African Journals Online
Journal of the Cameroon Academy of Sciences / 
Revue de L'academie des Sciences du Cameroun

Instructions to authors…./ Instructions aux auteurs….

The Journal of the Cameroon Academy Sciences is a multidisciplinary publication, devoted to all aspects of fundamental and applied re­search. It also publishes topical reviews on science and technology in development, arts, humanities and cultures.

The J Cam-Acad. Sci is published by the Cameroon Academy of Sciences. However, opinions expressed in the journal are those of its authors and should not be construed as reflecting the official policy of the Academy. The journal will not publish articles dealing with political or religious advocacy.

Language and Style: Articles should be written in English or French and provided with abstracts in both languages. Articles should be written in the passive voice and in the third person.  Pronouns such as “I” and “we” should be avoided.

Submission of articles: The manuscripts along with any display items as tables, figures, photographs, etc should be submitted in four copies. Photographs should be in black and white. Colour photographs will only be published exceptionally and even then at considerably extra cost to the author. The authors of accepted articles will be required to submit a final version of the manuscript on a 3.5 inch floppy diskette using one of the following software: WordPerfect for Windows, Word for Windows, Excel etc. or any other computer software recommended by the editor. All submitting authors must counter-sign against their names on the title page to indicate their approval of the submission.

Peer-review: All articles submitted to the journal will be reviewed anonymously and will be accepted only when a majority of the re­viewers recommend it for publication. Authors of rejected articles will be given an opportunity to reply to the reviewers’ com­ments.

Page Charges and Off prints : Authors of accepted articles will be required to pay a fee of 20 USD or 10.000 FCFA per printed page. They will receive 10 free off prints or a copy of the journal and can place orders for additional off prints after the acceptance of the arti­cle.

Copyright: The submission of an article to the J.Cam.Acad.Sci means that the same article is not being considered elsewhere for publication. Upon acceptance, the author(s) shall be required to trans­fer the copyright to the Academy.

Preparation of manuscripts: Manuscripts should be typed on A4 paper with double spacing and a 2cm margin all round. A full length article should not exceed 2500 words.

Title: The title should not exceed 36 characters and should not con­tain abbreviations or acronyms. It should be precise and informative.

Tide page: The title of the article should be typed on the first page of the manuscript followed by the names of the authors and the addresses of their institutions. The name and address of the corre­sponding author should be dearly identified in a foot-note.

Organization of the article: Depending on the type of com­munication the article should be divided into the following sections:

FURTHER DETAILS ON STYLE

Layout:  J.Cam Acad-Sci will contain sections for various colleges of the Academy, but will receive and publish articles from non-members as well, subject to editorial review.

Abstract : All articles should be provided with a brief summary not exceeding 200 words. The summary should be written in simple lan­guage and should highlight the aims of the work, the approach or meth­odology, the main results obtained and the conclusion reached All abbreviations should be avoided and if used explained at least once. The sum­mary should be presented in French and English.

Introduction or statement of problem : This section should  give the scientific reasons for doing the work and relate the work to previous knowledge and expected outcomes and impact. Only relevant literature should be cited. The introduction should, therefore, not be transformed into a literature review.

Experimental : This section should describe the materials and meth­ods employed in the work in sufficient detail to enable a qualified reader to duplicate the work. Previously described methods should be cited and not elaborately described. Statistical methods of treatment should be mentioned if they have been used. If the work done involved the use of human subjects, primates or the release of genetically modified organ­isms into the environment, it should be stated if clearance from the appropriate authority has been obtained. The editor may request a copy of the clearance document or informed consent form for verification.

Results: This section should describe the results preferably in the same order as predicted by the objectives. Reference should be made to display items such as tables and figures where appropriate. Lengthy discus­sions should not be undertaken in this section although timely conclu­sions may be drawn after the presentation of the results.

Discussion : The discussion should highlight what is new in the paper. References should be made to the display items to support the conclusion reached, and to previous publications on the same topic. The dis­cussion should be limited to results described in the manuscript and any implications these may have.

References: For a paper with one or two authors the surname(s) is/are referred to in the text; where the cited paper has more than two co­-authors the surname of the first author is mentioned followed by et al.

Example:

(a)    Smith et al (1997) showed that mosquitoes bite more frequently in the evening than at dawn.

(b)    Ngu and Titanji(1981) were the first to describe the use of African patients’’ own white cells for self-treatment of cancer. 

(c)    For a journal article, the citation is written as follows:

        GREENWAY, P. (1998). Foresight on ageing. Biologist 45, 217-220

(d)   For a book the reference is written giving successively the names(s), the year of publication or the author’s editor consulted, the title of  the book, the name of the publishers, the city of publication, and the pages cited, e.g. MORRIS J. G. (1978). A Biologists Physical Chemistry. Edward Arnold Ltd. Lon­don

(e)    At the end of the manuscript all the references should be typed in alphabetical order of the first authors’   surnames giving the full title of the article the journal and pages inclusively;

Figures and tables: These should be constructed in such a manner ­that they can be understood without reading the text. Graphs should preferably be drawn using appropriate computer software and presented on single page ready for mounting. No writing is allowed on figures di­rectly although the abscissa and ordinates of graphs can be labelled. Appropriate symbols should be used on graphs and explained in the legends.

Legends: Figure and table legends should be typed consecutively on separated sheets at the end of the manuscript. The printer will mount them on the article.

Acknowledgements: These should be presented at the end of the text and before the bibliography.