Journal Instructions
Submission of the manuscripts implies that they have not
been published before nor are currently submitted or considered
for publication in any other journals, which should be declared in
cover letter by the authors.
The manuscripts must be submitted in electronic version to the
Editorial e-mail address: Journal@bsss.bg
or Bulsoil@gmail.com
Language Manuscripts should be written in clear and grammatically
correct English. British or American English spelling and
terminology must be used. If English is not your native language
we strongly recommend that the text of your paper be checked by a
native speaker or a professional science editor before submission.
Types
of Manuscripts
Bulgarian Journal of Soil Science publishes four categories of
papers and the authors must indicate the category of their
submission in the cover letter:
• Regular research papers must be based on results of original
research. They will normally have a maximum length of 20 pages
including tables, illustrations and references (on separate
sheets).
• Research notes and short communications should be concise,
focused on new results and data. They will be no longer than 5
pages, including the tables and figures.
• Review papers (invited or consulted with the Editor prior to
preparation of the manuscript) with maximum length of 25-30 pages
(according to the importance of the material).
• Book reviews and critical comments on articles and events up to
3 printed pages.
Legal requirements Bulgarian Journal of Soil Science
follows the standards for Ethics and Publication Malpractice set
by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Conformance to standards of ethical behavior is therefore expected
of all parties involved: authors, reviewers, editors, and the
publisher. Submission of a manuscript implies: that the work
described has not been published previously; that it is not under
consideration for publication anywhere else; that its publication
has been approved by all co-authors, if any, as well as by the
responsible authorities - tacitly or explicitly - at the institute
where the work has been carried out. The publisher will not be
held legally responsible should there be any claims for
compensation.
General presentation of the
manuscripts
The manuscripts should be single spaced ( line paragraph
space at 1.15 ) without section breaks, on A4 (210 x 297 mm) paper size,
with margins of at least 2.5 cm at the top, bottom and sides.
Lines should be numbered in the margins with a continuous
numbering from the start of the manuscript. All pages should
be numbered consecutively in the bottom, right-hand corner.
The manuscript should be arranged as follows:
Title Page
The title page should include:
• Full and short (running head) titles of the manuscript. The full
manuscript title must be limited up to 20 words, and the short
title – up to 7 words in small capitals;
• The name(s) of the author(s) in small capitals;
• The affiliate institutions(s) and address(es) of the author(s);
• The e-mail address of the corresponding author.
Abstract
Please provide an abstract up to 1500 characters that includes a
clear statement of the research objectives, a short overview of
the methods used, the most important results and a conclusion. No
references and abbreviations should be used in the Abstract.
Key words
Please provide 4 to 6 key words, which can be used for indexing
purposes. Avoid overlaps with the title.
Order of sections
The standard order of sections should be: Introduction,
Material and Methods, Results, Discussion (or Results and
Discussion), Conclusion, Acknowledgements and References.
The content of the manuscript should be structured in accordance
with the following criteria
1. Introduction. It should
present a general framework of the topic in justifying why the
authors have performed the study. State-of- art on the research
topic has to be presented briefly to derive the novelty of the
study and to show its relation to the preceding works. A distinct
paragraph at the end of this chapter should state the objectives
of the work.
2. Materials and Methods. This
chapter should present detailed information of the place of
research, as well as of data collection and analyses. Sufficient
detail should be provided to allow the work to be reproduced.
Methods already published should not be described in text but
rather indicated by a reference.
3. Results and Discussion. It
is recommended that results of the research are presented in a
clear and concise manner. Information in charts, tables, photos or
graphics should not be repeated in the text. This chapter should
not contain a comparative assessment with similar papers or
information on data analyses procedures.Also to make a comparative
analysis between the results of the current research and those
already published. This should not reiterate the results of the
work but rather explore their significance. Published literature
which is relevant to results and aim of the current study should
only be cited.
4. Conclusion. This chapter or
subsection of the discussion chapter should be concise and derived
from the results of the research and the discussion presented.
General statements are not allowed.
Scientific style
Please always use internationally accepted signs and symbols for
units, SI units. Genus and species names should be in italics.
Text Formatting
• Use a normal, plain font (e.g. 12-point Times New Roman) for
text and line spacing at 1.15.
• Use italics for emphasis.
• Use the automatic page numbering function to number the pages.
• Do not use field functions.
• Use the equation editor for equations.
• Save your file in *.docx format.
•
The page size must be A4
• Headings. Please use no more than three levels of displayed
headings.
• Abbreviations should be defined at first mention and used
consistently thereafter.
• Footnotes can be used to give additional information. Footnotes
to the text are numbered consecutively; those to tables should be
indicated by superscript lower-case letters (or asterisks for
significance values and other statistical data). Footnotes to the
title or the authors of the article are not given reference
symbols.
Acknowledgments (12-point
plain font) of people, grants, funds, etc. should be placed in a
separate section before the reference list. The names of funding
organizations should be written in full.
Tables
The tables should always be cited in text in consecutive numerical
order and must be numbered using Arabic numerals. Each table must
be as simple as possible, size no bigger than 12 x 18 cm. For each
table, please supply a table caption (title) describing its
content. Footnotes to tables should be indicated by superscript
lower-case letters or asterisks and included beneath the table
body.
Example: Table 1. Soil indexes in the territory (2015–2016).
