Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer (KJSSF) is a journal published and distributed  by the Korean Society of Soil Science and Fertilizer (KSSSF). It covers all scientific and technological aspects of soil science and fertilizer. Contributions reporting original research or reviews dealing with some aspects of soil and fertilizer will be considered from all disciplines. To be acceptable a manuscript must make a significant contribution to the advancement of knowledge or toward a better understanding of existing concepts. A prerequisite for submission and consideration of manuscripts is that at least one of the authors should hold membership in the Society.

 

For the policies on the research and publication ethics not stated in this instructions, International standards for editors and authors
(http://publicationethics.org/international-standards-editors-and-authors) can be applied.

Ethical Guidelines

Research ethics

If the work involves experimentation on living animals, the authors must provide evidence that it was performed in accordance with ethical guidelines. In the case of work involving human beings, the procedures should be in accordance with the ethical standards of the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the author’s institution and with the 2000 revision of the Helsinki Declaration of 1975. For issues on research and publication ethics not stated in this guide, the “Responsible authorship quick guide (http://ori.hhs.gov/)” or “International Standards for Authors (http://www.publicationethics.org/)” should be consulted and followed.

 

Authorship

Manuscript authorship should be restricted to those who meet any of the following conditions: 1) substantial contribution to the conception and design of the study; 2) acquisition, interpretation, and analysis of data; 3) drafting the article or revising it critically for the important intellectual content. 4) agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. In addition, all listed authors must approve the final version of the manuscript to be published.

 

Conflict of interest

All authors are asked to inform the Editor-in-Chief of the any actual or potential conflict of interest possibly influencing their interpretation of the data. Such conflicts may include but are not limited to financial support or personal relationships with other people or organizations, political pressure from interest groups, or academic problems.

 

Copyright policy

All copyright and other intellectual property rights related to the content of the journal are licensed to KSSSF. Hence, a completed “Copyright Transfer Agreement” form should accompany any original material when it is first submitted to KJSSF. Once a manuscript is accepted, KSSSF asserts its copyright and applies it to an open access policy. Articles may be reproduced and distributed only for non-commercial purposes, as detailed in the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0. In other words, through the Creative Commons license, KSSSF allows others to reproduce and distribute the works it publishes, as long as the authors are properly attributed and the content is not plagiarized, misrepresented, or used for commercial purposes. Duplicate publications should not be represented as original publications; rather, KJSSF should be cited as the original site of publication. Apart from these misuses, anyone is free to read, download, copy, share, store, print, search, link, and crawl the full- text of the work.

Peer-review process

Contributors may recommend or exclude potential reviewers on the basis of their knowledge on the subject matter of the paper. Editorial board will decide if the manuscript is to be accepted, rejected or peer-reviewed based on the following criteria: field of research, scope of work, quality of language usage, adequacy of tables and figures, and observance of format. In addition, all manuscripts will be edited by native English speakers. Acceptance of the paper will depend upon its scientific merit and suitability for the journal. The reviewers’ and editor’s suggestions will be conveyed to the corresponding author (henceforth ‘the author’) without identifying the reviewers, and the author will have an opportunity for revision with full, sole responsibility. The revised manuscript must bear a sign ‘REVISED’ on top right of the title page. If a manuscript returned to the author for revision is held longer than eight weeks, the submission will be considered withdrawn, unless a previous arrangement has been made with Editor-in-Chief. If a manuscript is declined, the author has the right to appeal and should send a letter to the Editor-in- Chief presenting the reasons why the editorial decision should be reconsidered. Even after the ‘accept decision’ by Editor-in-Chief, the author may be asked to make revision regarding both editorship and scientific aspect of the manuscript overlooked during review process, if necessary, by the editorial office.

Submission of Manuscripts

Submission of an article is understood to imply that the article is original and is not being considered for publication elsewhere. Manuscript should be submitted by on-line submission system at http://submission.kjssf.org/. If on-line submission is not possible, author can submit manuscript via email to ksssf249@hanmail.net

Types of Contribution

The three main sections in the journal are Article, Short communication, and Review. Articles cover full reports of research works that require precise description and clear interpretation of theoretical or experimental works. Short Communication is a concise but complete description of a limited investigation, which containing analytical techniques, laboratory and field equipment design, computer software, studies of limited scope, preliminary data, and unique observations. Short communications should be no longer than 4 printed pages. Reviews should cover a part of the subject of active current interest. They may be submitted or invited.

