Submissions

Author Guidelines

SUBMISSION OF THE MANUSCRIPT

Those interested in submitting their manuscripts should register as an author in the journal portal http://www.agr.una.py/revista/index.php/ria/user/register and enter the article submission system.

 This journal uses Open Journal Systems (OJS), a platform for the management of Open Access journals, so that each of the manuscripts submitted for consideration by the journal for publication must be sent through the platform.

 The journal INVESTIGACIÓN AGRARIA does not charge any fee related to the sending, postulation, review, publication, layout, indexation, or assignment of Open Access license (CC-BY).

TERMS

The submitted articles must be unpublished, that is, they were not previously published, nor were they postulated to another journal during the analysis process by the Editorial Board.

Starting in 2025, the journal will be bilingual. All manuscripts approved for publication will be translated and published in English, in addition to the original language. Papers originally in Spanish and Portuguese will be translated into English, and papers originally in English will be translated into Spanish.

Articles should be accompanied by a letter signed by the main author (see Annex), stating that all authors are responsible for the content of the article, that the article was not submitted to another journal for publication, the contribution of authors, declaration of having received or not financial support, the availability of data and explaining the main contributions of the article to the advancement of knowledge in the area of Agricultural Sciences for which it is submitted.

FORMAT

The text should be written in pages A4 size (210 mm x 297 mm) with margins in the upper part, bottom and left of 3.0 cm and of 2.0 cm in the right. All pages should be numbered in the lower right margin, justified alignment, with 1.5 spacing between lines and font type Verdana, size 11, maximum 16 pages, including tables and figures inserted in the body of the manuscript. The electronic document must be sent in MS Word® format. Photographs should be sent preferably in JPEG or JPG format.

MANUSCRIPT STRUCTURE

The names of the sections must be aligned to the left, written in bold capital letters and accented with no endpoint, separated by two spaces below the last line of previous text and one space of the subsequent line. It should have the following sequence: SUMMARY, ABSTRACT, INTRODUCTION, MATERIALS AND METHODS, RESULTS AND DISCUSSION, ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS and REFERENCES.

TITLE: It should be clear, concise and contain less than 80 characters or 25 words. The title should be centered at the top of the page in all its breadth, with initial capital letter, bold, and without using endpoint. Should not contain calls to footnotes, asterisks, or indexes. If it contains subtitle, it should be written after the title, separated by a point, with the first letter capitalized.

Scientific names in the title should be used when strictly necessary, but it is advisable to use them as keywords and in other sections of the manuscript, following the international nomenclature code.

Below, two spaces from the Spanish title, it will be written in English with the same standards.

Example:

Germinación de Bletilla striata (Thunb.) Rchb. f. en medio líquido y evolución de plantas en medio semisólido

Germination of Bletilla striata (Thunb.) Rchb. f. in liquid medium and plant evolution in semi-solid medium

Author(s): It is accepted up to 10 authors per article. The names of the authors should be written below the title, they will be written in capital letters only in the first letter of the names, centered across the width of the page, in bold, in the following order: first name, middle name, if any, last name, mother's maiden name and ORCiD. If there are two or more authors, the same system is used to identify each one. In the case of two authors, the names are separated by the conjunction "and"; while in the case of three or more authors semicolon is used to separate the names between the first and second, and the conjunction "and" between the penultimate and last name. Example: Karina Elizabeth Rasche Álvarez, Celino Duarte Ruíz y Carlos Javier Rojas Garcete.

The way in which a female author is identified in her writings is a personal decision, although it is suggested to use the full maiden name.

At the end of each name progressive numerical indices will be added, one of the authors should be identified as a correspondent, adding an asterisk next to the index number.

Below the line of the author(s), it will specify, for each index, the name of the institution and the official address. When two or more authors work in the same institution and dependence, a single index (in each name) will suffice.

Under the clarification of the indices, * Corresponding author will be written, followed by the email address in brackets.

ABSTRACT. It must be written in a single paragraph with a maximum of 250 words. It must contain a brief introduction with a rationale based, objectives, methodology of work, the most important results and conclusions. When possible, it should present the main results quantitatively; it is better to write "The Curiyu genotype presented 587 seeds per fruit, followed by Kambuchi and Hohenau with 489 and 482 seeds respectively" that "Curiyu genotype had a higher number of seeds per fruit than Kambuchi and Hohenau".

In the subsequent line of the summary, there should be written three to five keywords that identify the content of the work and enable indexing. It is recommended to start the key words with the scientific name of the species and continue with others in alphabetical order. Example:

Palabras clave: Lycopersicon esculentum, Rhizoctonia solani, damping-off.

Key words: Lycopersicon esculentum, Rhizoctonia solani, damping-off.

