Preparing your materials

Aims and Scope

Seed Science Research, the official journal of the International Society for Seed Science, is a gold open access international journal that publishes original papers, as well as reviews and opinion papers, dealing primarily with the fundamentals of seed research with emphasis on the physiology, morphology, biochemistry, molecular biology and ecology of seed development, dormancy and germination. The importance of seeds to propagation, food, biofuel and biodiversity cannot be underestimated and therefore submissions on seed genetics, seed biotechnology, seed treatment and seedling establishment are especially encouraged if they are novel and ‘seed driven’.

Policy on prior publication

When authors submit manuscripts to this journal, these manuscripts should not be under consideration, accepted for publication or in press within a different journal, book or similar entity, unless explicit permission or agreement has been sought from all entities involved. However, deposition of a preprint on the author’s personal website, in an institutional repository, or in a preprint archive shall not be viewed as prior or duplicate publication. Authors should follow the Cambridge University Press Preprint Policy regarding preprint archives and maintaining the version of record.

Preparing your article for submission

Authors are committed to follow in detail the manuscript guidelines as outlined below. If authors fail to do so, their submission will be rejected with the request to resubmit a manuscript that follows all the guidelines. Authors are particularly urged to pay attention to both format and accuracy of the references, in body text, figures, tables and list of references. Reviews, opinion papers and short communications may differ from the general guidelines for full-length papers but should always contain an abstract and keywords.

Text

The title page should include:

A descriptive title;
A running head title not to exceed 50 characters;
Authors' complete names (first names and initials followed by family name);
Authors' academic addresses (including country of each author);
Corresponding author’s full address, telephone, fax number, and email address;
Keywords: seven or less, suggested in alphabetical order; they should include the main subjects of the research and plant material;
Declaration of all sources of financial support, including grants from non-profit organizations and/or any commercial support.

Authors' qualifications or academic positions should not be included, except in the address for correspondence. Standard abbreviations (e.g. Fig. and Figs) and metric units must be used. Use British rather than American spellings. Use 'z' rather than 's' spellings in words with 'ize'.

Abstract

Each paper must commence with an accurate, informative abstract, in one paragraph, that is complete in itself and intelligible without reference to text or Figures. It should not exceed 250 words. A short title should be provided as a running head.

Key Words

Not more than seven should be suggested in alphabetical order. They should include the main subjects of the research and plant material.

Tables

Tables should be reduced to the simplest form, and present only essential data. Captions should be provided. Each table should be appropriately cited within the text.

Figures

Figures are encouraged where they are a real contribution to the article.

To ensure that your Figures are reproduced to the highest possible standards, Cambridge Journals recommends the following formats and resolutions. NB: Figures must be supplied as separate files, and not imbedded within manuscript document. Any required lettering or numbering must be inserted by the author.

Please ensure that your Figures are saved at final publication size and are in our recommended file formats. Following these guidelines will result in high quality images being reproduced in both the print and the online versions of the Journal.

Please ensure that all graphs are exclusively submitted as 2-dimensional images.

Line artwork

Format: tif or eps

Colour mode: black and white (also known as 1-bit)

Resolution: 1200 dpi

Combination artwork (line/tone)

Format: tif or eps

Colour mode: grayscale (also known as 8-bit)

Resolution: 800 dpi

Black and white halftone artwork

Format: tif

Colour mode: grayscale (also known as 8-bit)

Resolution: 300 dpi

Colour halftone artwork

Format: tif

Colour mode: CMYK colour

Resolution: 300 dpi

If you require any further guidance on creating suitable electronic Figures, please visit http://dx.sheridan.com/guidelines/digital_art.html. Here you will find extensive guidelines on preparing electronic Figures and also have access to an online preflighting tool (http://dx.sheridan.com/index.html) where you can check if your Figures are suitable for reproduction.

References

References are loosely based on the Harvard System, they are cited in the text, using the author's surname and the year of publication, e.g. Henderson (1999) in chronological order. Where a reference has two authors 'and' should be used in the text and the reference list. Where three or more authors appear 'et al.' should be used in the text, e.g. Hoekstra et al. (1999), but the surnames and initials of all the authors must be given in the list as follows:

Journal Article

Dussert S, Chabrillange N, Engelmann F and Hamon S. (1999) Quantitative estimation of seed desiccation sensitivity using a quantal response model: application to nine species of the genus Coffea L. Seed Science Research 9,135-144.

Books

Cromarty AS, Ellis RH and Roberts EH (1985) The design of seed storage facilities for genetic conservation. Rome, International Board of Plant Genetic Resources.