Preparation of Manuscripts

 

1. Manuscripts should be written in Korean or English. Authors whose native language is not English are strongly advised to have their manuscripts checked by an English-speaking colleague prior to submission.

 

2. Manuscripts should be typewritten, typed on one side of the paper, with wide margins and double spacing throughout, i.e. also for abstracts, footnotes and references. Every page of the manuscript, including the title page, tables, etc. should be numbered.

 

3. Manuscripts in general should be organized in the following elements, which are described in detail below: Title page, Abstract, Text, References, Figure captions, Tables, and Figures.

 

4. In tying the manuscript, titles and subtitles should not be run within the text. They should be typed on a separate line

 

5. SI units should be used. Symbols of the units should be spaced from the numbers to which they refer except ℃ and %. Use a space to show multiplication of units and a negative exponent to show division. Thus m s-1 is preferred to m/s. Use “L” instead of “l” for liter.

 

6. Define abbreviations at first mention in the abstract or text, and again in the tables and figures, e.g., cation exchange capacity (CEC). If the first mention is in the abstract they do not need to be repeated in the text. Standard abbreviations listed in the Publications Handbook and Style Manual (ASA-CSSA-SSSA, 2004) may be used without definition.

Title Pages

The title page should include:

 

1. Form of the manuscript

 

2. Name(s) of author(s)

 

3. Complete postal address(es) of affiliations

 

4. Complete correspondence address to which the proofs should be sent

 

5. ORCID of the first and corresponding authors

 

6. Full telephone number and Email address of the corresponding author

Abstracts

1. The abstract should be clear, descriptive and not longer than 300 words.

 

2. Key words, normally 3-6 items, must follow the abstract on the same page.

Text

1. The main text of the manuscript is typically comprised of Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion, Conclusions, and Acknowledgement.

 

2. Introduction: The purpose or reason for the research being reported, and its significance, should be clearly and concisely stated. Discuss relationships of the study to previously published work.

 

3. Materials and Methods: Specific experimental methods should be sufficiently detailed for others to repeat the experiments unequivocally. Apparatus, reagents, and biological materials used in the study should be incorporated. List devices of a specialized nature or instruments may vary in performance. Biological materials should be identified by scientific name (genus, species and authority) and cultivar, if appropriate, together with the site from which the samples obtained.

 

4. Results and Discussion: Results and discussion may be presented in separate sections or combined into a single section. Be complete but concise in discussion findings, comparing results with previous work and proposing explanations for the results observed. All data must be accompanied by appropriate statistical analyses.

 

5. Conclusions: A separate conclusion section can be used.

 

6. Acknowledgement: Include essential credits but hold to an absolute minimum.

Tables

1. Tables should not duplicate matter that is presented in figures.

 

2. Authors should take notice of the limitation set by the size and lay-out of the journal. If many data are to be presented, an attempt should be made to divide them over two or more tables.

 

3. Table should be numbered according to their sequence in the text. The text should include references to all tables.

 

4. Tables should be typewritten on separate pages of the manuscript. Table should never be included in the text.

 

5. Each table should have a brief and self-explanatory title.

 

6. Column headings should be brief, but sufficiently explanatory. Standard abbreviations of unit of measurement should be added in the following separate row of column headings.

 

7. Vertical lines should not be used to separate columns.

 

8. Any explanation essential to the understanding of the table should be given as a footnote at the bottom of the table.

 

9. Use the following symbols for footnotes in the order shown: †, ‡, §, ¶, ∮, ∫, ∬, etc.

Figures

1. All figures (line drawings and photographs) should be submitted separately.

 

2. Figures should be numbered according to their sequence in the text, and references should be made in the text to each figure.

