Guide for Authors

Please make sure to correct it before submitting the article in the journal format (referred to in the essay writing guide). Otherwise the article will be returned.
  Article submission guide
 

§  General principles

1.  The Journal of Medicinal Plants is published quarterly. This journal contains articles in the fields of Basic and Clinical Sciences related to medicinal plants, including Pharmacognosy, Pharmacology, Toxicology, and Pharmaceutics.

2.  Articles commonly fall into one of four main categories including review articles, research articles, short communication, and case report:

- Review article may be an authoritative overview of a field or a comprehensive literature review. Reviews are invited by the editor-in-chief, but a topic may be proposed by an author via the editorial office.

- Research article is original, unpublished primary research.

- Short communication must contain original and highly significant work whose high novelty warrants rapid publication.

- Case report includes a case study of the patient(s) that describes a novel situation or add important insights into the mechanisms, diagnosis, or treatment of a disease. The case report should contain 1500-2000 words with a structured abstract of 200 words maximum. The case report should comprise sections of Introduction, Case Presentation, and Conclusions in Abstract and Introduction, Case Presentation, and Discussion in Full text with not more than 2 tables or figures and up to 20 references.

3.  The articles should not have been published or submitted elsewhere.

4.  The corresponding author is responsible for the accuracy and completeness of the submitted information.

5.  In the first process, the submitted manuscripts undergo initial evaluation by the specialized executive board comprising a journaling expert, a statistician, and a section editor as well as an editor-in-chief to ensure that they meet essential criteria for publication in the journal. The submitted manuscripts are also evaluated in terms of plagiarism. Only those manuscripts that pass this initial review process will be forwarded to reviewers for further consideration. This process facilitates a quick decision-making process to inform authors and reduces the heavy burden of arbitration for reviewers. This journal is free of acceptance, rejection, and imposing any grammar and spelling corrections.

6.  All articles should be prepared in full conformity and compliance with ethics and specific statements in research ethics and have already obtained the Ethics Committee License.

7.  The signature of the corresponding author on behalf of all authors in the Commitment Form is required at the time of submitting the article. (Commitment Form)

8.  The name of the authors will be presented at the time of publication of the article as they were presented at the time of submission and no changes are made to the order and number of the authors.

9.  Articles that are not in accordance with the guidelines of this journal will not be submitted for review.

§  How to compose an article?

·     Language: Manuscripts should be in English (either British or American spelling). The past tense should be used throughout in describing the results, and the present tense in referring to previously established and generally accepted results. Authors who are unsure of correct English usage should have their manuscript checked by those proficient in the language; manuscripts that are deficient in this respect may be returned to the author for revision before scientific review.

·     Typesetting: Manuscripts must be typewritten in Times New Roman with a font size of 12 points, double-spaced (including Main text, References, Tables, and Figure legends) with 2.5 cm margins from each side.

·     Length: The maximum length for short communications, research articles, and reviews (including main text, tables, figures, and references) should not exceed 3000, 6000, and 9000 words, respectively. Any repetition of information in the text and illustrations and an excessive list of references must be avoided.

1.  Title: The title of the article must be concise and informative and typed in a bold font. The scientific name of the plant should be given in the title and keywords. The title should be followed by the authors’ full names and their affiliations identified by the use of Arabic numbers (1, 2, 3, etc.) in superscript format next to the authors’ names. The corresponding author should also be distinguished by the asterisk. The authors’ affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done or where an author was employed) should be presented below the names. Multiple affiliations are not acceptable.

·     The authors’ affiliation addresses include department (optional), institute or faculty, university, city, and country.

·     The corresponding author should be an academic member of prestigious centers and should use an academic email to send the article.

·     The corresponding author and first author must have an ORCID ID.

·     Abbreviations: It is necessary to mention the list of all common abbreviations used in the article on the title page as a footnote. Completely avoid mentioning self-made abbreviations.
 

