ISSN 1982-5676 printed version
ISSN 1983-2052 online version

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

• Scope and policy
• Editorial policy
• Submission of papers

The aim of Tropical Plant Pathology, an international, bimonthly journal of the Brazilian Phytopathological Society, is to publish results of research on fundamental and applied aspects of plant pathology. Contributions in the fields of mycology, bacteriology, virology, nematology, epidemiology, host-pathogen interactions, genetics of plant pathogens, physiological and molecular plant pathology, post-harvest and non-infectious diseases and about other topics or strategies promoting plant protection are welcome. Manuscripts on screening for synthetic or natural products and for resistance to pathogens can be accepted as research article only if they provide additional information on modes of action or mechanisms of resistance. TPP will not publish manuscripts based only on evaluation of plant protection products. Surveys for diseases or pathogens and first reports of plant diseases should be submitted as a "Short Communication" and will be published only if of special relevance (major host-crop, major quarantine relevance). In the case of first records for Brazil, authors must follow the official rules requiring prior communication of the occurrence to the authorities in the Ministry of Agriculture - MAPA and provide evidence of such. New regional records of previously known diseases for a country are generally not acceptable for publication in TPP, but special cases can be considered. Manuscripts should report results originated from experiments that were repeated in time in order to assure the consistency of the findings, unless the research results are of non-quantitave nature. This should be particularly observed for field experiments.

Tropical Plant Pathology is an official publication of the Brazilian Phytopathological Society, but contributions from members and non-members of the Society are equally welcome. It is a fundamental condition that submitted manuscripts have not been and will not be published elsewhere. With the acceptance of a manuscript for publication, the publishers acquire full and exclusive copyright for all languages and countries. There is no page charge, except for color plates in the print version (R$300 for each page with a color figure). Authors may choose to publish color prints in the on line version only, at no cost. Reprints can be obtained free of charge as pdf-files from TPP's website at the SciELO gateway.

Manuscripts should be written in English
Manuscripts will initially be checked by the Editors for conformity with the scope of the journal, and will then be assigned to a Section Editor. The Section Editor will oversee the review process and will be responsible for the final decision. Acceptance is based on the quality of the work, on the recognition of a significant contribution to the field and on the overall presentation of the manuscript.

Manuscripts are submitted to TPP through the ScholarOne Online system, free of charge (http://mc04.manuscriptcentral.com/tpp-scielo). Before submitting a manuscript, authors must have carefully prepared the following items:

a. A cover letter, which clearly states that (i) all authors have approved the submission of the manuscript; (ii) the findings have not been published or are not under consideration for publication elsewhere; (iii) authors transfer copyright to the Brazilian Phytopathological Society. A corresponding author must be clearly indicated and will be responsible for all correspondence between the Editorial Board and the authors;
b. The Abstract must be a single paragraph that does not exceed 200 words and summarizes the main results and conclusions of the study. It should not contain references.
c. Key words: up to six key words should be included, and these should differ from words mentioned in the title. These should start with the scientific names of hosts and pathogens involved in the study (or the most relevant ones) in alphabetical order and be followed by the other key words, also in alphabetical order.
d. The text must be as succinct as possible and includes the following elements:

Failure to adhere to these guidelines will lead to the immediate rejection of manuscripts.
The Editorial Board expects authors to ensure that the language is corrected before submission. Language correction will not be performed by the Editors or the Section Editor, and manuscripts will be returned to the authors if the language requires correction.

Types of papers

1 Research Article

Manuscripts should be prepared in double-spaced, 12-point type throughout, including the References section, appendices, tables, and figure captions. Page configuration should be A4 with 2.5 cm margins and marked with consecutive page and line numbers, beginning with the cover page.

The following elements must start on a new page and be ordered as they are listed below:
a) The title page must contain: a concise and informative title; the authors' names (first and last name in full); the authors' institutional affiliation or where the research has been performed, including department, institution, zip code, city, state or province and country (note that affiliation should be that where the author was connected when the work was performed - in case the author has moved to a different working address this may be indicated separately as "present address"); different affiliations are indicated with superscript numbers; the corresponding author's name with e-mail address. The corresponding author is the person responsible for checking the page proofs, arranging for the payment of color illustrations and any other duties related to the processing of the manuscript.
b) The Abstract must be a single paragraph that does not exceed 200 words and summarizes the main results and conclusions of the study. It should not contain references.
c) Key words: up to six key words should be included, and these should differ from words mentioned in the title. These should start with the scientific names of hosts and pathogens involved in the study (or the most relevant ones) in alphabetical order and be followed by the other key words, also in alphabetical order.
d) The text must be as succinct as possible and includes the following elements:
c) Key words: up to six key words should be included, and these should differ from words mentioned in the title. These should start with the scientific names of hosts and pathogens involved in the study (or the most relevant ones) in alphabetical order and be followed by the other key words, also in alphabetical order.
d) The text must be as succinct as possible and includes the following elements:

Introduction: Description of the background that led to the study and the hypothesis which is being tested, in case this applies.

