Instructions for authors are provided by The New Zealand Society of Animal Production (NZSAP). The Australasian Dairy Science Symposium Committee thank NZSAP for there support in making the instructions available. Please see recent issues of New Zealand Society of Animal Production as an example of layout.
Peer review
Every manuscript will be peer reviewed by two referees and the editor before publication. Reviewers will be asked to evaluate and comment on the scientific content and merit and the correctness of presentation of text, illustrations and references. The senior author, in preparation of the final copy of the paper, will respond in writing to the editor on any criticism/suggestion made by the reviewers and how these have been dealt with.
Length of paper
For the four paper categories, the length of papers is as follows:
1. invited review papers (10 printed pages including tables and figures and captions, c. 6000 words, including tables and figures and captions)
2. invited oral papers ( 6 printed pages including tables and figures and captions , c. 4000 words)
3. offered papers accepted as an oral presentation (20 minutes) (4 printed pages including tables and figures and captions, c. 2500 words, including tables and figures and captions)
4. offered papers accepted as a thumbnail presentation (3 minutes) (4 printed pages including tables and figures and captions, c. 2500 words, including tables and figures and captions)
The submitted copy of the manuscript should be 1.5 line spaced 12 point Times Roman text printed on one side of an A4 page, followed by figures and tables with their captions printed one per page.
Title
The title should be brief, accurate and informative. It should be typed in bold lower case.
Short title
You must provide a short, informative title of less than 35 characters for the page header.
Author name(s)
Author’s initials and last names should be in upper case characters with a full address of the first author. This may include division or department within the organisation responsible for the work. Addresses of authors from other organisations should be indicated by a numerical superscript and listed one per line below the list of author’s names with each author’s name annotated with the appropriate superscript included after the last name before the following comma.
Abstract
The Abstract should be clear, descriptive and constitute one paragraph of not more than 250 words. It should be informative, intelligible when divorced from the paper and devoid of undefined abbreviations, equations, and reference citations. The Abstract should include results with measures of variance and identify any new techniques or concepts, ending with a conclusion or mentioning a direct application.
Keywords
Keywords are relevant for the use of abstracting agencies. They should be derived from the whole manuscript and listed below the Abstract. Use a lower case letter to start each word, separate each listed “word” with a semicolon and finish with a full stop.
Introduction
This section should define the area of research, summarise previous relevant work and precisely state an experimental hypothesis or reason for the study.
Materials and Methods
These should be described clearly and succinctly. Sources should be identified and methods referenced where possible. New methods must be validated. Statistical procedures must also be adequately described or referenced.
Results
This section should contain original information with supporting tables and figures without references or discussion. Tabular material and figures should be utilised to avoid detailed textual descriptions.
Discussion
The contents of the Results section should be related to those of previously published studies and then pragmatically interpreted. Anomalous or unexpected results should be explained. The Discussion should finish with a conclusion or recommendation.
Acknowledgements
Institutions and the untitled names and affiliations of those supporting or assisting the study can be acknowledged along with the source of funding to undertake the reported investigation.
References
(Brown, 2001), Brown (2001), (Brown et al., 2001), Brown et al. (2001) and Brown & Blue (2001) are examples of the appropriate style of citing references within the text.
Where these forms of citation result in duplication as with a listed author having more than one publication in a single year being cited, the references should be distinguished with a lower case letter after the year written as 1984a and 1984b. The lettering sequence will be based on order of appearance in the Reference list.
Citations are to follow the Harvard System. In the text they are to be in alphabetical order by quoted author's name and year of publication, and in the list at the end of the paper in alphabetical order of all author’s last names. When listing a reference with two or more authors, do not insert "and" or "&" before the last name. In those cases where duplication of a listed reference occurs in the text as a consequence of the use of et al. the lower case letters used to distinguish the references should be included in the Reference list.
Titles of periodicals should be quoted in full using italics. Use lower case, except for proper nouns. The title should be followed by volume number and, if appropriate, a space before listing the part number in brackets. Both the volume and part number to be written in bold and not italicised, a colon and the page numbers not written in bold and not italicised followed by a full stop. Particular attention should be paid to the spelling and accentuation of non-English words. Compare with originals where possible. Titles of books should not be italicised or placed in inverted commas. The name and location of the publisher should be given with an indication of the pagination of the paper in the book or the total number of pages in the book. Examples of different forms of listing references are listed here.
McEwen, J.C.; Clarke, J.N.; Knowler, M.A.; Wheeler, M. 1989: Ultrasonic fat depths in Romney lambs and hoggets from lines selected for different production traits. Proceedings of the New Zealand Society of Animal Production 49 : 113-119.
Merriam, G.R.; Wachter, K.W. 1982: Algorithms for the study of episodic hormone secretion. American journal of physiology 243 : E310-E318.
