Information for Authors

The Journal of Agricultural, Biological, and Environmental Statistics (JABES) publishes papers of immediate and practical value to applied researchers and statistical consultants in the agricultural sciences, the biological sciences (including biotechnology), and the environmental sciences (including those dealing with natural resources). Only papers that address applied statistical problems will be considered. Interdisciplinary papers as well as papers that illustrate the application of new and important statistical methods using real data are strongly encouraged.

For regular papers, a motivating example should be presented early in the paper. The statistical development should then be presented, and the results applied to the example. Expository, review, and survey articles addressing broad-based statistical issues are encouraged.

Presentation should be accurate, clear, and comprehensible to readers with a background in statistical applications. When necessary, detailed proofs, computer code, and other lengthy technical portions of a manuscript should be placed in an appendix so that they will not interfere with the primary focus on the paper, which is to be a discussion of the statistical methods and issues being addressed. Real data should almost always be used to illustrate the statistical applications being discussed.

Articles that have been previously published in a refereed journal or articles that are under review by another journal may not be submitted to JABES.

Each manuscript should be completely double-spaced, with one-inch margins and 12-point size letters. The manuscript should contain an abstract (see the abstracts paragraph) and from three to six key words or phrases (that do not appear in the title) in alphabetical order. For published manuscripts, these key words will be used, in addition to the title, for indexing in BIOSIS, Current Index to Statistics, Current Contents/Agriculture, Biology and Environmental Sciences (CC/AB&ES), The Science Citation Index, Science Citation Index Expanded, Agricultural On Line Access (AGRICOLA), and Compumath Citation Index.

Length of Manuscripts Normally, papers exceeding 25 pages in the style described above will be returned to the authors by the editor without review. Please note that the page limits include the appendixes, but not tables and figures. Papers appearing in the journal should rarely have more than six (6) tables or figures combined. Authors are strongly encouraged to be judicious in the use of tabular and graphical displays and should not combine what ought to be several tables or figures into very large single ones. Papers with an extreme number of tables and/or figures may be returned by the editor without review. It is recognized, however, that graphical depictions or images are essential for conveying the message in some substantive areas. In such circumstances, more figures than in the typical submission may be appropriate, and authors should note this explicitly in a covering letter. References to Web sites where additional figures, tables, or mathematical material (such as proofs) may be found are permitted.

General Comments on style Do not use footnotes, and avoid abbreviations. References within the text should give the authors’ names, followed by the year of publication in parentheses.

Mathematical material in the manuscript should be set using standard mathematical typography. This is normally done using LaTeX (and its variants) or mathematical typesetting options such as the Equation Editor or MathType in Word. Please ensure that matrices and vectors are always set in bold.

Complicated exponentials should be represented by the symbol exp(). Fractions in the body of the text (and when possible in displayed expressions) and fractions occurring in the numerators or denominators of fractions should be written with the solidus--for example, (a + b)/(c + d). Specific comments on mathematical material are provided in the ASA Style Guide, available from www.amstat.org/publications/index.cfm?fuseaction=style-guide.

Normally figures will be printed in gray scale or black and white. Color figures are extremely expensive to produce and JABES encourages authors to avoid color unless absolutely necessary. Extra page charges may be levied for color reproduction.

Detailed guidelines for preparation of figures and tables are provided in the ASA Style Guide.

Data and Programs Real, current data should almost always be used to illustrate the statistical applications being discussed. The source of the data must be fully documented. When it is not practical to include the whole dataset in the paper, the paper should state how the complete dataset can be obtained. Exceptions for reasons of security or confidentiality may be granted by the Editor.

Authors are strongly encouraged to upload the data analyzed, and copies of the computer programs used in the analysis, so that these can be accessed by readers of the journal. How to do this is explained at http://www.amstat.org/publications/jabes/upload/index.cfm?fuseaction=main.

References References should be listed in alphabetical order at the end of the manuscript after any appendixes, but before any tables and figures. Each reference should contain, in the following order, the last name and initials of the author followed by those of coauthors, year of publication, title of reference, source, volume number, and page. Do not abbreviate journal titles. Reference to books must include the publisher’s name and location. Only list references actually cited in the text. The use of inessential, unpublished or obscure references is discouraged. Personal communications are listed in the text only. Other details for listing and citing references are given in the ASA Style Guide.

Electronic Files Once a paper has been accepted for publication, the author will be asked to forward an electronic copy of at least the text. Therefore, in order to save time and expense, it is highly recommended that the original manuscript be created in the electronic format in which it will be sent. To save both the author and JABES editing time, we urge that electronic files be sent in formats according to the following order of preference:

1. LaTeX (preferred) or TeX.
   
2. Word or WordPerfect.
   
3. All other formats, one copy in original format, one saved as ASCII text.
   

Submitting Revised Manuscripts Revised manuscripts that are resubmitted more than six months after the last action by the editor may be considered as new submissions.

Papers to Appear A list of accepted manuscripts will be posted to the JABES Web site at http://www.amstat.org/publications/jabes/papers.shtml.

Copyright JABES is copyrighted and authors must sign a copyright transfer before their articles are published. U.S. government employees are exempt from this requirement if the work is part of their official duties.

If you have any questions of style or graphics questions, please contact Eric Sampson, (317) 490-8792; fax: (858) 712-8902; E-mail: eric.sampson@insightbb.com.