Material and Methods: Detailed description of the steps followed by the authors allowing the reader to repeat the work if willing to do so. Avoid, whenever possible, to simply refer to another publication for a complete description of methodology. Statistical methods should be explained at the end of this section.

Results: Undue repetition in text and tables should be avoided. Comment on significance of results is appropriate but broader discussion should be part of the Discussion section.

Discussion: The findings of the study should be placed in the context of relevant published data. Ideas presented in other publications should not be included solely to increase the size of the manuscript. Some manuscripts may require different formats in order to better fit their content. This will be evaluated on a case by case basis.

Text citations: articles should be referred to by authors' surnames and date of publication; citations with two authors must include both names; in citations with three or more authors, name the first author and use et al. List two or more references in the same citation in chronological order, separated by semi-colons. When two or more works in a citation were published in the same year, list them alphabetically by the first author surname. For two or more works by the same author(s) in a citation, list them chronologically, with the years separated by commas. (Example: Barreto et al., 2006a, 2006b, 2008). Only articles that are published or in press should be cited. In the case of "Personal communication" or "Unpublished results", all contributors must be listed by initials and last name (et al. should not be used).

Numbers: In the text, numbers nine or below must be written out except as part of a date, a fraction or decimal, a percentage, or a unit of measurement. Use Arabic numerals for numbers larger than nine. Avoid starting a sentence with a number, but if doing so write the number out. URLs for programs, data or other sources should be listed in the text, or as a footnote. URLs for citations of publications in electronic journals should appear in the References section.
e) Acknowledegments must be a single paragraph that immediately follows the Discussion section and includes references to grant support or any technical or intellectual contribution.

f) References must be ordered alphabetically by the first author surname. References with the same first author should be ordered as follows: first, as single author in chronological order; second, with only one co-author in alphabetical order by the second author; and third, references with more than two co-authors, in alphabetical order by the second or subsequent authors. Journal titles should not be abbreviated.
Authors should avoid citation of theses, conference proceedings or technical reports, mainly for reasons of accessibility. A maximum of three such citations will be allowed.
Only articles that are published or in press should be included in this section. Manuscripts submitted for publication but not yet accepted may not be cited. Personal communications and unpublished data must be cited within the text. "Personal communication" refers to individuals other than the authors of the manuscript being submitted; "unpublished data" refers to data produced by at least one of the authors of the manuscript being submitted. Authors must provide appropriate evidence for "in press" articles and "personal communications".

Formatting of references:

Journal article:
Reis RF, Goes A, Timmer LW (2006) Effect of temperature, leaf wetness, and rainfall on the production of Guignardia citricarpa ascospores and on black spot severity on sweet orange. Fitopatologia Brasileira 31:29-34.
Arnold AE, Medjía LC, Kyllo D, Rojas EI, Maynard Z, Robbins N, Herre EA (2003) Fungal endophytes limit pathogen damage in a tropical tree. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 26:15649-15654.

Book chapter:
Campos VP, Villain L (2005) Nematode parasites of coffee and cocoa. In: Luc M, Sikora RA, Bridge J (Eds.) Plant parasitic nematodes in subtropical and tropical agriculture. Wallingford UK. CAB International. pp. 529-580.

Book:
Agrios GN (2005) Plant Pathology. 5th Ed. Amsterdam. Elsevier Academic Press.

Edited book:
Kimati H, Amorim L, Rezende JAM, Bergamin Filho A, Camargo LEA (Eds.) (2005) Manual de Fitopatologia. Vol. 2. Doenças das Plantas Cultivadas. 4ª. Ed. São Paulo SP. Ceres.

Electronic article:
CONAB. Cana-de-açúcar, safra 2006 -2007. Available at: www.conab.gov.br/conabweb/download/safra/BoletimCana-Novembro2006-07.pdf. Accessed on October 12, 2008.

Thesis:

(Authors should avoid citation of Theses, Conference proceedings or Technical reports, mainly for reasons of accessibility. A maximum of three such citations will be allowed.)

Zerbini FM (1996) Aspects of the epidemiology of lettuce mosaic in the Salinas Valley of California, and the production of LMV-resistant transgenic lettuce plants. PhD Thesis, University of California. Davis CA, USA.

Conference proceedings:
Igarashi S, Utiamada CM, Igarashi LC, Kazuma AH, Lopes RS (1986) Ocorrência de Pyricularia sp. em trigo no estado do Paraná. In: 14ª Reunião Nacional de Pesquisa de Trigo, Resumos... Londrina PR. IAPAR. p. 57.

