FFTC Journal of Agricultural Policy

Guidelines for Authors

The FFTC Journal of Agricultural Policy (hereafter called FFTC E-Journal) receives and publishes Original Studies, Reviews, and Perspective Insights that are dedicated to agricultural policy in countries or regions under the Asian Pacific framework. FFTC E-Journal publishes two forms of publications, Regular Issue and Special Issue. Special Issue is a thematic publication whose topic will be determined by the Editorial Board and later announced in public on the FFTC E-Journal website to call for paper. Manuscripts are welcome from all over the world and must be written in good quality English. The Editorial Board has the final authority concerning acceptance or rejection of any manuscript. Once the manuscript is published, the copyright belongs to the FFTC E-Journal. If the author(s) does not have clear title to the copyright of any part of the manuscript, it is the sole responsibility of the authors(s) to obtain written permission from the copyright holder and present it to the editor of the FFTC E-Journal.

The following format guidelines should be followed for all papers submitted.

Submission procedure

Manuscripts must be submitted directly to the project coordinator, Ms. Natalie Lu (natalielupy@fftc.org.tw) as electronic files. The submitted electronic files should include the following:

  1. a PDF file which contains the text, figures, and tables for review; and
  2. Figures (at least 300 pixels/inch), Tables and supplementary files in an archive file (.zip or .rar file);
  3. An English Editing Certificate (especially for authors from non-English native countries) is encouraged to be provided, but not a mandatory requirement document. The English quality of submitted manuscripts will be considered first before entering into peer-review phase.

If the size of submitted files is too large to be delivered successfully, please upload them to the Google drive or OneDrive in advance, and provide the download link for manuscript review.

Once the manuscript is decided to be accepted by the Editorial Board of the FFTC E-Journal, the author(s) should send the final version of accepted manuscript in Word (doc. docx) to Ms. Natalie Lu for editing and publishing.

Cover Letter (.pdf)

A cover letter is compulsory for manuscripts submitted to the FFTC E-Journal.

The cover letter MUST include 3 parts:

  1. An affirmation that your manuscript has not been sent to other journals for consideration at the same time.
  2. List 3 suggested reviewers or more. Each with the following information:
  1. Name of the reviewer;
  2. Affiliation of the reviewer;
  3. E-mail address of the reviewer; and
  4. Research area of the reviewer
  1. Compliance with Ethics (should be listed in the Cover letter and manuscript text)
  1. Authors’ contributions
  2. Competing interests
  3. Availability of data and materials
  4. Consent for publication

* Line spacing set to single and font set to size 12 Times New Roman

** Cover letter without the above information will be sent back to the authors without being reviewed

Preparing main manuscript text

  1. Line spacing should be set to 1.15 lines, with minimum of 2 cm margins (Top/Bottom/Left/Right), for the full text (Abstract to References).
  2. The word count of submitted Original Study should be between 4,000 and 7,000 words (including main body text plus title page, but excluding tables, figures legends, Acknowledgement, Authors’ contributions, Competing interests, Availability of data and materials, Reference), Review within 10,000 words and Perspective Insight between 3,000 and 4,000 word counts.
  3. The font of the entire manuscript should be set to 10 points Times New Roman. Scientific binominals should be italicized.

Preparing Tables

Tables should not duplicate materials found in the text or accompanying illustration. Tables must be numbered consecutively in the order mentioned in the text and be described in brief but complete legends. All tables must be typed single-spaced in the correct column without vertical lines. All symbols (a, b, c, etc.) and abbreviations used must be briefly and clearly explained in the table footnotes. Asterisks should be used to indicate levels of significance: a single asterisk (*) for p  0.05, double asterisks (**) for p  0.01, and triple asterisks (***) for p  0.001.

Preparing Figures

Figures should be provided as separate files. Each figure should include a single illustration and should fit on a single page in portrait format. If a figure consists of separate parts, a single composite illustration file should be submitted that contains all parts of the figure.

Figure Legends

Each figure should be accompanied by a title (and better attached with explanatory figure legend). Sufficient detail should be given in each legend so that the figure, which is independent of the text, could be better understood.

Figures should be in the following format

  1. Figures must be in finished form and ready for reproduction.
  2. Number the figures using Arabic numerals according to the order mentioned in the text.
  3. The lettering should be in Arial font. Include scale bars where they are appropriate. Color and grayscale photographs should be saved in EPS or TIFF formats.
  4. Authors should prepare any TIFF- or EPS-format figures at the intended final size which is suitable for editing.