 

3. Each figure should be identified on the lower front side by its number and the name of the author.

 

4. Figures should be designed with the format of the page of the journal in mind.

 

5. Make sure that the size of the lettering is big enough to be legible. The lettering should be in English.

 

6. Each figure should have a caption. The captions to all figures should be typed on a separate sheet of the manuscript.

 

7. Explanations should be given in the typewritten legend. Drawn text in the figures should be kept to a minimum.

 

8. Photographs are only acceptable if they have good contrast and intensity.

 

9. Color figures cannot usually be included, unless the cost of their reproduction is paid for by the author.

References

1. All publications cited in the text should be presented in a list of references following the text of the manuscript.

 

2. In the text refer to the author’s name (without initial) and year of publication, (Kramer, 1989; Kim and Park, 2000; Kim et al., 2001).

 

3. If reference is made in the text to publication written by more than two authors, the name of the first author should be used followed by “et al.” (Kim et al., 2002). This indication, however, should never be used in the list of references. In this list names of first author and co-authors should be mentioned.

 

4. References cited together in the text should be arranged chronologically. The list of references should be arranged alphabetically in authors’ name, and chronologically per author. If an author’s name in the list is also mentioned with co-authors, the following order should be used: publication of the single author, arranged according to publication dates-publications of the same author with one co-author-publications of the author with more than one co-author. Publication by the same author(s) in the same year should be listed as 1974a, 1974b, etc.

 

5. Use the following system for arranging your references:

 

a. For periodicals
Tietema, A., L. Riemer, A.J. Wijk, and I. Voorthuyzen. 1992. Nitrogen cycling in acid forest soils subject to increased atmospheric nitrogen input. For. Ecol. Manage. 57:29-44.

 

b. For books
Gaugh, H.G. 1992. Statistical analysis of regional yield trials. Elsevier, New York, USA.

 

c. For multi-author books
Baker, I.J. 1993. Insects. p. 101-153. In A. Hertogh et al. (ed.) The physiology of flower bulbs. Elsevier, London, UK.

 

d. For thesis
Cho, B.O. 1999. Characterization of soil fertility and management practices of alpine soils under vegetable cultivations. Ph.D. Thesis, Kangwon National University, Chunchon, Korea.

 

e. For edited symposia, special issues, etc. published in  aperiodical
Lidster, W.A. and H.W. Ford. 1981. Rehabilitation of ochre clogged agricultural drains. p. 451-463. In Proceedings of the 11th Congr. Int. Commission on Irrigation and Drainage, ICID, New Delhi, India. Kang, Y.K. and C.A. Stutte. 1982. Effects of silicon on growth and physiological activities of rice. Research Report 24. Rural Development Administration, Suwon, Korea.

 

f. Patents
Roth, T.L. 1972. The manufacturing process of natural insecticide. US Patent 3670.

 

6. Abbreviate the titles of periodicals mentioned in the list of references; according to the List of Periodical Title in ISI(Institute for Scientific Information).

 

7. If the title is in a language other than English, the title should be translated into English, and a note such as‘(in Korean)’or‘(in Japanese, with English Abstract)’ should be added at the end of the reference.

 

8. References concerning unpublished data and “personalcommunications” should not be cited in the reference list but may be mentioned in the text.

Copyright

1. An author, when quoting form someone else’s work or when considering reproducing an illustration or table from a book or journal article, should make sure that he is not infringing a copyright.

 

2. A suitable acknowledgement of any borrowed material must always be made.

Manuscript Revisions

Authors have 15 days to make revisions and return their manuscripts following reviewer and editor comments. If not returned within 15 days, the manuscript will be released, unless there was a previous arrangement with Editor-in-Chief. And it must be resubmitted as a new paper.

Proofs

Page proofs and reprint order forms are sent to the corresponding author, together with instructions on the payment of page charges and reprint costs. This proof stage is not a time for extensive corrections, additions, or deletions. It is advised that editing be limited to the correction of typographical errors, incorrect data, and grammatical errors, and for updating information on references that had been in press. The corrections to page proofs should be sent immediately by e-mail or a fast mail service, preferably within 2 business days.

Publication Charge

Publication fee (300,000 Korean won) will be charged for the articles that acknowledge  funding sources  and for the articles went through  rapid review processing (RRP). When articles that went through RRP have funding sources acknowledgement, additional fee (300,000 Korean won) will be charged (totally 600,000 Korean won). No publication fee  will be charged for publication in other cases.