Author Guidelines
REQUIREMENTS FOR PUBLICATION
The criteria for a publishable manuscript include novelty, education, suitability, and presentation. To be considered for publication by Phytopathologia Mediterranea, a manuscript must:
- Demonstrate scientific and scholarly rigor, supported by up-to-date citations to relevant literature and guided by a rationale for how the work fits into existing knowledge
- Exhibit novelty through original scholarship or a creative or innovative practice. (For exmple papers on disease control products, methods, strategies and on selection of biocontrol agents will be included in the peer review process only if they describe new approaches or new procedures having significant impact in field trials)
- Present well-developed ideas in a comprehensive, organized discussion written in clear, concise English and making effective use of display elements (figures, schemes, tables, etc.)
- Adhere to the requirements and Phytopathologia Mediterranea protocols outlined in this document for the different types of manuscript and be submitted according to Firenze University Press publishing policies
Criteria for acceptance
- The international relevance of the data to be published and the significant contribution to the advancement of knowledge are major requirements.
- Papers reporting surveys on local presence of particular diseases known from other regions will not be accepted. Similarly, epidemiological descriptions and evaluation of local host varieties can be accepted only if they present new facts or control measures, new methodology, or control strategies clearly valid outside of the area from which the data originate.
- Papers on disease control products, methods, strategies and on selection of biocontrol agents will be included in the peer review process only if they describe new approaches or new procedures having significant impact in field trials.
- All experiments should be repeated, or the experimental design should be robust. In the case of the use of plant extracts, the concentration of the active ingredient should be indicated or, if the active ingredient is not yet identified, a clear method of preparation should be reported. In this case the trials should be carried out with two independent batches.
Short notes
Short notes must follow the requirements for quality and relevance applying to reviews and research papers, while having limited scope. Short notes must not exceed six print pages (around 2500 words and containing no more than six figures and/or tables).
FIRST STEPS
Before the submission of your manuscript to the Editorial Support for peer review, you are kindly requested to:
- read the “Focus and Scope”;
- read the “Licence and copyright agreement for Phytopathologia Mediterranea”;
- read the "Author Guidelines for Phytopathologia Mediterranea";
- agree and comply with the “General obligations for authors”;
We recommend that any data set used in your manuscript is submitted to a reliable data repository and linked from your manuscript through a DOI.
GENERAL OBLIGATIONS FOR AUTHORS
- An author's primary obligation is to present a concise, accurate account of the research performed, as well as an objective discussion of its significance.
- A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to public sources of information to permit the author's peers to replicate the work.
- A paper should be as concise as possible but not at the expense of scientific accuracy and completeness. To promote scientific conciseness and completeness at the same time, the inclusion of a comprehensive abstract is encouraged.
- Papers have to be written in English and authors should pay attention to correct spelling and grammar.
- An author should cite those publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work and that will quickly guide the reader to the initial work essential for understanding the present investigation. Information obtained privately, as in conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties, should not be used or reported in the author's work without explicit permission from the investigator with whom the information originated. Information obtained in the course of confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, should be treated similarly.
- Fragmentation of research papers should be avoided. A scientist who has done extensive work on a system or group of related systems should organize publication so that each paper gives a complete account of a particular aspect of the general study.
- It is inappropriate for an author to submit manuscripts describing essentially the same research to more than one journal of primary publication.
- A criticism of a published paper may sometimes be justified; however, in no case is personal criticism considered to be appropriate.
- To protect the integrity of authorship, only persons who have significantly contributed to the research and paper preparation should be listed as authors. The corresponding author attests to the fact that any others named as authors have seen the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication. Deceased persons who meet the criterion for co-authorship should be included, with a footnote reporting date of death. No fictitious names should be listed as authors or co-authors. The author who submits a manuscript for publication accepts the responsibility of having included as co-authors all persons that are appropriate and none that are inappropriate.
- An author should declare any potential conflicts of interest in a special section prior to the acknowledgements.
STYLE FOR LITERATURE CITED IN Phytopathologia Mediterranea
How to cite the literature in the main text
- Within the text references should be cited by author and date, in chronological order.
- When papers are by more than two authors they should be cited by the name of the first author followed by “et al., XXXX”.
How to report the papers cited in the LITERATURE CITED chapter.
At the end of the paper, references should be listed under the heading “Literature cited”:
- in alphabetical order according to authors’ surname,
- in chronological order if more than one paper by the same author(s) is cited.