Illustrations
All illustrations, including charts and photos, must be labeled as
Figures. They must be numbered consecutively and should be
provided with an explanatory legend on a separate sheet entitled
‘Figure captions’. They should conform to the size of the typed
area (12 x 18 cm) which is the maximum size for the illustrations.
Magnification should be shown by scale bars. Files in XLS, TIF,
JPG and WMF formats are accepted. After the paper is accepted the
editors will ask for figures in JPG or TIF format with 300 Dpi.
Color illustrations are accepted without fees for electronic
publications. The editors reserve the right to decide what figures
are justified and can be published in RGB color (other figures
will be removed or published in black and white).
Example:
Fig. 1. Soil
map of the study area.
Citations and References
From July 2021, Bulgarian Journal of Soil Science adopts the APA (American Psychological Association) bibliographic style (7th edition – 2020). APA Referencing Basics: In-Text Citation
References
Cite references in the text by name and year in parentheses as
follows: Bauer (1932) or Bauer, Smith (1951) or (Bauer, 1930;
Smith and Albert, 1931, 1935; Bauer et al., 1965) or Steffanic et
al. (1951), up to two authors, give the names; for more than two
authors, give the name of the first author followed by ‘et al.’.
Check each reference with the original article and refer to it in
the text. All authors of a paper should be cited in the list of
references. References ‘in press’ shall only be cited when they
have been accepted for publication.
If
the author of the cited source is unknown, the first few words of
the reference should be used. This is usually the title of the
source. If this is the title of a book, periodical, brochure or
report, is should be italicised. For example: (IUSS Working
group, 2015). If this is the title of an article, chapter or
web page, it should be in quotation marks. For example: (“APA
Citation”, 2017). Citing a group or organization: (World Olympic
Committee, 2018).
Reference list
References should be arranged first alphabetically and then
further sorted chronologically if necessary. More than one
reference from the same author(s) in the same year must be
identified by the letters ‘a’, ‘b’, ‘c’, etc., placed after the
year of publication. For example: (Hristov, 2017a) or (Hristov,
2017b).
In
case of papers written in other than Latin letters, if there is an
English (or German, French) title in the summary, it may be used.
If there is not such a summary, the author’s name must be
transcribed (using British English transcription) and the title of
the paper must be translated into English. This should be noted in
round brackets at the end of the paragraph, for instance: (In
Bulgarian).
Some examples for references to journal publications, books,
chapters in edited books and electronic publications or databases:
Journal articles
Atanassova, I., Doerr S. (2010). Organic compounds of different
extractability in total solvent extracts from soils of contrasting
water repellency. European Journal of Soil cience,
61(1),298-313.
Calderón, H. W. (1982). The content and composition of humus in
arid alluvial soil of Peru. Soil Science, Academy of
Sciences of USSR, Moscow, 8(1), 53-59. (in Russian).
Books
Sparks, D. L. (2002). Environmental Soil Chemistry, 2nd
Edition, Academic Press, San Diego, CA.
Lidanski, T. (1998). Statistical methods in biology and
agriculture. Zemizdat, Sofia (in Bulgarian).
Proceedings or book chapter:
Maison, S. P. (1993). Advanced soil remediation. In: Plants that accumulate heavy metals (P. D. Tooks, ed.). CAB Int., Wallingwood, USA, 291-307.
Kostov, D., Radev, H. Peeva, M. (2008). Study of newly introduced cultivars of green and red apples. In: Sustainable Fruit Growing: From Plant to Product, Proceedings of International Scientific Conference, Bulgaria, 46-53.
Petrova, R. (1989). Loss of Humus Soil in the Process of Reclamation of Damaged Terrains. In: Fourth National Conference on Soil Science ‘Problems of Soil Science in Intensive Agriculture’(N. Sherbanova, R. Nacheva, Eds.).. BSSS, N. Poushkarov Soil Science and Yield Programming Institute, Sofia, 203-206, (In Bulgarian).
Online publications
Lecoq, H. & Desbiez, C. (2012). Viruses of
cucurbit crops in the Mediterranean region: an ever-changing
picture. Adv. Virus Res., 84, 67-126. doi:
10.1016/B978-0-12-394314-9.00003-8.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22682166
Dissertations and Phylosophy Doctor
Theses
Hristova, M. (2013). Content and availability of
microelements-metals in Technogenic soils. Ph.D. Thesis.
Agricultural Academy, ISSAPP ‘N. Poushkarov’, Sofia, 140. (In
Bulgarian)
General Peer-Review Process
The submitted manuscript should not have been previously published
and must not be currently considered for publication in another
journal.
Violations of these rules will strictly result in an immediate
rejection of the submitted manuscript.
Submission of Manuscripts
All manuscripts submitted for publication will be peer-reviewed by
anonymous referees.
Submitted manuscripts will undergo a Plagiarism Check in the
Editorial Office.
Papers will be registered with a date of submission and a date of
acceptance for publication. If papers sent for revision are not
returned to the editorial office within five weeks, these shall be
registered with a new date of submission.
The corresponding author shall be notified in case a paper is
rejected not later than two weeks after the decision had been
taken.
The authors are responsible for the opinions expressed by them and
for the plausibility of their data.
The authors must fill the "Copyright Release
Form" - Download
The
Journal is free, web based and open access. There are no
submission fees, no processing fees, no publication fees or page
charges.
There is a price only for printed hard copy - 50 Euro - on
demand only.
Bulgarian Journal of Soil
Science
is published two times per year: No 1 (May/June) and No 2
(December/January).
Journal Instructions