The Plant Pathology Journal is an international journal devoted to the publication of fundamental and applied investigations on all aspects of plant pathology and their traditional allies. It is published every two months by the Korean Society of Plant Pathology. Manuscripts submitted to the journal must represent reports of original research and must be written in English. Manuscripts are accepted for review provided that no substantial portion of the study has been published or is under consideration for publication elsewhere and that its submission for publication has been approved by all of the authors or by the institution where the work was carried out. The usual prerequisites for publication will be originality, novelty, clarity, and significance as relevant to a better understanding of plant pathology.
Full-length original Research Articles, Reviews, and Notes be published. The length of Research Articles should exceed more than 4,000 words for the text including title, authors, acknowledgments, references, tables and figure legends. Reviews are solicited by Editor-in-Chief or Editorial Board Members to provide an incisive examination of the latest advances in a topic relevant to plant pathology. Notes are intended for presentation of brief observations that do not warrant full-length papers. Notes should contain firm data and should not be considered preliminary observations. First report of a new disease on a new host should be presented in a full-length original research article. Symposia abstract supported by the Korean Society of Plant Pathology may be published, as determined by the Editor-in-Chief; such manuscripts are subject to the review process, and same charges applicable as to other articles.
Manuscripts are accepted on the condition that recombinant plasmids, microbe strains, and plant variants developed in the course of the research will be available for distribution to all members of the scientific community, either directly from the investigator(s) or by deposit in national or international collections.
All the manuscripts should be prepared under strict observation of research by following research ethics. Scientific misconducts relevant to research activities include fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, including inappropriate authors, in the process of proposing, performing, and publishing the research. “Fabrication” refers to the acts which produce false information without experimental data or findings. “Falsification” refers to the acts which artificially manipulate, modify, omit or change data and results on purpose. “Plagiarism” refers to the acts which pirate others idea, research contents and research results without justifiable approvals or quotations. Inappropriate authors mean to include an individual’s name as an author who has not contributed significantly to either the research or contents of a paper as a token of gratitude or for reason of honorable treatment, or not to grant authorship to a person who has academically contributed to research contents or results, without right reason. Also, deliberate interference in procedure for the investigation of misconduct in research and deviation from commonly accepted practices within the scientific community are included in unfair research activities.
The Journal follows the Code of Conduct (http://publicationethics.org/resources/code-conduct) of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (http://publicationethics.org/), and follows the COPE Flowcharts (http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts) for resolving cases of suspected misconduct. The Plant Pathology Journal will investigate “Plagiarism” by using Similarity Check or help to undertake further necessary action via the COPE. If you take notice of any unethical irregularities to The Plant Pathology Journal content, please get in touch with Editorial Office. It is highly recommended that the authors pursue individual “Plagiarism” check and attach the similarity report, before manuscript submission, by using a specific program provided by their own institutes or a free text similarity service. Any scientific misconducts and issues relevant to research ethics will be preliminarily investigated in The Plant Pathology Journal Editorial Office and reported to the “Research Ethics Committee” for The Plant Pathology Journal.
http://publicationethics.org/resources/resources-and-further-reading/international-standards-editors-and-authors For the policies on the research and publication ethics not stated in this instructions, Guidelines (http://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines) or International standards for editors and authors (http://publicationethics.org/resources/resources-and-further-reading/international-standards-editors-and-authors) can be applied.
Authorship credit should be based on (1) substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; (3) final approval of the version to be published; and (4) agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. Each author should meet these four conditions. Individuals who provide assistance, e.g., supply strains or reagents or critique the paper, need not be listed as authors, but may be recognized in the Acknowledgments section.
Any requests for such changes in authorship (adding author(s), removing author(s), or re-arranging the order of authors) before manuscript acceptance should be explained in writing to the editor in a letter or e-mail from all authors. This letter must be signed by all authors of the paper.
The corresponding author must inform the editor of any potential conflicts of interest that could influence the authors' interpretation of the data. Examples of potential conflicts of interest are financial support from or connections to companies, political pressure from interest groups, and academically related issues. In particular, all sources of funding applicable to the study should be explicitly stated.
This is an open access journal distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
The Plant Pathology Journal provides electronic archiving and preservation of access to the journal content in the event the journal is no longer published, by archiving in the PubMed Central (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/journals/2544/). According to the deposit policy (self-archiving policy) of Sherpa/Romeo (http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/), authors cannot archive preprint (i.e., pre-refereeing) but they can archive postprint (i.e., final draft post-refereeing). Authors can archive the publisher's version/PDF.
