African Journals On-line
SINET: Ethiopian Journal of Science

Instructions to authors/ Instruction aux auteurs

Research manuscripts in science and technology and related disciplines are considered for publication in SINET. Manuscripts must be in English. Submission of a manuscript to the journal must be accompanied by a letter stating that no similar paper, other than an abstract or an oral presentation, has been or will be submitted for publication elsewhere. Manuscripts should be typed with wide margins (minimum 30 mm) on good quality A4 (210 x 297 mm) paper using double spacing throughout. The original and three copies should be submitted. Each page of the typescript must be numbered.

The manuscript must be addressed to: The Editor-in-Chief, PO Box 31226, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. All copies should be carefully checked and any corrections clearly indicated.

The first page should contain the full title of the manuscript, the name(s) of the author(s) including address(es) and the institution(s) in which the research was carried out. If more than one authors are involved, the author to whom all correspondence will be addressed should be indicated by an asterisk. The first page should also contain the abstract. The abstract must not be more than 250 words. Key words (up to five, and in alphabetical order) should be given next to the abstract in a separate line.

A desirable, though not strictly prescribed plan, for the organization of a research paper is to start with an introduction giving a description of the problem and its relation to other works in the same field. The objective(s) of the investigation should also be stated in this section. Abbreviations (e.g., BAP, 6-Benzylaminopurine; GA3, gibberellic acid 3; etc.) should be put under the introduction in a separate paragraph. The remaining sections can then cover materials and methods, results and discussion. Then follows acknowledgements, if any, and the last item would be a list of references.

References in the text should have the following form:

•  Darwin and Morgan (1993) or, if more than two authors, Andersson et al. (1993).
•  (Hartmann and Kester, 1975; Andersson et al., 1993; Darwin and Morgan, 1993) — chronologically.

Ethiopian names should be in direct order, that is, the full first name followed by the father's name; e.g., Solomon Kassa and not Kassa, S.

Listing of references is alphabetical, and should have the form:

•  Kalb, J.E. (1978). Miocene to Pleistocene deposits in the Afar depression, Ethiopia. sinet: Ethiop. J. Sci. 1:87–98.
•  Hartmann, H.T. and Kester, D.E. (1975). Plant Propagation: Principles and Practices. Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, pp. 53–66.

To cite some pages in a publication prepared by one or more editors, an acceptable format is:

•  Fraser, D.A.S. (1971). Events, information processing, and the structural model (with discussion). In: Foundations of Statistical Inference, pp. 32–35, (Godame, V.P. and Sprott, D.A., eds). Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Toronto.

Tables, however small, should bear arabic numerals and be referred to in the text by their numbers, e.g. `Table 4'. Each table must be typed on a separate sheet and should be placed at the end of the manuscript. The approximate position of each table should be indicated in the text. Footnotes in tables should be indicated by superscript letters beginning with `a' in each table. Descriptive material not designated as a footnote may be placed under a table as a note. Vertical lines should not be used to separate columns; instead extra space should be left between the columns. Ditto marks should be avoided.

All illustrations should be given separately, not stuck on pages and not folded. They should be numbered as figures in sequence with arabic numerals. Each figure should have a descriptive legend and this should be given on a separate sheet after the manuscript. Clear, glossy black and white photographs (100 x 70 mm) can be submitted to the Journal; they should be clearly numbered on the back in pencil.

Only International System of Units (si) are acceptable. Symbols and nomenclatures should conform to international recommendations with respect to specific fields of specialization.

COLUMNS

Research articles

Report of original research in any branch of science will be considered for publication in this section.

Review articles

Covering recent advances in an area in which an author has been actively engaged will be published under this column.

Short communications

News of interest to researchers including progress report on ongoing researches, records of observations — short comments, correction and reinterpretations of articles previously published in SINET, etc. Manuscripts submitted for this column should be prepared following the preceding instructions, and should not be more than six pages and should not contain more than two figures and/or two tables.

Feature articles

These are articles that may be published in SINET feature columns covering a range of topics in science education, and science and society.

Science education: Articles related to science education in schools and colleges, new or simple methods of scientific experiments for science educators, discussion of science curricula textbooks, teaching aids, etc.

Science and society: Articles related to applications of science to solving daily problems of man; the scientific method as applied to solving man's problems; the role of science experiments in the "Third World", etc., are considered in this column.

Book review

A critical evaluation of recently published books in basic sciences, science education, technology and development will be published under this column.