• How to use the scientific names of plants: The first time which the name of the species is mentioned (in the title, abstract and the main text of the article), you must mention the scientific name of the species in full form (along with the author's name). In the following times, it will be mentioned as an abbreviation.

2.  Abstract: The structured abstract should be including of a background, objective, methods, results, and conclusion and express them in brief (between 150-250 words). This is also true for the abstract of the article in the other language.

·     Keywords: Five to seven keywords for indexing should be listed in order of importance in each abstract (English and Persian) and begin with capital letters.

·     Title and keywords are the two most important parts of a manuscript. The words or phrases used in the title or keywords should be selected wisely for wider dissemination of the article. It is better for the words in the title to be different from the keywords (except the scientific name). For example, authors can write the new name of the plant family (Apiaceae) in the title and the old name (Umbelliferae) in the keywords.

·     Graphical Abstract: A graphical abstract is a single, concise, pictorial, and visual summary of the main findings of the article. This could either be the concluding figure from the article or a figure that is specially designed for the purpose, which captures the content of the article for readers at a single glance.

3.  Introduction: Introduction states the objectives of the work and provides an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results. No sub-sections are allowed in this section. Focus on the novelty of the methodology employed and provide explicit reasons for the need to originate, develop, improve or compare methodologies (i.e. a justification of your work). Detailed reviews of the uses or biological activities of the plant materials studied and compounds derived are not required. The scientific name (in italic font) and authority of each plant species must be provided at first mention: thereafter, plant species may be referred to in an abbreviated form unless such an abbreviation is ambiguous.

• The maximum length for the introduction should not exceed up to 10% of the whole manuscript.

4.  Materials and Methods: This section provides sufficient details to allow the work to be reproduced by an independent researcher. Methods that are already published should be summarized, and indicated by a reference. Any modifications to existing methods should also be described.

·     Authors are requested to check the correct spelling and authors of botanical names before submission and abbreviate authors of plant scientific names in conformity with https://powo.science.kew.org/.

·     Seeds and plants used must have a seed bank code and a herbarium code from a reputable center.

·     Approvals of the research ethical committee including the code and date of approval should be indicated under the first subsection of materials and methods.

·     For clinical trial studies, it is necessary to mention the registration number in the clinical trial center of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education (IRCT) or reputable centers for global clinical trial registration such as WHO. 

• Phytochemical analysis and standardization of products based on phytochemical compounds are required.
• Tables should be prepared with real rows and columns and not aligned with tabs, returns, or spaces. Vertical lines should not be included in tables. Horizontal lines should also be used if necessary. Superscript lowercase letters are for significance values.

5.  Results: Results should be clear and concise. Data should not be replicated in the text, tables, or figures. All tables and figures should be precisely mentioned in the text and numbered.

·     All the means in the text, figures, and tables should be expressed along with standard deviation (± SD) or standard error (± SE).

6.  Discussion: This section should explore the significance of the results of the work, not repeat them. Avoid extensive citations and discussion of published literature.

7.  Conclusion: The main conclusion of the study should be summarized in a maximum of 3 to 5 lines.

8.  Author contributions: Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. Transparency about the contributions of authors is encouraged. Definitions of authorship include criteria such as 1) substantial contributions to conception and design, or analysis and interpretation of data; 2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, and 3) final approval of the version to be published. In this section, the first and the last name should be written as an abbreviation.

9.  Conflict of interest: Authors must indicate whether or not there is a financial relationship between them and the organization that sponsored the research. This note should be added in a separate section of author contributions after the conclusion. If no conflict exists, the authors should state: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest. A separate statement is required for every individual author of a manuscript and should be submitted together with the manuscript.

10.  Acknowledgment: The purpose is to thank everyone who has helped with the research. Authors can appreciate anyone who provides intellectual assistance, technical help (including with writing and editing), or special equipment or materials.