All manuscripts are considered to be confidential and are reviewed by members of the Editorial Board, or qualified ad hoc reviewers. Each manuscript receives two simultaneous reviews. The review article needs to be presubmission to the Editor-in-Chief with cover letter that includes “title”, “authorship”, “abstract”, “short comments why this review is timely critical”, and “10 references”. When a manuscript is submitted to the Editor-in-Chief, it is given a manuscript number and is assigned to one of the Editors. Each reviewer makes a specific recommendation to the Editor for the manuscript, based on the following aspects that are applicable: importance of the research, originality and novelty of the work, appropriateness of the approach and experimental design, soundness of conclusions and interpretations, relevance of discussion, clarity of presentation, organization of the article, and demonstration of reproducibility. Before reviewing, all submitted manuscripts are inspected by Similarity Check powered by iThenticate (https://www.crossref.org/services/similarity-check/), a plagiarism-screening tool. The corresponding author is notified, an average of four weeks after submission, of the Editor’s decision to accept, reject, or require revision. When a manuscript is returned to the corresponding author for revision, it should be returned to the Editor within three months; otherwise it may be considered withdrawn.
Any appeal against an editorial decision must be made within 2 weeks of the date of the decision letter. Authors who wish to appeal a decision should contact the Editor-in-Chief, explaining in detail the reasons for the appeal. All appeals will be discussed with at least one other Editor. If consensus cannot be reached thereby, an appeal will be discussed at a full editorial meeting. The process of handling complaints and appeals follows the guidelines of COPE available from (https://publicationethics.org/appeals). The Plant Pathology Journal does not consider second appeals.
A fast-track review of the manuscript is available by authors’ request only for Research Articles (not for Notes). To take this advantage, authors must pay nonrefundable 1,000,000 Korean won (USD 850) for fast-track review only. If authors take the fast-track review option, the first decision are guaranteed within 10 days. If the fast-tracked manuscript would be recommended as “minor or major revision”, it will be considered as a general track manuscript. However, once the manuscript is accepted, the manuscript will be published in the following issue of The Plant Pathology Journal. The Editor-in-Chief has the authority to change a fast-track manuscript to a general track manuscript if authors fail or delay to pay the fast-track review charge. Fast-track review does not guarantee acceptance of the manuscript.
Authors must submit a manuscript to the Editor-in-Chief through The Plant Pathology Journal website (http://www.ppjonline.org) or directly at Manuscript Central (http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ppj). All text, including tables, should be submitted in word processing documents, preferably in Microsoft Word file (.doc), and figures should be uploaded in TIFF, EPS, JPG, or PPT format. Minimum resolutions for figures are as follows: 300 dpi for color and 600 dpi for grayscale or combination art (lettering and images). Each manuscript should be accompanied by a cover letter from the corresponding author who outlines the significance of the findings of the manuscript. Authors may recommend individuals to review the manuscript, and they may ask that certain individuals do not review the manuscript. Reason requesting exclusions should be given in the cover letter.
The most desirable plan for the organization of a paper is as follows: Abstract, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgments, and References. If available, Supplementary data files can be uploaded. In the case of data sets too large for inclusion in the manuscript, complete data sets must be uploaded as electronic Supplementary data file. Results and Discussion sections can be combined.
The Title Page
should contain the title of the manuscript, authors’ names, and affiliations and the address of the corresponding author including telephone number, fax number and an e-mail address. The title should be short, but clarity must be observed. Each manuscript should present the results of an independent and cohesive study; thus, numbered series titles are not permitted. Running title should be provided (not to exceed 60 characters including spaces).
The Abstract
must be a summary of the work from the introduction to the discussion. Limit the abstract to 250 words or fewer. After the abstract, a list of up to five keywords that will be useful for indexing or searching should be included.
The Introduction
should supply the rationale of the investigation and its relation to other works in the same field, but should not include an extensive review of the literature.
The Materials and Methods
should be detailed to enable the experiments to be repeated. Refer to published procedures by citing both original description and pertinent published modifications. Do not include extensive details, unless they present a substantially new modification. For commonly used materials and methods, a simple reference is sufficient. If several alternative methodologies are commonly employed, it is useful to identify the method briefly as well as to cite the reference. Describe new methods completely and give sources of useful chemicals, equipment, or microbial strains.
The Results
may be organized into subheadings. In this section, describe only the results of the experiments. Reserve extensive interpretation for the Discussion section. Present the results as concisely as possible in one of the followings: text, table(s), or figure(s). Avoid presenting essentially similar data in both table and figure form. Also avoid extensive use of graphs to present data that might be more concisely presented in the text or tables. Limit photographs to those that are absolutely necessary to show the experimental findings. Number figures and tables in the order in which they are cited in the text, and be sure to cite all figures and tables.
The Discussion
should provide an interpretation of the results in relation to previously published works and to the experimental system at hand. It should not contain extensive repetition or summary of the Results section or reiteration of the Introduction. The Discussion may be organized into subheadings. Results and Discussion can be combined.
The Conflict of Interest
should be declared. The authors must inform the editor of any potential conflicts of interest that could influence the authors' interpretation of the data.
The Acknowledgments
should be brief and should precede the References. The source of any financial support received for the work being published must be indicated in the Acknowledgment section.
The References
section must include all relevant sources, and all listed references should be cited in the text by name in alphabetic order and year (e.g., Ahn et al., 2005; Gucinski et al., 1995; Kramer and Boyer, 1995). Only articles that have been published or are in press should be included in the References. Unpublished data or personal communications should be cited as such in the text. Please use the following style in an alphabetical order of the first authors’ name. Online references must provide the same information as print references.
