ul. S. Żaryna 2A, 02-593 Warszawa, Poland
IBAN: PL 24 1160 2202 0000 0000 5515 6900
SWIFT: BIGBPLPW (or BIGBPLPWXXX, if 11 characters are required in the transfer system)
All charges related with bank account transfer must be covered by the author. The author must provide the surname of the first author and the note: "Publication in SSA" in the transfer title.


PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPT

The Editorial system allows you to choose one of the following article types: Original paper, Review paper, Short communication, Letter to the Editor, and the Other paper.
Articles should be prepared in MS Word (DOC, DOCX or RTF format is accepted). The authors should use the article template available at http://ssa.ptg.sggw.pl/files/SSA_template_ENG.doc. Please do not send articles saved as PDF files. The manuscript should be written in one column aligned to the left, font Times New Roman size 12 pt, double spacing, spacing before and after paragraphs 0 points, all margins of 2.5 cm. Information in footnotes should be avoided in the manuscript. To avoid unnecessary errors the authors are strongly advised to use 'spell-check' and 'grammar-check'.
The file containing the manuscript should be called the name of the first author. The lines in the manuscript should be numbered continuously throughout the manuscript.
The paper should contain the following sections: abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion (or ‘results and discussion’), conclusions, acknowledgments, and references. Latin names (e.g. species names) must be written in italics.
The sections should be numbered (e.g. 1. Introduction; 2. Materials and methods; 2.1. Study area; 2.2. Analytical methods etc.) excluding ‘Acknowledgments’ and ‘References’ sections.


The manuscript must be prepared according to the following arrangement.

Title page:
• the name(s) of the author(s) written ‘as in the sentence’ (not in CAPITALS); the name of the author, to whom the correspondence should be addressed, must be marked with an asterisk *,
• the affiliation(s) and the address(es) of the author(s) in the following order: university (or institution), the institute, the department (the division), address (street, post code, city, country); in the case of works prepared by many authors with different affiliations, select it using numbers in superscript (1) given after the author’s name,
• a concise and informative article title written "as in the sentence" (please do not use CAPITALS throughout the title) without a full stop at the end of the title,
• the data of the corresponding author: please provide scientific degree/title, email address, ORCID iD, telephone and/or fax (upon request by the author),
• the short title (running head), which will be included in the headline of the article (up to 80 characters including spaces written "as in the sentence"); short title does not have to be an exact copy of the original title of publication,
• the abstract,
• keywords (up to 6 keywords written starting from capital letters and divided by commas, e.g. Chernozem, Soil organic matter, Soil genesis).

Abstract: A text up to 500 words should include the aim of the research, key findings, and the most important conclusions. The abstract should not contain any undefined abbreviations or unspecified references. Polish-language authors who prepare an article in English should provide an abstract in English, while an abstract in Polish in this case is not mandatory.
Introduction: It should briefly present the current state of knowledge involving the topic of the research on the basis of a literature review on the subject. It should provide a clear hypothesis or thesis. It should justify the selection of the studies, and contain a clear idea of the objective of the research. It should not contain general statements or basic information widely known.
Materials and methods: This section should describe the area, object and methodology of the research. Information on materials and methods of the research should be presented so that other researchers can repeat the procedure and obtain comparable results. With regard to the standard methods, please give references to literature, and describe only the necessary details and modifications, then provide a source of standards (if they have been used), number of repetitions, type and manufacturer of the equipment used, equipment setup parameters during the analysis, the methods used for statistical analysis of results, etc.
Results: This section presents a description of the results presented in tables and/or illustrated in figures. In the case of a large database of numbers, as far as it is justified, these data should be subjected to statistical analysis. The description must include the most important relevant results. Please provide only these figures and tables that are necessary to clarify the issue. The same results should not be presented simultaneously in tables and figures. Please note that the accuracy with which the results are presented depends on the accuracy of the method.
Discussion: In this section, the author objectively and critically interprets and compares the results, taking into account the limitations of the methods used. The discussion should answer the questions, whether the problem is resolved, and the aim of the study met. Please, specify the logical conditions of the results and suggest a direction for future research. Results and discussion can be presented in two separate sections, or in one combined section ‘Results and Discussion”, if it is reasonable. The 'Discussion' section should be divided into subsections if needed.
Conclusions should be clearly stated (preferably in bullet points) and based on the results presented and discussed in the article. Conclusions should specify new scientific findings.
Acknowledgments should take into account institutions financing the research projects, whose results were presented in the article. Project numbers (IDs) should be provided. Acknowledgments should also be extended to people and institutions which contributed to the article. The names of funding organizations should be written in full.
References should be prepared according to the instructions given below.
The title, abstract and keywords in Polish are not necessary in papers written in English, but can be placed in such articles (this applies to Polish-language authors). The abstract should include the objective of the research and the main results and conclusions.

