Submissions

Author Guidelines

Instructions for preparing manuscripts

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

The New Zealand Plant Protection Society is a 'not-for-profit' organisation so it needs to recover the costs of operating the Journal by charging an article processing fee.  This fee covers not only layout and publication costs but also the important work of the Journal's editors in upholding the high standards expected for publication in this long-standing and respected publication.

In 2020/2021, authors will be required to pay a fee of NZ$420 + GST if their manuscript is accepted. Where the first author is a student currently enrolled at a New Zealand tertiary education institution, the fee will be $350 + GST. The same fees apply to all manuscript types.

Additional files containing supplemental information (such as data that would otherwise be referred to as 'data not shown') can be uploaded with the online version of each published paper at no extra charge. Additional files need to be cited at the appropriate place in the paper.

Preparation of manuscripts

Five types of manuscript will be considered:

Research article: Original research (traditional format).

Research note: Original research presented in a succinct format. This may include insightful preliminary work with limited data that does not warrant extensive coverage in a Research Article.

Applied practices: A practical demonstration of published science that is illustrated by the situation before and after application of a new approach.

Literature Review: Comprehensive review of published literature plus an analysis of findings and summary of knowledge gaps.

Perspective: Qualitative and balanced overview of a topic supported by published literature. 

Further details of each manuscript type are available here.

Submission and review of manuscripts Please download the appropriate 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.

All manuscripts must be read by all the co-authors and approved by the corresponding author's organisation before submission to the editor. Please note, authors may experience submission issues if using Internet Explorer as their browser. Please use Google Chrome, Firefox or another modern browser for uploading your submission.  

Submissions that pass initial quality screening will be reviewed by at least one referee, a section editor and the editor. Submissions may be rejected following review or the authors may be asked to revise their manuscript. 

The review process is dependent on the availability of referees but the Journal aims to send an initial decision to the authors within 10 weeks of submission. Authors are welcome to suggest the names of possible referees in the Comments for Editor box available at the end of the submission process.

Proofs of accepted papers 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.