Author Guidelines

Instructions for preparing manuscripts and posters

The New Zealand Plant Protection Society publishes original research papers on all aspects of biology, ecology and control of weeds, vertebrate and invertebrate pests, and pathogens and beneficial micro-organisms in agriculture, horticulture, forestry and natural ecosystems. Papers should report complete work or substantial interim results. Short reviews may be published as long as these are critical in nature and add significantly to plant protection science.

It is a requirement that at least one of the contributing authors must be a current member of the New Zealand Plant Protection Society.

Article Processing Fee

Authors will be required to pay an article processing fee of NZ$420 + GST if their manuscript is accepted during 2019 or 2020. Where the first author is a student currently enrolled at a New Zealand tertiary education institution at the time of submission, the fee will be $300 + GST.

Submission deadlines must be strictly adhered to. 

Preparation of manuscripts

Please download the manuscript template and use this to prepare your manuscript. Instructions regarding each section are included in the template. Do not change the font style or size. Submit all manuscripts in single spacing without line numbers.

 Submission and review of manuscripts

All manuscripts must be read by all the co-authors and approved by the corresponding author's organisation before submission to the editor.

Submissions that pass initial quality screening will be reviewed by at least one referee, a section editor and the editor.

Proofs will be emailed as electronic files for checking by the corresponding author. Subsequent to publication of the journal, alterations to the .pdf files that are loaded on the website can be made. Error due to author oversight will cost $100 plus GST per paper.

Rejection of papers

Your paper will be rejected if:

• It falls outside the scope of New Zealand Plant Protection.
• There are insufficient data to support any useful conclusions.
• Results have been incorrectly interpreted.
• Data have not been statistically analysed (unless there is a very good reason for not doing so).
• Information in the paper is either not original or not new, although review papers will be considered.
• There is insufficient information to warrant publication as a full paper.

Your paper may be rejected if, in the opinion of the section editor and the editor, the paper needs major revision in any of the following areas:

• Information. Make sure your information is accurate. Ensure that each section of the paper gives adequate information and that the information is in the appropriate place, i.e. do not put methods in the results or vice versa.
• Readability. Use clear, concise, grammatically correct language. Arrange information in a logical order. Be accurate in what you say. Don't pad the paper out with unnecessary information or repetition, e.g. in the Results section describe only the main differences apparent in data in tables or figures and do not describe every minor difference.
• Presentation of results. Present data in the appropriate form as tables or figures. In some cases, it is sufficient to describe data in the text. Remember it is not always necessary to present all the data you have collected.
• Statistical analysis. Make sure your analyses are appropriate, that you outline in the methods the type of analyses used and that statistical differences are apparent in the results. Give an SED, an LSD or use lettering to indicate significant differences, along with probability levels.
• Formatting. Follow the formatting information exactly, particularly the layout of headings, tables, figures and references.