The ABSTRACT and the Key words contain the English translation of the Summary and the key words.

Regardless of the language of the text, it is mandatory the presentation of the summary in English (Abstract). If the language of the article presented was not Spanish, the Spanish version of the summary should precede the Abstract.

The INTRODUCTION should be clear and concise, and contain background or foundation with relevant and updated references so that the reader can understand and evaluate the study results without need to consult previous publications. In the final paragraph it is recommended to clearly state the objectives of the investigation.

Citations must be relevant and updated. When authors are the subject of the sentence the system Author (year) will be used; example: Brenes (2008), Rodriguez & Salas (2009). When the citation is not subject of the sentence, the author and the year is written in parenthesis,  in cases that in brackets are include more than one citation, they will be separated by semicolon; example: (Brenes, 2008; Rodriguez & Salas, 2009.). Note that in each sentence, the citations are presented chronologically by year of publication. 

MATERIALS AND METHODS should contain information and required details so the work can be repeated and referred by another researcher. Instruments and equipment used must be identified if they are known or described in other cases. Information on the used study design and details of work in the field are recommended and, when appropriate, a brief description of the analysis of the data obtained. In some cases it will be necessary to include references that expand or detail the information of some method.

The methods provided in this chapter must be complete and match the objectives of the work and the analysis presented in the chapter Results and Discussion.

Mathematical and chemical formulas should be written according to the international nomenclature. Chemicals in general must be submitted by technical names or referring to the active principle. The use of trade names of any product will not be allowed; however, if it were essential, it will consist as footnote page.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The results should contain concise presentation of data, including statistical information necessary to evaluate the validity thereof. When presented as tables will not be submitted as figures, or vice versa.

Tables and Figures are self-explanatory, contain titles that are understood without resorting to the text and should define the symbols used in them. Table and Figure terms are written in bold with the first letter capitalized and the rest in lower case, the numbers must be in sequence with Arabic numerals with a point at the end. The title text is written with the first letter capitalized and the rest lowercase, except when uppercase should be naturally. The second and subsequent word line must be aligned below the first letter of the word in the title and single spaced lines. The title of tables is located at the top of the table, while the title of the figures placed at the bottom. All tables and figures should be cited in the text.

Example:

Table 4. Average final height of sesame plants treated with various chemicals. San Lorenzo, Paraguay, 2009.

It is recommended that the discussion follows the presentation of each result. A good discussion interprets and compares the results with relevant and updated references or with the original purpose of the investigation; it is concise and does not deal with irrelevant issues, exposes theoretical consequences of the work and its possible practical applications or limitations.

CONCLUSIONS should be based on the evidence presented and interpret the work in the context of the original problem. It should not repeat results points and discussion or include irrelevant material; the conclusion is not a summary of the results. The verb tense should be the present tense.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, where appropriate, they should be succinct, direct and not mentioned in any other part of the job.

REFERENCES should include only works cited in the text. They should be ordered alphabetically. Where possible you should avoid citations of personal communications, abstracts and papers already accepted but not yet published.

The presentation of citations and drafting of the references shall be according to the APA style, 6ta. Ed. (2017), available on the site:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wAdmR4lczSl3Aljrfvp16k40wdMIuVHp/view?usp=sharing 

Write each reference, according to the type of publication (article, book, etc).

GENERAL RECOMENDATIONS

Writing numerals should be done with Arabic type. Numbers from zero to nine, tens and whole hundreds must be written in full, example: seven treatments, sixty foci. Arabic numerals will only be accepted in the sequences of numbers less than nine when representing levels of studied factors such as dose, timing or alike, for example, 2, 5 and 8 min. Fractions shall be indicated in Arabic numerals, for example, 14/19, except when they are from one to ten, for example, three quarters.

Use the International System of Measurement Units (ISM) and their abbreviations, whenever possible. It lists some of the most common. Volumes in cubic meters (m³) and the liter (L). The unit of mass is the kilogram (kg) or gram (g), although the ton (t) is accepted. The unit of area is the square meter (m²), although hectare (ha) is used without restrictions. For measurement units containing numerator and denominator, use negative exponents in the denominator.

For example kg ha-1 instead of kg/ha. The time unit is second (s), but minute (min), hour (h) and day (d) are accepted. The unit of force is the Newton (N), the temperature indicated by Kelvin (K) in the International System of Units, while Celsius degree (°C) is accepted. The mole to the material is recommended, avoiding gram equivalent (e), Normal (N) and normality. Part per million (ppm) and parts per billion (ppb) are not part of the ISU, use mg dm^-3 or μg dm^-3 and atmosphere, pound per square inch (psi), mm Hg and bar as the ISU unit for pressure is pascal (Pa). Separate values of measurement units for one space: 25 kg and not 25kg; except when percentage or °C is used, 25%, 25°C. In the notation of numbers in Spanish-language publications, use periods to separate thousands, example 2.000. Decimals are separated from the whole by a comma (,), for example: 1.962,78. No point is used in abbreviations: IICA and not I.I.C.A., UNA and not U.N.A.