Manuscripts for Original Study submitted to the FFTC E-Journal should be divided into the following 11 sections (in this order)

  1. Title page:
  • Title of the article
  • Full names of all authors
  • Institutional addresses and email addresses of all authors
  • Indicate the corresponding author(s) with (*)
  1. Abstract:

The Abstract of the manuscript should not exceed 500 words.

  1. Key words:

Five (5) to seven (7) key words representing the main content of the article.

  1. Introduction:

The Introduction section should be written in a way that is accessible to researchers without specialized knowledge in that area.

  1. Material/Statistic analysis/Method

The Material section should include the design of the study, the type of materials involved, a clear description of all comparisons, and the types of analyses used, to enable replication.

  1. Discussion/Conclusion/Recommendation:

The Discussion section should be concise and focused on interpreting the results. This should state clearly the main conclusions of the research and give a clear explanation of their importance and relevance. Summary illustrations may be included.

  1. References (please refer to attachment 1):

Citations by name and year can be given entirely in parentheses or by citing the name in the text and year in parentheses. Adhere to the following usage:

One author: (Miller 1998)

Two authors: (Miller and Smith 2001)

More than two authors: (Miller et al. 1999)

More than two citations: (Miller et al. 1999; Smith and Browns 2001;…..)

More than two citation/years: (Miller et al. 1999; Smith and Browns 2001;…)(Miller et al. 1999 2013 2015)

  1. Acknowledgments:

Acknowledging the contributions of specific colleagues, institutions, or agencies that aided the efforts of the authors should be briefly placed in the Acknowledgments section. If the content of the manuscript have previously appeared, such as in a thesis, this should be mentioned here, in addition to listing the source within the reference list.

  1. Authors’ Contributions:

The individual contributions of authors to the manuscript should be specified in this section, as exemplified below:

Author Contributions: W.R.L.A. designed research; W.R.L.A. performed research; J.T.A., L.D.L.A., L.B., P.L.K., and L.Z. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; W.R.L.A. analyzed data; and W.R.L.A., J.T.A., L.D.L.A., L.B., P.L.K., and L.Z. wrote the paper.

  1. Competing Interests:

Authors must declare all relationships or interests from the work conducted in the manuscript. The conflict of interest statement should list each author separately by name:

                        LT declares that she has no conflict of interest.

                        LW has received research grants from the MOST, Taiwan.

If multiple authors declare no conflict of interests, please write the following sentence:

                        LT and LW declare that they have no conflict of interests.

  1. List of Abbreviations (optional):

Manuscripts for Review/Perspective Insight submitted to FFTC E-Journal

Review:

Review articles should describe and synthesize recent significant developments in a single field, or across multidisciplinary fields, and highlight future directions. Review is limited to 10,000 words, up to 10 figures and /or tables, and no more than 100 references (more may be permitted upon request).

The Review initiates with an enhanced abstract consisting of 550-600 words divided into 3 parts headed Background, Advances, and Outlook. Reviews do not contain supplementary materials. They should describe and synthesize recent developments of interdisciplinary significance and highlight future directions for the challenges and opportunities of the agricultural development in the Asian and Pacific region. Review manuscript should include an abstract, an introduction that outlines the main themes, brief sub-headings, and an outline of important unresolved questions.

Please note that Review manuscript is generally solicited by the Editorial Board. However, unsolicited submissions may also be considered. Unsolicited Review must be a complete manuscript. The timeframe for editorial evaluation is longer than standard evaluation.

Perspective Insight:

Perspective Insight manuscript should be concise, and have upper limit of 4,000 words and 25 references. To make Perspective Insight visually engaging as well as informative, the author(s) is/are required to submit and provide one single Figure, as the illustration of core concept.

2-4 sentences in the Abstract section are needed, followed by the introductory paragraph that immediately presents the issues under discussion in a way that captures the readers’ interest. The introduction should be general enough to orient the reader who are not familiar with the specifics of the field being discussed. The author(s) should avoid the jargon and special terms through the whole article. The final paragraph should draw the piece to a concise conclusion, without simply restating the text. It should be a conclusion and not a summary, telling the reader about future prospects and implications, such as “What are the unanswered questions?” or “Where is the field going?”.