- Papers published in the same year by the same author(s) should be distinguished by alphabetical letters after the year (e.g., 1993a, 1993b, 1993c).
- For citations of publications by the same senior author:
- list all the single-author citations in chronological order;
- list all the two-author citations alphabetically first and then chronologically;
- group all the citations with three or more authors in chronological order only.
- Journal titles are not abbreviated
In the reference list at the end of each paper, list all authors of each cited publication if the author total is six or less. For more than six authors, list the first five authors and the last.
The styles for different publication types in the Literature cited section are outlined below. These should be meticulously applied.
Examples of correct style for Literature cited are listed below.
Journals
Alves A., Crous P.W., Correia A., Phillips A.J.L., 2008. Morphological and molecular data reveal cryptic speciation in Lasiodiplodia theobromae. Fungal Diversity 28: 1–13.
Heitefuss R., Stahmann M.A., Walker J.C., 1960. Oxidative enzymes in cabbage infected by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. conglutinans. Phytopathology 50: 370–375.
Serizawa S., Ichikawa T., 1993. Epidemiology of bacterial canker of kiwifruit. 1. Infection and bacterial movement in tissue of new canes. Annals of the Phytopathological Society of Japan 59: 452–459 (in Japanese).
Papers with more than six authors
Almeida R.P.P., Nascimento F.E., Chau J., Prado S.S., Tsai C.W., … Lopes J.R., 2008. Genetic structure and biology of Xylella fastidiosa strains causing disease in citrus and coffee in Brazil. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 74: 3690–3701.
Books and other monographs
Kirk P.M., Cannon P.F., Minter D.W., Stalpers J.A., 2013. Ainsworth & Bisby's Dictionary of the Fungi. 10th ed. CAB International, Wallingford, UK, 771 pp.
Griffing G.J., Baker R., 1991. Population dynamics of plant pathogens and associated organisms in relation to infectious inoculum. In: Soil Solarization (J. Katan, J.E. De Vay, ed.), CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, USA, 3–21.
Larignon P., 1991. Contribution à l’Identification et au Mode d’Action des Champignons Associés au Syndrome de l’Esca de la Vigne. PhD Thesis, University of Bordeaux II, Bordeaux, France, 238 pp.
Mallams K.M., Petrick J.A., 2004. Fungicide Trials for Control of Cypress Canker on Port-Orford-Cedar. Southwest Oregon Forest Insect and Disease Service Center, SWOFIDSC-04-02, 5 pp.
FAO, 2013. Food security indicators, January 24 2013 revision. Rome: Food and agriculture Organisation of United Nations (FAO). Available at: http://www.fao.org/economic/ess/ess-fs/ess-fadata/en/. Accessed March 15, 2013.
GIFruits, 2018. Export Agrumes 2018(T). Available at: http://gifruits.com/?p=2262&lang=fr
Gottwald T.R., Graham J.H., Schubert T.S., 2002. Citrus canker: the pathogen and its impact. Plant Health Progress, DOI: 10.1094/PHP-2002-0812-01-RV. http://www.plantmanagementwork.
NOMENCLATURE IN Phytopathologia Mediterranea
Names of species and cultivars. Following the practice adopted by the International Code of Nomenclature for Algae, Fungi and Plants and in the interest of international uniformity, scientific names of all taxonomic ranks should be italicized. In manuscripts dealing with taxonomy, for every organism, the full genus name and authority of the genus or species should be included at first mention. For manuscripts dealing with subjects other than taxonomy this is desirable but not essential. Thereafter the generic name may be abbreviated to the initial letter if no ambiguity arises, although the full genus name should always be used at the beginning of sentences. For abbreviations of names of authors of species, refer to: Authors of plant names, R.K. Brummitt and C.E. Powell, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK. Formae speciales of plant pathogenic fungi do not require any authority. Strict adherance to modern taxonomy and rules of nomenclature should be followed. Relevant strains of microorganisms should be deposited in recognized culture collections and appropriate strain numbers cited.
When a virus name is used informally it should never be italicized, nor have an initial capital letter, even when it includes the name of a host species or genus; it should be written in lower case, i.e. "the tobacco mosaic virus polymerase".
Names of cultivars should be preceded by the abbreviation cv. or enclosed between single quotation marks (e.g., tomato cv. Bonny Best or tomato ‘Bonny Best’).
