ISSN 0258-5936
printed version
ISSN 1819-4087
online version

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

• Scope and policy
• Form and preparation of manuscripts
• Sending of manuscripts

Since 1979, the quarterly scientific journal «Cultivos Tropicales» has been issued by the National Institute of Agricultural Sciences (INCA), located in San José de las Lajas, Mayabeque, Cuba. Accredite by CITMA since November 22, 2007. It publishes nonedited articles, short communications, report of new varieties and bibliographic reviews, with the results of agricultural investigations conducted in our institution and others of Cuba and abroad within the Tropics and SubTropics. This journal is addressed to researchers, professors, specialists, technicians and students dealing with the agricultural branch, and it comprises the following specialties: sustainable agriculture, agroecology, agromatics, bibliometrics applied to agricultural sciences, biofertilizers, agricultural biotechnology, edaphology, abiotic stresses, crop Physiology and Biochemistry, Agronomy, crop genetics and breeding, local agriculture innovation, applied mathematics, plant nutrition, bioactive products, irrigation and drainage

Editing formats are literature reviews or reviews in three columns, two columns scientific papers and resports of new varieties occupy a single page.

This journal is published either in Spanish or English, always with abstracts in both languages, with corresponding keywords on the first page and the data of authors and forms of corespondence with them. Papers are firstly revised by the editor, so as to check if they fulfil the patterns established for graphs, pictures, tables and bibliography; once they have accomplished the requirements of our journal, papers are registered in the entry book to be further subjected to a blindly peer review, a process by which authors and reviewers remain anonymous up to the end. Reviewers are PhDoctors and Masters of Sciences from national and foreign institutions, who accept or reject the papers and provide the authors with adequate suggestions.

The experiments should present every factor influencing its results, as well as its repetitions, the experimental design and statistical methods employed.

The title of tables and graphs should be numbered by Romans and Arabics respectively; also they may show the results from the statistical analysis applied to data processing.

The text should not repeat the information of tables and graphs.

Scientific papers should have: a title (Spanish and English), two abstracts (250 words each in both languages), up to five key words (in both languages), Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion, Conclusions and Acknowledgements (if necessary), as well as Bibliographic References. Regarding Short Communications, they should contain relevant information, even though it is repeated in time; they mainly consist of three pages with a similar structure to scientific papers. Reports of New Varieties fill only one page of the journal containing two abstracts (250 words each in both languages), up to five key words (in both languages), Introduction, Origin and Description, with no bibliography, whereas Bibliographic Reviews should have two abstracts (250 words each in both languages), up to five key words (in both languages), Introduction, Conclusions and References; some Reviews must reckon with the author’s criteria related to the subject.

REFERENCES

Each scientific paper must fulfil Price’s index, that is, 60 % of all bibliographies should correspond to the latest five years, following the ISO 690 pattern for convencional papers whereas ISO 690-2 for electronic ones.

When it is a bibliographic review, references should not have to accomplish 60 %; however, it is important that it provides new scientific contributions.

Original papers must contain at least 15 bibliographic references, 50 % out of which from foreign scientific journals mainly pertaining to the current stream.

Self-quotation should not reach 20 % of the literature quoted (allowable rank).
Internet quotations should be restrained to a minimum and only refer to truly recognized sites registered by a copyright licence.

The references inside text are cited by consecutive numbers in parentheses (1), but personal communication citations, dissertations, reports and other documents not published or not indexed in the literature appear only as footnotes, indicating with superscript letter and without parentheses^A.

Once the text is edited, a pdf offprint is sent to the author by e-mail to be checked and consent for its publication. Finally, the author will have an available offsprint.

The journal provides a copyright cession agreement with every author, either for the printed or electronic version including Internet.

PDF with detailed information

Authors from other institutions should send their text files on Word format, after their papers have been approved by the corresponding authorities to be published, besides clearly explaining that such papers have not been sent to any other journal; also, authors should transfer their copyright to our printed/electronic journal, and present a letter signed to prove authorship.

The essential author’s data are: full name and filiation (scientific category, scientific degree, department, institution, postal address and e-mail).

Images, pictures, and graphs must be sent by separate files; pictures and images (.jpg or .tif) with a 300 dpi resolution or higher (good quality) whereas graphs must fulfil the following requirements:
. Size: 8 or 16 cm
. Well defined axis lines (vigorous looking)
. Numbers, axis texts and footnote size 9 (no bold type)
. No third dimension
. These original files should also be inserted in the Word text.