The mission of Pan-American Rabbit Science Newsletter is to provide the rabbit producer with up-to-date reviews and developments in rabbit science while avoiding the time and expense of travelling to far-away conferences and to reduce the long lead time for research results to reach the production level.
It is recommended that papers be written in English; but papers written in French or Spanish are also accepted. Views expressed in papers published represent the opinion of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the any policy of the publication or Editor.
Research articles: Results of work contained in manuscripts submitted may have been published previously in an international refereed scientific journal, if author retains copyright and the journal provides permission. Previous presentation at a scientific meeting or the use of data in field day reports or similar documents, including local technical press, does not preclude the publication of such data. Data must have been analyzed using approved statistical methods. Treatment means must be accompanied by standard error of the means (sem) or some other measures of variability, for each mean (observed standard error) or for groups of means (residual standard error), according to the variance homogeneity hypothesis and variance analysis. Standard deviation (se or σ) must be employed only when the authors would emphasize the intra-population variability.
1 - Numerical homogeneity: Mean and standard error (or standard deviation) must be expressed with the same degree of accuracy, i.e.: 2452 ± 43; 0.732 ± 0.021; 7324.7 ± 2.3; 9750 ± 240; 9.75 ± 0.24. Note also that at the end of a numeral, a zero may be a digit with the same interest as the others: 7.5 is greater than 7.4 and smaller than 7.6 but 7.50 is greater than 7.49 and smaller than 7.51.
2 - Significant figures: In a normal situation, standard error is expressed by two significant figures (digits), e.g. 35 or 0.35 or 0.0035. This rule enables the author to fix the number of digits after (or before) the mean's decimal point that must be utilised in the expression of the data. Examples for a rabbit live mass: mean ± standard error = 1756 ± 25 g or 1.756 ± 0.025 kg.
Short papers: Short articles including new results are accepted. Introduction and discussion should be restricted to the aim of the experiment and the immediate remarks. The refereeing procedure would be simplified to allow quick publication.
Review articles: Publication of reviews is encouraged. The length is not regulated but must be relative to the importance of the subject. So that readers can differentiate between review papers and original research papers, reviews should include the term "Review" in the title.
Technical notes: A technical note is a vehicle to report a new method, technique or procedure of interest to readers. When possible, a technical note should include a comparison of results from the new method with those from previous methods, using appropriate statistical methods. Both advantages and disadvantages of the new technique should be discussed. The words "Technical Note" should be the first or the last words of the title of such manuscripts.
Letters to the Editor: Letters judged suitable for publication by the Editor will be printed in a special section of the journal. The purpose is to encourage scientific debate and discussion among those interested in rabbit production and/or biology. These letters may refer to published articles and must provide supporting evidence based on published data for the points made, or must develop logical scientific hypotheses. Letters based on conjecture or on unsubstantiated claims will not be published. No new data may be presented in a letter. When appropriate, the authors of original papers will be invited to write a letter of response, and normally both letters will be published together.
Text: Papers must be written either in English, French, or Spanish following current usage. English spelling should follow that of the Oxford Dictionary (instead of "American" usage). Manuscripts should be typewritten on one side of the sheet of paper only, with wide margins and be double spaced. Words to be printed in italics should be in italics on the manuscript or underlined. Do not underline any other words and avoid excessive usage of italics to emphasize part of the text. The use of author- defined abbreviations and acronyms is discouraged. A list of acceptable abbreviations is published in each January issue of the Journal of Animal Science. If author-defined abbreviations are a real necessity, each abbreviation must be defined the first time it is used in the abstract and again in the body of the manuscript. The International System of Units should be used. Temperatures should be given in degrees Celsius (e.g. 39°C).
Form of presentation: Text of articles should be presented in the generally accepted forms for research papers, reviews, short articles and technical notes.
Acknowledgements: When appropriate, names of technical assistants, indication of research grants, and other thanks must be included, in a special Acknowledgements section preceding the bibliography.
Illustrations: Illustrations (figures and tables) should be presented on a separate page and referred to in the text by their number. Tables should be numbered with Arabic numerals and be accompanied by adequate titles and, if necessary, table footnotes. Figures should also be numbered with Arabic numerals, and the title given on the same page. Figure legends should be explicit so that the illustrations are comprehensible without reference to the text. Drawings should be completely lettered, the size of the lettering being appropriate to that of the drawings, but taking into account a possible reduction in size in printing. The full available size of a page is 21.59 x 27.9 cm, but when possible the figures will be reduced to the column width of 8 cm.
If no possibilities of high quality drawing are available for the authors, the editor can make figures and graphs with a micro-computer and a laser printer; in this situation a table containing the useful data or X and Y axis values, must be added to the figures.