Units, symbols, abbreviations: SI units are accepted. In appropriate cases, the following units may be used: °C, t (tonne), ha (hectare). Examples of combined expressions used in the text, tables and figures: g kg–1, mg dm–3, kg m–2 h–1, g CO2 m–2 h–1, Fe2+. In the case of the numeric ranges, the author should use dashes (–), not hyphens (-), for example: 2010–2012, not 2010-2012. Please do not add space between dashes and numbers. Abbreviations should be defined at first mention and used consistently thereafter. The % sign after the number should be written without a space (e.g. 10%, not 10 %).

REFERENCES
Citation in the text: name(s) of the author(s) and year of publication should be given in round bracket, e.g. (Henderson, 1982; Gonet and Wegner, 1994; Smith, 1999, 2001; Kowalski et al., 2018). If the number of authors is more than two use the first author and the note "et al." (Brzychcy et al., 2012). The citations should be arranged in chronological order when referring to more than one citation (Johnson, 2002; Smith and Johnson, 2014). If the author has published several papers in one year, it should be presented by adding the letter "a", "b", etc. after the year of the publication, e.g. (Smith, 1994a, 1994b; Jones, 2001a, 2001c). That letter should be used in the list of references as well. The semicolon should be used as a separator of each citation. Citing information from website the entry (website 1; website 2) should be used, and the list of references cited should include website as shown below. Acts should be cited in the text in the following way, for example: (Waste Act, 2012), (Regulation MARD, 2009), or in similar manner.
Citation in the list of references: All publications cited in the text must be listed alphabetically in the following convention: the surname(s), name initials, year, title of the article or chapter, a journal (or the title of the book, in which the chapter was published), volume, issue, pages or the total number of pages in the compact publication. Author names SHOULD NOT BE written in CAPITALS. Please do NOT abbreviate titles of periodicals.
If there are more than 10 authors, only the name of the first author should be given followed by ‘et al.’, year, title etc., e.g.: Kabała, C. et al., 2019. Polish Soil Classification, 6th edition – principles, classification scheme and correlations. Soil Science Annual 70(1), 71–97.
Titles in Polish or any language other than English can be given in the original version and/or translated into English (the translation should be given in brackets). All the names of the authors and titles of publications cited coming from countries where non-Latin alphabets (e.g. Cyrillic or Chinese) are used, should be provided in the transcription into Latin alphabet or translated into English. Please avoid citing textbooks if not needed. Bibliographical notes in the list of references should be written using simple letters (do not use bold and italics). Acts should be translated into English and cited in the manner shown below.
Authors should give the link with DOI number if possible.

Examples of citations in the list of references:
1. Jeske, A., Gworek, B., 2012. Distribution and mobility of vanadium in profiles of forest soils of various texture. Roczniki Gleboznawcze – Soil Science Annual 63(2), 14–18. (in Polish with English abstract) https://doi.org/10.2478/v10239-012-0017-0
2. Gonet, S.S., Wegner, K., 1994. The effect of mineral and organic fertilization on properties of soil humic acids. [In:] Senesi, N., Miano, T. (Eds.), Humic substances in the global environment and implications on human health. Elsevier, Amsterdam, 607–612.
3. Henderson, P., 1982. Inorganic geochemistry. Pergamon Press, New York.
4. website 1: http://www.ptg.sggw.pl/
5. website 2: http://isip.sejm.gov.pl/VolumeServlet?type=wdu
6. Ustawa o odpadach, 2012. Ustawa o odpadach z dnia 14 grudnia 2012 r. z późn. zmianami. Dz.U. 2013 poz. 21. http://prawo.sejm.gov.pl/isap.nsf/DocDetails.xsp?id=wdu20130000021
7. Waste Act, 2012. Waste Act of December 14, 2012. Journal of Laws of Poland. No. 2013 Item 21. http://prawo.sejm.gov.pl/isap.nsf/DocDetails.xsp?id=wdu20130000021
8. Rozporządzenie Rady Ministrów, 2012. Rozporządzenie Rady Ministrów z dnia 12 września 2012 r. w sprawie gleboznawczej klasyfikacji gruntów. Dz.U. 2012 poz. 1246. http://prawo.sejm.gov.pl/isap.nsf/DocDetails.xsp?id=WDU20120001246
9. Regulation of the Council of Ministers, 2012. Regulation of the Council of Ministers of September 12, 2012 on soil classification of land. Journal of Laws of Poland, No. 2012, Item 1246. http://prawo.sejm.gov.pl/isap.nsf/DocDetails.xsp?id=WDU20120001246
10. Rozporządzenie Ministra Środowiska, 2016. Rozporządzenie Ministra Środowiska z dnia 1 września 2016 r. w sprawie sposobu prowadzenia oceny zanieczyszczenia powierzchni ziemi. Dz.U. 2016 poz. 1395. http://prawo.sejm.gov.pl/isap.nsf/DocDetails.xsp?id=WDU20160001395
11. Regulation ME, 2016. Regulation of the Minister of the Environment of September 1, 2016 on how to assess the pollution of the land surface http://prawo.sejm.gov.pl/isap.nsf/DocDetails.xsp?id=WDU20160001395