Leopold AC and Vertucci CW (1986) Physical attributes of desiccated seeds, pp. 22-34 in Leopold, A.C. (Ed.) Membranes, metabolism and dry organisms. Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press.

Chang CW (1975) Fluorides, pp. 57-95 in Mudd JB; Kowlowski TT (Eds) Responses of plants to air pollution. New York, Academic Press.

Conference Proceedings

Eira MTS, Walters C and Caldas LS (1999) Critical water content for desiccation damage in coffee seeds: a role for aqueous glasses? p. 105 in Proceedings from the VI international workshop of seed biology, January 1999, Merida, Mexico.

Sun WQ (1997) Function of the glassy state in seed storage stability, pp. 169-179 in Taylor, AG; Huang X-L (Eds) Progress in seed research: proceedings of the second international conference on seed science and technology. Geneva, New York, Communication Services, New York State Agricultural Experiment Station.

Required Statements

Acknowledgements

You may acknowledge individuals or organisations that provided advice, support (non-financial). Formal financial support and funding should be listed in the following section.

Financial Support

Please provide details of the sources of financial support for all authors, including grant numbers. For example, "This work was supported by the Medical research Council (grant number XXXXXXX)". Multiple grant numbers should be separated by a comma and space, and where research was funded by more than one agency the different agencies should be separated by a semi-colon, with "and" before the final funder. Grants held by different authors should be identified as belonging to individual authors by the authors’ initials. For example, "This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust (A.B., grant numbers XXXX, YYYY), (C.D., grant number ZZZZ); the Natural Environment Research Council (E.F., grant number FFFF); and the National Institutes of Health (A.B., grant number GGGG), (E.F., grant number HHHH)". Where no specific funding has been provided for research, please provide the following statement: "This research received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial or not-for-profit sectors." The Financial Support statement should be placed in the Acknowledgements. Papers that do not include a Financial Support statement will not be reviewed.

Conflicts of Interest declaration

Conflicts of interest exists when an author has interests that might be perceived to inappropriately influence the content or publication of their work, even if this has not been influenced. Authors must therefore disclose potentially conflicting interests so that others can make judgements about such effects.

At the time of submission authors should include a Conflicts of Interest declaration after Financial Support above their references, including any financial arrangements or connections they may have that are pertinent to the submitted manuscript and that may be perceived as potentially biasing their paper. Non-financial interests that could be relevant in this context should also be disclosed. If no relevant interests exist, this should be stated. This requirement applies to all the authors of a paper and to all categories of papers including letters to the editor.

The Conflicts of Interest declaration should be placed after Financial Support above the references. Example wording for a declaration is as follows: “Conflicts of Interest: Author A is employed at company B. Author C owns shares in company D, is on the Board of company E and is a member of organisation F. Author G has received grants from company H.” If no conflicts of interests exist, the declaration should state “Conflicts of Interest: The author(s) declare none”.

Papers that do not include a Conflicts of Interest declaration will not be reviewed.

Ethical standards

Where research involves human and/or animal experimentation, the following statements should be included (as applicable): "The authors assert that all procedures contributing to this work comply with the ethical standards of the relevant national guidelines on human experimentation (please name) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008, and has been approved by the institutional committees (please name) ." and "The authors assert that all procedures contributing to this work comply with the ethical standards of the relevant national guides on the care and use of laboratory animals (please name) and has been approved by the institutional committee (please name)."

The Ethical Standards statement should be placed after the Conflicts of Interest section before the References. If the research does not involve human and/or animal experimentation, this statement should be omitted. Papers reporting the results of human and/or animal experimentation that do not contain an Ethical Standards statement will not be reviewed. For more information on the ethical standards and procedures of Cambridge Core, please visit###a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/authors/publishing-ethics">https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/authors/publishing-ethics.

How to prepare your materials for blind peer review

Please see here for further details.

English language editing services

Authors, particularly those whose first language is not English, may wish to have their English-language manuscripts checked by a native speaker before submission. This step is optional, but may help to ensure that the academic content of the paper is fully understood by the Editor and any reviewers.

In order to help prospective authors to prepare for submission and to reach their publication goals, Cambridge University Press offers a range of high-quality manuscript preparation services – including language editing – delivered in partnership with American Journal Experts. You can find out more on our Language Services page.

Please note that the use of any of these services is voluntary, and at the author's own expense. Use of these services does not guarantee that the manuscript will be accepted for publication, nor does it restrict the author to submitting to a Cambridge-published journal.

Seeking permissions for copyrighted material

Please see further guidance here.