Technical reports:
Fawcett HS (1911) Scaly bark or nail head rust of citrus. Florida Agriculture Experiment Station Bulletin 106.

g) Tables: Place tables after the References section. Each table must start on a new page. A concise title should be provided above the table. Tables must be numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals. Each column must have a title in the box head. Footnotes typed directly below the table should be indicated preferably in lowercase superscript numbers, but lowercase letters may be used when the column titles contain numbers.

h) Figures must be numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals and should be sized to fit approximately within the columns of the journal. Legends should be in the main text, after the tables. Please insert keys and scale bars, when applicable, directly in the figure. Scanned figures should not be submitted. Images should be in TIFF or JPEG format and provided as separate files. Figures in Word format cannot be published. Journal quality reproduction will require grayscale and color at resolution yielding 300 dpi. Authors should submit bitmapped line art at resolution yielding 600-1200 dpi. These resolutions refer to the output size of the file; if it is anticipated that images will be enlarged or reduced, the resolutions should be adjusted accordingly. Special care must be taken with the quality of the images. The commonly used procedure of taking pictures with a digital camerea placed above a microscope eyepiece normally yields poor quality images with shaded periphery that are inadequate for publication. It is highly recommended to indicate details of interest in pictures with arrows accompanied with explanations of what has been indicated in the legend.

i) Nomenclature of scientific names should adhere to current international standards for each class of organisms. Scientific names should appear in full and followed by authority the first time they appear in the body of the text (but not followed by authority in the title, abstract, key words, tables or legends), and abbreviated and without authorities later. Whenever a scientific names appear at the beginning of a sentence it must be given in full.
Plants: The International Plant Names Index, <http://www.ipni.org/index.html>
Fungi: Index Fungorum, <http://www.speciesfungorum.org/Names/Names.asp>
Bacteria: <http://www.isppweb.org/names_bacterial.asp>
Nematodes: <http://www.iczn.org/iczn/index.jsp>
Viruses: according to the International Code for Classification and Nomenclature, published in the 9th Report of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses - ICTV (2011).

j) Cultures and other reference material: Source and deposit of cultures should be indicated. Voucher cultures and specimens documenting their research as well as nucleotide sequences should be deposited at certified or recognized international institutions and accession numbers and place of deposit indicated in the text or as a footnote in the title page.

k) Data access: Reference should be made to availability of detailed data and materials used for reported studies.

l) Abbreviations and Units: SI units should be used, such as mg, g, m, mm, L, mL, ?L, h, min, s, mol, kg/ha. If a non-standard abbreviation is to be used, it should be defined in full when cited in the text for the first time.

m) Crop Protection Products: Only technical names or names of active compounds should be used. It is not recommended that authors mention commercial names of products or of the companies which produce them, so as not to suggest utilization. Chemical formulas should be written on one line and follow standard nomenclature.

2 Short Communication

Present brief observations or results that do not warrant full-length articles. Preliminary communications of ongoing work are not acceptable as short communications. Individual first reports of plant diseases should be submitted as Short Communications. These manuscripts may include illustrations of the pathogen, indication of deposit of reference material with public access, including DNA sequences (whenever available or in cases where they are indispensable), and documentation as required by specific legislation, such as, in the case of records from Brazil, abiding to the rules established by the Ministry of Agriculture.
Short Communications should be 12 or fewer typed pages in A4-size, 2,5 cm margins, double-spaced 12-point type, including references but not tables and figure legends. They should include an Abstract, not longer than 200 words and no further subdivision. All its content should be in a single section with no subtitles such as introduction, material and methods, results and discussion. Up to two tables and two figures, or any combination of four such items, may be submitted in a Short Communication. The title page and reference section format is that of a full-length article.

3 Letter to the Editor

This may relate or respond to recent published items of interest to the area of Plant Pathology. Discussions of political, social and ethical issues of interest to plant pathologists are also welcome in this format. Letter to the Editor should be no longer than two typed pages in A4-size, 2,5 cm margins, double-spaced 12-point type, including references (if applicable). They should not include an Abstract or any subdivision of the text. If absolutely necessary, they may include one figure or table.

4 Review Article

Review Articles are welcome. Authors should contact the Editor before submission. Reviews Articles are subjected to peer review in the same fashion as regular research articles. Reviews should have no more than 40 typed pages in A4-size, 2,5 cm margins, double-spaced 12-point type, including references, tables and figures. The title page and reference format is that of a full-length article. They should include an Abstract, not longer than 200 words. The text may be subdivided according to the authors' discretion.

Proofs

Page proofs will be sent to the corresponding author. Notes added in proof require Editorial approval. Proofs should be returned within 72 hours.
Reprints

Reprints are free of charge and will become available as a pdf-file at TPP's web site in the SciELO gateway.

Authorship

Those who submit papers to Tropical Plant Pathology should respect the value of the research of their peers by not devaluing authorship. Each author should have made a substantial intellectual contribution to the design, conduct, analysis, or interpretation of the study. Each author must approve the final version of the article to be published, and be willing to take public responsibility for their contribution to the paper. In addition, the first author and the corresponding author are expected to take public responsibility for the entire paper. TPP's manuscript handling system provides plagiarism detection tools to the Editors, Section Editors and Reviewers. Detection of plagiarism is grounds for immediate rejection of manuscripts.