Citations and Bibliography: Apart from reviews, the number of citations should be minimised by careful scrutiny, selecting only the most pertinent ones. For citings and bibliography, the "Author-Date" (APA) system is to be employed. For details see the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA). Here are some examples:
Citations: For ease of locating, author's names are presented in capital letters in both citations and references. Published literature should be cited in the text in one of two ways, depending on the sentence structure:
When two or more citations are included in a grouping within a sentence, the citations must be arranged in chronological order, and if needed, alphabetically within the year. For two authors "&" (e.g. BLASCO & OUHAYOUN, 1992) has to be employed; but for three or more authors cited, the abbreviation of the latin expression et alia, has to be used (e.g. COUDERT et al., 1992). When the same author(s) have two or more references with different dates, cite them together in the text (e.g. MASOERO et al., 1989, 1991). If, and only if, two papers abbreviate identically in the text, place a different letter after the date for each paper, both in the text and in the references list.
Bibliography: At the end of the paper, the references should be given in full with the name and forename initial(s) of the author(s), year, full title of the article, and journal of publication with indication of volume and first and last page of the article. In the list of references, the order should be alphabetical with papers by the same authors arranged in order of 1) single author, 2) two authors alphabetically according to the name of the second author and 3) three or more authors chronologically. In each case, use a,b,c, etc. following the date for papers published in the same year. References should be abbreviated in accordance with the rules of Biosciences Information Service (Biosis). In case of uncertainty about the correct abbreviation, the full journal title should be employed.
Some examples are given below of the layout and punctuation to be used in the references. In general, the "Author-Date" system Author's names should appear in caps. Note that periods are placed after each abbreviated word.
ADAMSON I., FISHER H. (1973). Aminoacid requirements of the growing
rabbit: an estimate of quantitative needs. J. Nutr., 103,
1306-1310.
CENTODUCATI P., CASAMASSIMA D., ZEZZA L., BRAGHIERI A. (1990).
L'influenza della temperatura ambiantale sulle caratteristiche
delle carcasse di coniglio "N.Z.B." alimentati con
diversi livelli proteici. Coniglicoltura 27(3), 47-52.
COLIN M. (1993). Rabbit production in East European countries. World
Rabbit Sci. 1(1), 37-52.
KOEHL P.F. (1988). The performances of rabbit production units
followed through technical and economical management. In: Proc. 4th
World Rabbit Congr., Budapest Oct. 1988, Vol. 1, 318-325.
LEBAS F., COUDERT P., ROUVIER R., de ROCHAMBEAU H. (1986). The Rabbit,
Breeding and Pathology. F.A.O., Rome, Italy.
SAS/STAT® User's Guide (Release 6.03) (1988). SAS Inst. Inc.,
Cary NC, USA.
SMITH J.E., LANG G.H. (1992). Composition of rabbit blood. In:
FOSTER R.P., MANNERS G.P.R.(Ed). Biology of Mammals. Boff Inc.,
Corronsac SD, USA, 789-792.
YU B., CHIO P.W.S., YOUNG C.L., HUANG H.H. (1987). [A study of rabbit
T-type canula and ileal digestibility] (In Chinese). J. Chin. Soc.
Anim. Sci. 16, 73-81.
All manuscripts must certify that the research has followed established standards for humane care and use of animals.
Generally style and form will follow the CBE Style Manual current edition, which may be obtained from Council of Biology Editors (CBE), Inc., 11 South LaSalle Street, Chicago, IL 60603-1210 USA. Within that general specification, a few specific areas require emphasis:
Review process
Manuscripts received may be submitted to referees and, if necessary, returned to the author(s) for final writing. After modifications according to the referees' comments, two copies should be sent back by the authors to the Editor. If possible, submit initial papers and revised papers on a micro-computer diskette, or as a file attached to an e-mail message. This will greatly facilitate publication. Diskette may be 5¼" or 3½" formatted MSDOS.
We are using WordPerfect 5.1 (DOS). Files should be converted to an ASCII file from other processing software or into *.rtf files. Nevertheless, a paper manuscript is also requested (as a model and in case of computer problems). The date of receipt of each paper is normally the date on which the manuscript is received at the Editor's office. The date of acceptance is the date on which the paper is received from the referees without proposed modifications, or is received from the authors after corrections according to the referees' comments. We have no way to view an Excel file.
Copyright and charges
Authors may retain copyright to their papers; however copyright is shared with this publication so that no part of this publication (except summaries and résumés) may be reproduced without the prior written consent of the Publisher. There will be no page charge. A copy of the issue of publication will be mailed free of charge to the author. On request, additional copies can be ordered at current printing + mailing cost.