Competing Interests

All authors must include a competing interest declaration in their main manuscript file. This declaration will be subject to editorial review and may be published in the article.

Competing interests are situations that could be perceived to exert an undue influence on the content or publication of an author’s work. They may include, but are not limited to, financial, professional, contractual or personal relationships or situations.

If the manuscript has multiple authors, the author submitting must include competing interest declarations relevant to all contributing authors.

Example wording for a declaration is as follows: “Competing interests: Author 1 is employed at organisation A, Author 2 is on the Board of company B and is a member of organisation C. Author 3 has received grants from company D.” If no competing interests exist, the declaration should state “Competing interests: The author(s) declare none”.

Authorship and contributorship

All authors listed on any papers submitted to this journal must be in agreement that the authors listed would all be considered authors according to disciplinary norms, and that no authors who would reasonably be considered an author have been excluded. For further details on this journal’s authorship policy, please see this journal's publishing ethics policies.

Author affiliations

Author affiliations should represent the institution(s) at which the research presented was conducted and/or supported and/or approved. For non-research content, any affiliations should represent the institution(s) with which each author is currently affiliated.

For more information, please see our author affiliation policy and author affiliation FAQs.

ORCID

We require all corresponding authors to identify themselves using ORCID when submitting a manuscript to this journal. ORCID provides a unique identifier for researchers and, through integration with key research workflows such as manuscript submission and grant applications, provides the following benefits:

Discoverability: ORCID increases the discoverability of your publications, by enabling smarter publisher systems and by helping readers to reliably find work that you have authored.
Convenience: As more organisations use ORCID, providing your iD or using it to register for services will automatically link activities to your ORCID record, and will enable you to share this information with other systems and platforms you use, saving you re-keying information multiple times.
Keeping track: Your ORCID record is a neat place to store and (if you choose) share validated information about your research activities and affiliations.

See our ORCID FAQs for more information.

If you don’t already have an iD, you will need to create one if you decide to submit a manuscript to this journal. You can register for one directly from your user account on Editorial Manager, or alternatively via https://ORCID.org/register.

If you already have an iD, please use this when submitting your manuscript, either by linking it to your Editorial Manager account, or by supplying it during submission.

ORCIDs can also be used if authors wish to communicate to readers up-to-date information about how they wish to be addressed or referred to (for example, they wish to include pronouns, additional titles, honorifics, name variations, etc.) alongside their published articles. We encourage authors to make use of the ORCID profile’s “Published Name” field for this purpose. This is entirely optional for authors who wish to communicate such information in connection with their article. Please note that this method is not currently recommended for author name changes: see Cambridge’s author name change policy if you want to change your name on an already published article. See our ORCID FAQs for more information.

Supplementary materials

Material that is not essential to understanding or supporting a manuscript, but which may nonetheless be relevant or interesting to readers, may be submitted as supplementary material. Supplementary material will be published online alongside your article, but will not be published in the pages of the journal. Types of supplementary material may include, but are not limited to, appendices, additional tables or figures, datasets, videos, and sound files.

Supplementary materials will not be typeset or copyedited, so should be supplied exactly as they are to appear online. Please see our general guidance on supplementary materials for further information.

Where relevant we encourage authors to publish additional qualitative or quantitative research outputs in an appropriate repository, and cite these in manuscripts.

Use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools

We acknowledge the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in the research and writing processes. To ensure transparency, we expect any such use to be declared and described fully to readers, and to comply with our plagiarism policy and best practices regarding citation and acknowledgements. We do not consider artificial intelligence (AI) tools to meet the accountability requirements of authorship, and therefore generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and similar should not be listed as an author on any submitted content.

In particular, any use of an AI tool:

to generate images within the manuscript should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, and declared clearly in the image caption(s)
to generate text within the manuscript should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, include appropriate and valid references and citations, and be declared in the manuscript’s Acknowledgements.
to analyse or extract insights from data or other materials, for example through the use of text and data mining, should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, including details and appropriate citation of any dataset(s) or other material analysed in all relevant and appropriate areas of the manuscript
must not present ideas, words, data, or other material produced by third parties without appropriate acknowledgement or permission

Descriptions of AI processes used should include at minimum the version of the tool/algorithm used, where it can be accessed, any proprietary information relevant to the use of the tool/algorithm, any modifications of the tool made by the researchers (such as the addition of data to a tool’s public corpus), and the date(s) it was used for the purpose(s) described. Any relevant competing interests or potential bias arising as a consequence of the tool/algorithm’s use should be transparently declared and may be discussed in the article.