SAS. 2005: SAS/STAT Software. Release 9.11. SAS Institute, Cary, North Carolina, USA.
Coyne, M.J.; Smith, G. 1994: Trichostrongylid parasites of domestic ruminants. In: Scott, M.E.; Smith, G. ed. Parasitic and infectious diseases: Epidemiology and ecology. Academic Press, San Diego, California, USA. pp 235-247.
Note: For book pagination pp = pages and p = page.
Unpublished work or personal communications should be acknowledged in the text, but excluded from the Reference list. You may cite unpublished data if you have a copy of it as referees may ask to see it. A personal communication will be accepted only with a signed letter of verification from the person named. These should be quoted in the text as (A.B. Smith, Unpublished data) or (A.B. Smith, Personal communication). Papers accepted for publication elsewhere should be cited as in press. "In preparation" and "submitted” are not acceptable reference forms. Referees may ask you to supply any reference cited that is not available in the public domain.
Tables
Each table must be essential to understanding the text and should stand alone and be understood without reference to the text. They should be numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals and referred to in the text. The manuscript should be marked with “[Insert Table n about here]” on a line by itself to indicate placement of each Table. In submitted manuscripts each Table, with its caption, should be printed on a separate sheet and placed after the References. If a paper is based on extensive analytical data, a small section of indicative representative analyses should be selected to indicate the unpublished range on which the paper is based. The numbers of columns in a table should, except under extenuating circumstances, allow a table to fit in portrait on a single page. Abbreviations in the Table should be explained in the caption or in a footnote to the Table. Descriptive notes should be kept to a minimum. Units of measurement should be placed in column headings. The caption should be written as “ TABLE 1 :” followed by the title written in lower-case characters preceding the table.
Figures
Each figure must be essential to understanding the text and should stand-alone and be understood without reference to the text. They should be numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals regardless of whether they are photographs, line drawings or graphs, and each must be referred to in the text. The manuscript should be marked with “[Insert Figure n about here]” on a line by itself to indicate placement of each Figure. In submitted manuscripts each figure, with its caption, should be printed on a separate sheet and placed after the Tables which follow the References. Abbreviations in the Figure should be explained in the caption or in a legend as part of the Figure. The caption should be written as “ FIGURE 1 :” followed by the title written in lower-case characters preceding the Figure.
Figures will be printed at the smallest size consistent with clarity and compatible with page format. The page size is 72 mm width for single column, 148 mm width for double column and maximum depth of 202 mm. Use a reducing photocopier to check the clarity of your Figure at the size it will be printed, before submitting it.
Lettering in figures should be in sans-serif type (such as Arial) with only the first letter of the first word of each label, and of any proper names, capitalised. Names of all hydrographic features and of generic and species names should be italicised. Always clear patterns away from areas of type, and avoid mixing typefaces on the same figure.
For graphical figures, there should be no more than six values on either axis with grid marks pointing outwards. Axis labels for both horizontal and vertical, should run parallel to the axes, from left to right and from bottom to top. State the value being measured followed by its appropriate SI unit in brackets. Use only left vertical and bottom horizontal lines with no boxes or frames.
Parts of composite figures should be labelled “(a), (b) and (c)”. The style of the figures within any one paper should be as closely matched as possible.
DO NOT use colour or grey shading. Maintain a high contrast.
Photographs and line drawings
Scan at more than 300 dpi. Bar scales on photographs are preferable to stated magnifications. Lettering and bar scales should never be applied directly to the surface of photographs being scanned but instead on a clear overlay to facilitate clarity.
Statistical analysis
Adequate description of the data, and of the experimental design, should precede and complement formal statistical analysis. Deviations from the intended design must be described. The method of statistical analysis should be selected after consideration of the original experimental design, treatment structure, and anything unexpected or unusual noticed during the experiment. When data has been transformed, so that the assumptions of the statistical analysis are satisfied, this should be stated. Summary statistics should be accompanied wherever possible by estimates of their precision.
Means will usually be accompanied either by the standard error of mean (SEM), or by the standard error of differences between means (SED), together with a note of the number of replicates used. Confidence intervals, usually at the 95% level, or least significant differences (LSD) are equally acceptable. If emphasis is on the spread of the data values, rather than on the precision of the mean, then the standard deviation (SD) or the range may be given. Levels of statistical significance which can be mentioned without further explanation are * P <0.05, ** P <0.01 and *** P <0.001.
Submission of final corrected manuscript for printing
Following peer review and adjustment of the manuscript as requested by the reviewers and the Editor, the final copy of the paper for publication should be forwarded to the Editor by the advertised date as an electronic file using either email. The text and tables should be saved as a Microsoft Word file with figures saved separately as a JPG, TIFF or BMP file, without inclusion of the caption. Label files as “Peterson#55Text.doc” or “Peterson#55Fig2.jpg”.