Download the journal publication rules, in PDF (spanish) 

REVIEW AND EVALUATION PROCESS BY PEER

All submitted manuscripts will be reviewed in the first instance by the Editor, considering the relevance, depth of the work and compliance with the publication rules. If the evaluation is positive, the Editor will notify the authors that their manuscript has been received and will be submitted to the editorial process.

In the editorial process, the Editor will submit the manuscript to the evaluation of two specialist reviewers of the area. The review will be done anonymously, under the double blind modality, the reviewers will determine if the article will be published without changes, with modifications or rejected. In case of discrepancy between reviewers, the Editor will send the manuscript to a third referee. The comments of the reviewers will be communicated to the corresponding author.

The decisions that may occur as a result of the reviews may be:

Publicable without modifications,

Publicable with modifications, minor changes that do not make a second round of revision necessary.

Publicable with modifications, major changes that condition the publication of the manuscript, the author is obliged to attend to all the suggestions made by the arbitrators. Condition that must be addressed so that the manuscript is accepted for publication.

Reevaluable, major changes that condition the publication of the manuscript, is obliged to a second round of review by the reviewers. This process can be repeated up to a maximum of 3 (three) rounds, if at this point the manuscript is not yet recommended for publication, it will be rejected without option to a new shipment.

Not publishable, when the pairs or arbitrators unanimously recommend the non-publication of the manuscript, for duly justified reasons in the evaluation. The author will be able to send a letter of reconsideration arguing the points that were questioned in the evaluation, the same will be analyzed by the members of the editorial committee.

The time for the manuscript to obtain a decision from the editorial committee will be based on the number of manuscripts on the waiting list

The author will have 15 (fifteen) working days to make the corrections and return the manuscript via the system (OJS). The manuscript will be sent to EDICION TECNICA to corroborate whether the recommendations of the arbitrators were incorporated or not into the manuscript. At this stage the technical editor may suggest adjustments that will be put back to the author's consideration.

Once the manuscript is accepted for publication, you will be notified with a letter of ACCEPTANCE.

The concepts, information and conclusions contained in the works are the exclusive responsibility of the authors. The Editorial Board of the journal reserves the right to introduce modifications in the received manuscripts to adapt them to the publication norms, with the commitment that they do not alter the sense of the same.

Annexed - LETTER FROM THE AUTHOR

Señor

Editor de la Revista Investigación Agraria

Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias

Universidad Nacional de Asunción

Me dirijo a usted para solicitar la publicación del trabajo titulado: _______________________________________ La principal contribución del artículo es ________________________________________________________________________________

Por la presente manifiesto que este manuscrito es de mi autoría y de ________________________ (mencionar los nombres de los coautores, sí los hubiere) y que no ha sido publicado, ni se encuentra actualmente sometido a ningún arbitraje en ningún otro medio de difusión científica ni de otro tipo y que los datos que en él se consignan, son originales y fueron obtenidos de fuentes fidedignas.

De igual manera manifiesto que entre los coautores (en caso de haberlos) no existe ningún tipo de conflicto y han otorgado su pleno consentimiento para la publicación, aceptando todo lo establecido dentro la Política Editorial y de Publicación de la Revista Investigación Agraria. Nos comprometemos a respetar el veredicto del Cuerpo Editorial.

Atentamente,

Firma

Nombre completo: _______________________________

Institución: _____________________________________

Correo Electrónico: ______________________________

Teléfono (incluir código de área): ___________________

Fecha de remisión: ______________________________

FILE, AUTO-FILE, RIGHTS

Submitted version of the manuscript

Since you cannot simultaneously submit your manuscript to another journal, it is clarified that submissions to Agricultural Research are not subject to any type of embargo, during their evaluation or after publication.

Accepted version of the manuscript

Submissions to Agricultural Research are not subject to any type of embargo, during their evaluation, after their acceptance, or publication. Once accepted for publication, the author grants the journal the first publication rights to his manuscript under the Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 Attribution License.

Published version of the manuscript

After the publication of a manuscript in Agricultural Research, the articles acquire a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 Attribution License, freeing the entire community to:

Share: copy and redistribute the material in any media or format.

Adapt: remix, transform and build on the material for any purpose, even commercially.

Attribution and condition: It must grant appropriate credit (cite source: authors and journal), provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes have made. This could be done reasonably, but in no way suggesting that the licensor endorses you or its use.