MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION

Manuscript preparation based on the following guidelines substantially reduces the time taken in editorial processing and results in rapid decision making. Manuscript should be submitted electronically as a single word file embedding all the figures and tables in the following format. Manuscripts must be completely double spaced. All lines should be numbered continuously (not per page) beginning with the abstract and ending before the references, tables, and figures. Pages should be numbered consecutively in the upper right-hand corner of each page, beginning with the title page.  Manuscript submissions that do not follow this format correctly may be returned to authors. Manuscript must be typed with "Times New Roman" font, size 14 for the title, 13 for subtitles, and 12 for the text. Manuscripts should be submitted online at http://jnfs.ssu.ac.ir/

Include in your research manuscript:

The manuscript must be submitted as a Word document. PDF is not accepted. The manuscript should be presented in the following order:

• Title page.
• Abstract or a summary for case reports (Note: references should not be included in abstracts or summaries).
• Main text separated under appropriate headings and subheadings using the following hierarchy: Bold lower case, Italics.
• Tables should be in Word format and placed in the main text where the table is first cited.
• Tables must be cited in the main text in numerical order.
• Acknowledgments, Funding, and all the other required statements.
• Conflict of interests
• Authors' contributions
• Reference list.

Title page

The title page must contain the following information:

• Title of the article.
• Full name, postal address, e-mail and telephone number of the corresponding author.
• Full name, department, institution, city, and country of all co-authors.
• Up to five keywords relevant to the content of your manuscript. This will enable us to identify the most suitable reviewers for your manuscript.
• Word count, excluding title page, abstract, references, figures, and tables.
• A running title of 50 or fewer characters and spaces.

Abstract page

A properly constructed and informative abstract is helpful for the initial editorial review of the submitted manuscript. Research articles must include a structured abstract that contains no more than 250 words, and uses the following headings:

• Background: Provide 1 or 2 sentences that explain the context of the study. State the precise objective or the specific hypothesis to be tested, or both.
• Methods. Describe the study design, including the use of cells, animal models, or human subjects.     Identify specific methods and procedures.
• Results. Report the most important findings, including key data and results of statistical analyses.
• Conclusions. Summarize the primary outcomes of the study including their potential importance (avoid generalizations) in 1 or 2 sentences. Include the participants, animals, or cells studied.

Review articles, and reports should include an unstructured abstract (no more than 50 words) that states the purpose of the article and emphasizes the major concepts and conclusions. Any abbreviations used in the abstract should be defined at first mention. Following the abstract provide and identify 5 keywords

Manuscript body

The manuscript body will consist of:

• Introduction: This section will give brief introduction of the research work while reviewing the latest researches related to it. The introduction section should clearly mention the significance and objectives of the research. .
• Materials & Methods: This section should be detailed enough so that the other interested researchers could repeat the experiments. In the case of applying common methods, citation will be sufficient. However, if any modification in the established method was made, it should be clearly mentioned. Wherever applicable, it should also be mentioned that the ethical clearance was obtained for performing animal trials.
• Results: Authors should describe their important observations in this section. The data should have been analyzed statistically
• Discussion: In this section, authors should discuss their observations in view of already published literature. Variations from the published reports, if any, should be discussed logically giving all possible reasons and then conclusions should be made.
• Conclusions: Containing a brief review of results and stating the outcomes or decisions reached.

Acknowledgements

 After the “Conclusions” section, authors can acknowledge the technical help/financial grant of their colleague/institutes etc.

Authors' contributions

 After the “Acknowledgements” section, authors must indicate their contribution(s) to the manuscript in this section. Use the relevant descriptors listed below unless the author performed a function that clearly is not covered by one of these. All manuscripts, including reviews, must indicate who is responsible for design, writing, and final content, they also must include a statement affirming that all authors have read and approved the manuscript. The initials of all authors' first names must be included.  All authors' contribution statements must include:

• Designed research (project concept, development of overall research plan, and study oversights)
• Conducted research (conductance of the experiments and data collection).
• Provided essential reagents, or provided essential materials (applies to authors who contributed by providing animals, constructs, databases, etc., necessary for the research).
• Analyzed data or performed statistical analysis.
• Wrote the paper (only authors who made a major contribution).
• Had primary responsibility for final content.
• Other (use only the mentioned categories are not applicable; describe briefly).
• All authors have read and approved the final manuscript. For single-authored research papers and reviews, please state: The sole author is responsible for all parts of the manuscript.

For example: H. mozaffari, A. Rahmati, and P. Hashemi designed research; H. Mozaffari and B. Mohammadi conducted research; P. Khosravi analyzed data; and A. Rahmati, P. Hashemi and B. Mohammadi wrote the paper. H. Mozaffari had primary responsibility for final content. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.  

