The mission of the WRSA (World Rabbit Science Association) is to encourage communication and collaboration among individuals and organisations associated with rabbit production and rabbit biology in general. The journal WRS (World Rabbit Science) which is published quarterly under control of the WRSA, accepts manuscripts for publication presenting information with this mission in mind.
Authors may publish in WRS regardless of membership in the World Rabbit Science Association, however, joining the WRSA is encouraged. As English is the official language of the WRSA, papers submitted to WRS have to be written in English; but according to the local rules in the country of publication (France), papers written in French are also accepted. Views expressed in papers published in WRS represent the opinion of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the "official" policy of the Association or Editor-in-Chief.
Research articles: Results of work contained in manuscripts submitted to WRS must not have been published previously in an international refereed scientific journal. 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 in WRS. In general, such papers should not exceed 40,000 words (about eight WRS printed pages) including tables and illustrations. 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, the biological information is not the same!
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. Length is limited to 2 pages of the journal. 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 in WRS 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 WRS 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. The final length should not exceed five WRS pages. 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-in-Chief 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.
Address three paper copies of the manuscripts by post or as an attached file to an e-mail to one of the following sections, according to the main subject of the paper. Substitute an @ sign for the & sign in the e-mail addresses:
Dr. Steven D. LUKEFAHR
Dept. of Animal & Wildlife Sciences, MSC 156
Texas A&M University
KINGSVILLE, Texas, USA 78363
Fax: +1 361.593.3788
<s-lukefahr&tamuk.edu>
Dr. Gerolamo XICCATO
Università Padova - Dipartimento di Scienze Zootechniche
Agripolis - Strada Romea, 16
35020 LEGNARO (Padova) Italy
Fax: +39 049 827 26 69
<gerolamo.xiccato&unipd.it>
Dr. Luc MAERTENS
Departement Dierenvoeding en Veehouderij,
Afelding Kleinveehouderij
Burgmesters Van Gansberghelaan, 92
B 9820 MERELBEKE Belgium
Fax: +32 0 272 25 00
<l.maertens.dvv&pi.be>
Dr. Cristiano BOITI
Dipartimento di Scienze Biopatologiche veterinarie
Sezione di Fisiologia, Università di Perugia
Via S. Costanzo 4,
06126 PERUGIA - Italy
Fax: +39 75 58 57 654
<cboiti&unipg.it>
Dr. Pierre COUDERT
Station de Pathologie Aviaire et de Parasitologie
INRA Centre de Tours
37380 NOUZILLY - France
Fax: +33 2 47 42 77 74
<pcoudert&tours.inra.fr>
Text: Papers must be written either in English or in French, following current usage. Spelling should follow that of the Oxford Dictionary (or the French Larousse dictionary). Manuscripts should be typewritten on one side of the sheet of paper only, with wide margins and be double spaced. Lines should be numbered to help the refereeing procedure. 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 authors-defined abbreviations and acronyms is discouraged.
A list of acceptable abbreviations is published for example (e.g.) 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 following form:
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 WRS page is 18 x 25 cm, but when possible the figures will be reduced to the column width of 8.5 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: Apart from reviews, the number of citations should be minimised by careful scrutiny, selecting only the most pertinent ones. 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 "and" (e.g. BLASCO and OUHAYOUN, 1992) has to be employed; but for three or more authors cited "et al.", 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.
References list: 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. Author's names should appear in small 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, 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, 1988. SAS/STAT® User's Guide (Release 6.03). 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]. J. Chin. Soc. Anim. Sci.,
16, 73-81.
The manuscript received will be submitted to two 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-in-Chief. If possible, submit the revised paper 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 Word 7.0 for Windows95 (Office 97), but the acceptable software for processing are: Wordperfect 4.x and 5.x, Wordstar 3.3 to 7.0, Word 3.x to 6.0 for MSDOS, Word 6.0 or 7.0 for Windows95 (Office 97), Microsoft Works and, for tables and graphs, Excel 5.0 to 7.0. Files must 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-in-Chief'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.
If the manuscript is accepted for publication, copyrights will be assigned exclusively to the Publisher. 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. Twenty off-prints of each article will be supplied free of charge. On request, additional copies can be ordered at current printing + mailing cost.
(End of Instructions to Authors)
Only about 50% of papers submitted to World Rabbit Science are accepted for publication. Here are two important suggestions for researchers:
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