Supplementary data
can be accepted and uploaded to The Plant Pathology Journal online. All supplementary data will be reviewed as part of the normal review process. They should be briefly described in the manuscript with direct reference to each item such as “Supplementary Figure or Table”. The file containing supplementary data should be a single pdf file, no larger than 10 MB. After review process is complete and the manuscript is accepted, the supplementary data file will be uploaded online only without galley proof along with the manuscript.
Notes.
Submit Notes in the same way as regular articles. They receive the same review and they are not published more rapidly than regular articles. They are not considered as preliminary communications. Any manuscript with less than 4,000 words the text including title, authors, acknowledgments, references, tables and figure legends will be considered as a Note, and it and must have an abstract of no more than 150 words. Do not use section headings in the body of the manuscript: Methods, Results, and Discussion should be included in the single section. The number of figures and tables should be also kept to a minimum. The sections of Acknowledgments and References are identical to those of regular articles.
Reviews.
Reviews are brief summaries of developments in fast-moving areas of plant pathology. Reviews are subjected to editorial review. There is no prescribed layout for Reviews, but the tables, and manner of citations should conform to the guidelines for regular research articles.
Errata.
Errata are reserved for major errors or breaches of ethics. Upload the text of an erratum along with a letter of agreement signed by all the authors. The publication of the erratum will be decided by the editorial committee.
Manuscripts should be double-spaced (a minimum of 6 mm between lines) throughout the text including figure legends, table footnotes, and references. The recommended font style is “Times New Roman” and the font size is 12 point. Manuscript pages must have margins of at least 1 inch on all four sides and should have line numbers. Pages should be numbered consecutively with the title page being page 1. Place tables and figure legends after the References section. It is important that manuscripts should be written in clear and grammatically correct English. Authors who are unsure of proper English usage are strongly advised to have their manuscipts checked by a native English speaker prior to submission. Authors may also be requested to undertake professional editing/proofreading services after the initial acceptance of their manuscripts.
Each table should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals in order of appearance in the text. Type each table double-spaced on a separate page. The headings should be sufficiently clear so that the meaning of the data is understandable without reference to the text. Explanatory footnotes are acceptable, but should not include detailed descriptions of the experiment.
Each figure should be in a finished form suitable for publication. Number figures consecutively with Arabic numerals, and indicate the top and the authors on the back of each figure.
Exact widths for same size reproductions are 88 mm for one column and 183 mm for two columns; maximum height is 250 mm, including caption. Figure legends should provide enough information so that the figure is understandable without frequent reference to the text. However, detailed experimental methods must be described in Materials and Methods section. For composites, match photographs for similarity of contrast, background density, and subject content and arrange in a square or rectangle. The cost of color reproduction must be paid by authors.
SI units should be used, e.g.: mg, g, km, m, cm, mm, ppm, cpm, Ci (Curie), l (litre), ml, ml, s (second), min (minute), h (hour), mol, etc. The definitive SI website (in English and French) is that of the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures at http://www.bipm.org/.
The author(s) will receive the final version of the manuscript as a PDF file. Upon receipt, the author(s) must notify the editorial office (or printing office) of any errors found in the file within 2 days. If the response is delayed, the manuscript’s publication may be postponed to the next issue.
To correct errors in published articles, the corresponding author should contact the journal’s Editorial Office with a detailed description of the proposed correction. Corrections that profoundly affect the interpretation or conclusions of the article will be reviewed by the editors. Corrections will be published as corrigenda (corrections of the author’s errors) or errata (corrections of the publisher’s errors) in a later issue of the journal.
The Plant Pathology Journal encourages authors to deposit important strains in publicly accessible culture collections and to refer to the collections and strain numbers in the text.
It is expected that newly assigned GenBank/EMBL/DDJB accession numbers for nucleotide and/or amino acid sequence data should be included in the manuscript or inserted when the manuscript is modified.
The charge is 800,000 Korean won (USD 650) per article for members and 1,000,000 (USD 850) per article for nonmembers.
All articles can be freely printed and distributed after downloading the full-text versions for non-commercial use.
All contents of the journal are available immediately upon publication without embargo period.
Editorial Office: The Korean Society of Plant Pathology
Room 904, The Korean Science & Technology Center, 22 Teheran-ro 7-gil, Gangnam-gu, Seoul 06130, Korea
Tel: +82-2-557-9360, Fax: +82-2-557-9361
E-mail: paper@kspp.org
Homepage: http://ppjonline.org/about/contact.php
To maintain and protect the Society’s ownership and rights and to protect the original authors from misappropriations of their work, The Plant Pathology Journal requires the corresponding author to sign a copyright transfer agreement form on the behalf of all the authors. This agreement is sent with the proofs to the corresponding author.
The Plant
Pathology Journal
Online ISSN: 2093-9280
Research in
Plant Disease
Online ISSN: 2233-9191