11.  References: The accuracy of the references is the responsibility of the authors. References should be listed numerically in the text in the order of appearance. Insert reference numbers in text in brackets (not parentheses), e.g., [1, 2]. Where there are more than two references, the citation should appear as hyphenated numbers, e.g., [1-3]. Authors should ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Unpublished results are not recommended in the reference list but may be mentioned in the text. The citation of a reference as “in press” implies that the item has been accepted for publication.

·     Authors should mention the names of all authors of books or articles.

·     Abbreviations of journals should conform to those used in Medline.

·     In the case of non-English sources, the reference language should be specified after page numbers [In brackets].

·     DOI (digital object identifier) is an identification code for a journal article or other published works. Authors must add DOI at the end of each reference.

·     Writing the references and citations in the text should be done through one of the reference management software of Endnote, Mendeley, or Zotero.

·     The following formats must be used for article [1], book [2], book section [3], and conference proceedings [4]:

1. Naseri L, Akbari Bazm M and Khazaei M. A review on therapeutic effects of Tribulus terrestris. J. Med. Plants 2019; 18(72): 1-22. doi: 10.29252/jmp.4.72.1.

2. Mozaffarian V. A Dictionary of Iranian Plant Names: Latin, English, Persian. Seven^th ed., Tehran: Farhang Moaser Publishers; 2013: 547-548.

3. Brescia BA. Microbial methods. In: Riley CM, Rosanske TW and Riley SRR. Specification of drug substances and products. Amsterdam: Elsevier; 2014: 313-321. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-08-098350-9.00001-1.

4. Mohammadi S, Tabrizi L, Shokrpour M, Hadian J, Riewe D and Schulz H. Interspecific hybridization of Thymus vulgaris and Thymus daenensis for superior hybrids generation. In: 8^th National Congress on Medicinal Plants (NCMP2019). Tehran, Iran; 2019: 4.

12.  Figures and Tables: The number of figures and tables should not be more than 6 items. Representation of the results in the figures or tables is not acceptable. There is no need to mention the word “number” to refer to the figures and tables (e.g. “Fig. 1.” or “Table 1.”).

·     The figures and tables should be placed inside the main file next to the relevant text in the manuscript. They do not need to be loaded at the bottom or top of the article or in a separate file.

·     All illustrations (line drawings and photographs) are classified as figures.

·     Figure number and caption always appear below the figure. A caption should comprise a brief title (not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used.

·     Ensure that figures are adequately labeled (coordinates, scale bar, orientation) and the resolution is sufficient for publication scale.

·     Tables should be self-explanatory, clearly arranged, and supplemental to the text. Tables should be created left to right and cell-based (i.e., prepared in Word with the Tables tool). Table number and caption always appear above the table. Tables should be prepared with real rows and columns and not aligned with tabs, returns, or spaces.

·     Vertical lines should not be included in tables.

·     Identify any previously published material by giving the original source in the form of a reference at the end of the table caption.

·     Footnotes to figures or tables should be indicated by superscript lowercase letters or asterisks for significance values and other statistical data.

·     Column headings should be brief, with units of measurement in parentheses; all abbreviations should be defined in footnotes. Use superscript letters (not numbers) for footnotes and keep footnotes to a minimum. The table and its footnotes should be understandable without reference to the text.

§  Auxiliary points in writing an article

1.  Scientific names (genus and species) should be mentioned throughout the text and references in italic font. The abbreviated name of the scientist who introduces the species is written in regular font and begins with capital letters.

For example Juglans regia L.

2.  There should be no space between the word and the dot (.), comma (,), question mark (?), and parentheses (). After entering the mark, a space must be inserted. The principles of punctuation and page layout must be followed.

3.  Here are some common words used in the text:

(pH, P < 0.001, P< 0.01, P< 0.05, P > 0.05)

4.   When citing the reference, there is no need to mention the author’s name and the year.

§  How to submit an article?

The corresponding author should submit the article through www.jmp.ir.


Guide for Authors (pdf)