References

JNFS uses the Council of Science Editors (CSE) style of references with the name/year system. All references cited in the text should be listed (double spaced) at the end of the manuscript in alphabetical order under the last name of the first author. If there are more than six authors, list the first six authors and use ‘et al.’ Articles ‘in press’ may be included, but the journal that has accepted them must be stated. Personal communications should be avoided. Journal titles should be abbreviated according to the Index Medicus. References in the text should be noted with the authors’  last names and publication year within parentheses. If there are two authors, both should be named (e.g., Agar and Douglas 1955); if an article with more than two authors is cited, only the first author’s name plus ‘et al.’ should be written (e.g., Komor et al. 1979). If there is more than one reference by the same author or team of authors in the same year, then a, b, c, etc., should be added to the year, both in the text and the list of references. When styling references, the following format should be followed, consider the following example:

Journal article: Brain WR. 1958. The physiological basis of consciousness. A critical review. Brain 2 (4):426‐455.

Book: Kuhlenbeck H. 1954. The human diencephalon.A summary of development, structure, function and pathology. Basel: Karger.

Chapter in book:Teuber HL. 1964. The riddle of frontal lobe function in man. In: Warren T, Akert CH, editors. The frontal and granular cortex and behavior. New York: McGraw-Hill, pp 252­‐271

For Download of Journal EndNote Style click here.

Figures

 Each illustration should have a caption. A caption should comprise a brief title (not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep the illustration texts to minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used. Figures should be included only if they improve the manuscript.

Tables

Tables should be consecutively numbered in accordance with their appearance in the text. Footnotes should be placed below the table body. Tables should be sparing in the use and the data presented in them should not be described elsewhere in the manuscript.

Abbreviations

 Abbreviations that are unavoidable in the abstract must be defined at their first mention there. Also, abbreviations should be explained throughout the manuscript.

Review articles

This section should be prepared according to one of the following styles:

Systematic reviews: This kind of manuscripts should be in form of meta-analysis, meta-synthesis, or without statistical analysis. JNFS encourages authors to conduct and report systematic reviews and meta-analyses based on PRISMA guideline. These manuscripts contain original articles’ parts. They should contain 2500-7000 words.

Moher D, Liberati A, Tetzlaff J, Altman DG, The PRISMA Group (2009) Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses: The PRISMA Statement. PLoS Med 6(7): e1000097. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000097

Narrative reviews

This kind of manuscripts should be written by researchers who are expert in the related field. Different parts of such articles include abstract, introduction, discussion, and conclusion. This type of study should contain at least 25 references and the range of 3000-10000 words including the references and captions.

Short communications

It can be in the form of original article, systematic review, or an ongoing research which reports its interesting findings. The parts in this type of articles are similar to those of original one except that ‘Materials and methods’ section should have not any subtitle. These kinds of manuscripts are smaller and thus are prepared in minimum 1500 and maximum 2500 words.

Letter to the editor

It should be about criticism of previous articles in this journal or the others, criticism or review over books, analysis of a related topic with food quality and control. These manuscripts need no structure.

Case reports

This kind of manuscript should include abstract, keywords, introduction, case report, discussion, conclusion, conflicts of interest, acknowledgment, and references. Case report should have 1500-2500 words. The title should include the words ‘case report’ as well as a description of the reported phenomenon (e.g., reporting of new and rare food borne pathogen). Three to five key words should be provided.

Editorial

These manuscripts need no structure and do not have abstract. But, their total words should be 2000 at maximum including references, while references should not exceed more than 10.

Conflict of interests

Submitting a manuscript must be accompanied with a statement from the authors disclosing all financial and personal relationships that might bias their work, if there is any. Besides, they are requested to clarify whether impending conflicts do or do not exist. A separate page should cover this proclamation and if there are further details, they could be mentioned in a covering letter. If an organization encompasses any financial interest in the outcome of the study, authors are appealed to provide a declaration that has full access to all data in the study and accept complete responsibility for the integrity of data and the accuracy of data analysis

Page charges

There is no charge for publication in the JNFS. The journal does not  charge  for APCs.

Reprint

Four reprints will be provided free of charge.

REVIEW PROCESS

Peer review process flowchart in JNFS is shown in the following. Manuscripts are sent sequentially to the executive manager.  Executive Manager initially evaluates the manuscript and sends it back to the corresponding author or forwards it to the editor-in-chief. After initial evaluation, the manuscript is sent to an expert for plagiarism evaluation. Editor-in-chief solicits reviewers (typically two external reviews) to review the manuscript. The reviewers’ evaluations are compiled by the editor-in-chief and sent to the corresponding author. Decision on acceptance/ rejection is made usually within six weeks after manuscript reception. The Editor-in-chief informs authors whether the text should be revised or is rejected. Minor revisions are expected to be returned within four weeks of decision; major revisions within three months. Manuscripts not revised within these time periods are subject to withdrawal from consideration for publication unless the authors can provide extenuating circumstances. The final decision on manuscript's reconsideration will be made by Editor-in-chief. However, if authors dispute a decision and document good reasons that why a manuscript should be reconsidered, there will be a rebuttal process. In this case, authors should sent their documents to the editor-in- chief.