PREPARATION OF TABLES
Tables should be placed at the end of the file containing the text of the article, so that each table is on a separate page.
Tables should be numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals and taken into brackets, e.g. (Table 1). The table number (e.g. Table 1) and the title should be placed above the table, and an explanation below the table. In the case of Polish-language works, the text in the tables and explanations of the table should be in Polish and English.
Note that, ultimately, the table should fit within a column with dimensions of 17.4 cm (width) × 23.5 cm (height). Minimum font size is 8 points. Only the necessary vertical lines should be applied in the tables. To separate the decimal places in the text a period is used (e.g. 10.2).


PREPARATION OF FIGURES
Each figure should be saved as a separate TIFF, JPG, PDF files or MS Excel files if that program was used to prepare a figure. Resolution of figures and photographs (saved as TIFF or JPG) should be at least 300 dpi. If the figures are made in MS Excel, they should be sent to the Editor as original MS Excel files. Each figure made in the Statistica program should be saved as TIFF, JPG or PDF file.
All figures should be numbered with Arabic numerals, and the names of the files containing the figures should be short and clear (e.g. Fig. 1).
The authors provide figures in the target size (i.e. in the size in which they would like to include them in the article). Descriptions of the figures must be clear. Font size and thickness of the line used in the figures should be big enough to maintain the clarity of descriptions (the authors should take into account the reduction of font size and thickness in a journal format). One column in the article has dimensions of 8.4 cm (width) × 23.5 cm (height), while the entire page has dimensions of 17.4 cm (width) × 23.5 cm (height). Please adjust the font size and line thickness used in the figures to these dimensions. We recommend that the size of the fonts after printing a figure in A4 format should not be smaller than 8 points.
Figure captions should be provided at the end of manuscript.
There is a possibility to publish coloured figures in the electronic version of the article and their black and white counterparts in the hard copy. If you choose this option, the figure should be saved as two separate files equally prepared. Please note that some of the items shown in coloured figures may be less recognizable in black and white version. In this case, the authors should clearly indicate such elements as arrows, numbers or letters, and then explain the signs used in the figure caption.


CONDITIONS OF ADMISSION OF ARTICLE AND COURSE OF THE EDITORIAL PROCESS

A scheme of the editorial process used in Soil Science Annual (SSA) can be found at http://ssa.ptg.sggw.pl/files/EDITORIAL_PROCESS_EN.pdf.
The entire editorial process in SSA is done by means of Editorial System. An article submitted for publication in SSA will be initially evaluated by Associated Editors for formal cases (structure of the manuscript, content and language). In the case of non-compliance with the requirements contained in the GUIDE FOR AUTHORS, the manuscript will neither be processed nor stored. A rejected manuscript can be re-submitted for publication after the amendments unless the Editorial Board decided otherwise. Manuscripts that meet the initial requirements will be sent to review. Blind peer review is used in the journal (i.e. the reviewer becomes acquainted with the name and address of the author, but the data of the reviewer are not disclosed to the author). Reviewers are requested to put their comments in the files and in the review form. Based on the review, editors decided to accept a manuscript for publication, or to reject it. In the case of acceptance for further consideration, the review forms and articles containing the reviewer’s comments are sent to authors in order to revise the article. Authors should make corrections in files (please activate the "track changes" option in MS Word file). Any comment made by the reviewer directly to the text of the manuscript should be deleted. The author is obliged to send the revised manuscript, tables, figures, etc. to the Editor. Improved file containing the text of the article and corrected tables should be submitted in two identical files: one with changes marked, and the second "clean" version (i.e. without changes marked). Author should include a detailed reply to the reviewer’s and the Editor’s comments in the review form. Upon acceptance of a manuscript for publication and its preparation by technical editors, the author will receive an information containing the manuscript in PDF format and will be asked for a final proof-reading. Particular attention should be paid to the data in tables and figures. The PDF file with author’s comments and corrections should be returned within 5 days. Upon acceptance of an article for publication, the authors are asked to pay a fee for publication.


SUMMARY (CHECKLIST)

Before submitting an article to Soil Science Annual journal, the author should ensure that:
1. manuscript, tables and figures have been prepared strictly according to this “Guide for Authors”,
2. the lines in the manuscript should be numbered throughout the manuscript.
3. the submitted manuscript contains the following sections: abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion (or results and discussion), conclusions, acknowledgments, and references,
4. the author to whom correspondence should be addressed, gave her/his email address, ORCID iD and optionally a telephone and/or fax number,
5. manuscript is well edited, both stylistically and grammatically,
6. publications presented in the list of references and cited in the text are formatted strictly according to this “Guide for Authors”,
7. all publications listed in the list of references are cited in the text (and vice versa).
 
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