Instructions to Authors

(i) Introduction

Journal of Pure and Applied Microbiology (JPAM) is a peer-reviewed, open access, quarterly published international journal, strives to provide a forum for worldwide scientific researchers for the advancement and dissemination of scientific knowledge. The journal publishes high-quality reviews, research articles and clinical studies in microbiology and its allied disciplines provided they demonstrate new findings of relevance to the field as a whole.

(ii) Editorial Policy

Originality
Authors are expected to adhere to the highest standard with respect to publication ethics, any cases of ethical misconduct are treated very seriously. The acceptance criteria for all papers are the quality, originality of the research work, validity of data, reproducibility of results and papers that demonstrate new findings of relevance to the field as a whole and its significance to our readership will be considered and accepted for publication. JPAM accepts submitted papers on the condition that they have been submitted only to JPAM, that they have not been published already and is not under consideration for publication or in press elsewhere.

Authorship
All the authors must have agreed to the submission of the final version of the manuscript, the order of their names on the title page and that the contributions of all people involved in the research have been properly acknowledged. They also must have agreed that the corresponding author may act on their behalf throughout the editorial review and publication process. To avoid any possible dispute during the process, changes to authorship (including the order of author’s names, addition or deletion of the name) after submission or acceptance, should be accompanied by signed statements of agreement from all the authors involved as per the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines only.

Ethical Considerations; Compliance with Ethical Standards
Journal of Pure and Applied Microbiology (JPAM) follows a strict Publication Ethics and Malpractice Policy; Authors are expected to adhere to the highest standard with respect to publication ethics. The author(s) should declare that all text, data, figures/tables or other illustrations presented in the manuscript are completely original and does not contain or include material taken from other copyrighted sources and wherever such material has been included, proper citation is included in the reference section and also affirm that the work does not violate any proprietary or personal rights of others. Any cases of ethical misconduct are treated very seriously.

Authors should include the following statements (if applicable) in a separate section entitled “Compliance with Ethical Standards” when submitting a paper:

  • Conflict of Interest Disclosure
  • Ethics of Human and Animal Experimentation
  • Informed Consent

Conflict of Interest Disclosure
At the time of submission, authors must include a disclosure statement in the body of the manuscript. All authors must declare any conflict of interest or any affiliation or involvement in any organization whether it is academic, commercial, financial, personal and professionally relevant to the work under consideration to avoid the potential for bias and accept responsibility for what is said in the manuscript.

Ethics of Human and Animal Experimentation
Human Subject Research
The Author should ensure that studies involving experiments on humans must have an institutional review board (IRB) and/or national research ethics committee approval. Manuscripts should include a statement that the informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects and that it conforms to standards currently applied in the country of origin. The name of the authorizing body should be stated in the paper. The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed.

Animal Research
The Author should ensure that studies involving experiments on animals must include a statement in the manuscript indicating that the international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals have been followed, and that the study has been approved by a research ethics committee. Procedures should be such that experimental animals do not have to suffer unnecessarily. Papers should include details of the procedures and of anaesthetics used.

Informed Consent
All individuals have individual rights that are not to be infringed. Individual participants in studies have the right to decide what happens to the identifiable data gathered from them during a study. Hence it is important that all participants gave their informed consent in writing prior to inclusion in the study. The manuscripts that include information about participants, written informed consent for the publication of these must be obtained from all the participants.

Plagiarism Prevention Policy
Journal of Pure and Applied Microbiology (JPAM) follows a strong plagiarism policy and is committed to protecting the integrity of the scholarly record and feels its duty to help and support the scientific community in all aspects of research and publishing ethics.

JPAM is a participant of Advanced Plagiarism Detection Software (Crossref Similarity Check Powered by iThenticate) to screen published and submitted content for originality.

By submitting articles to the Journal of Pure and Applied Microbiology (JPAM) the author(s) attest the following:

  • All author of the article has thoroughly checked and approved the content of the article before submission
  • No part of the manuscript is plagiarized from other sources
  • Proper reference is provided wherever contents extracted from other sources
  • If plagiarism is found strong action will be taken

All the papers submitted have to pass through an initial screening and will be checked through the Advanced Plagiarism Detection Software (Crossref Similarity Check Powered by iThenticate)


(iii)
 Preparation of Manuscript

Manuscripts submitted for publication should meet the following criteria: validity of data, clarity, conciseness, reproducibility of results, and compliance with typescript requirements. In discussing the results, it is mandatory to set forth a sound conclusion on the novelty of the materials submitted for publication.

The following should be used as a guide in preparing papers for publication.

Manuscript Text
Files should be formatted double-spaced with no hyphenation and automatic word-wrap (no hard returns within paragraphs). Please type your text consistently, e.g. take care to distinguish between ‘1’ (one) and ‘l’ (lower-case L) and ‘0’ (zero) and ‘O’ (capital O), etc.

Title Page
The title page should contain (i) the title of the paper (ii) full names of the authors and each author’s affiliation with full postal address (iii) Place an asterisk after the name of the corresponding author, and provide an e-mail address and telephone for correspondence (iv) Current addresses of authors should appear as a footnote.

Title
A title should be concise and informative and contain the major keywords that accurately describe the content of the paper. Do not use abbreviations in the title. Omit all waste words such as “A study of ….”, “Investigations of ….”, “Observations on ….” etc. in the title.

Abstract
The abstract should be brief and does not contain more than 250 words. A well-prepared abstract gives a clear indication of the objective, scope, results and principal conclusion of the article which enables the reader to identify the basic content of an article quickly and more accurately, So that readers may determine whether the full text will be of particular interest to them or not.

Keywords
Each paper should have three to six keywords, in addition to those already present in the title. Keywords are used by the indexing and abstracting services

Introduction
The introduction should present sufficient background information and the object of the investigation to understand the purpose of the current work and its significance.

Materials and Methods
The Materials and Methods section should provide sufficient technical details to allow others to replicate and build on published results. New procedures should be described in detail while previously published procedures can be briefly described and appropriately cited. Sources of all important chemicals, equipment, or microbial strains should be indicated.

Results
Results should provide a concise description and can be presented in the form of figures, tables, and text which should clearly and accurately describe the experimental findings of the study. It is recommended to use past indefinite verb tense in describing the results.

Discussion
The Discussion section should be focused on the interpretation of the results, but not reiterate the results. Discussion should be completed with a major conclusion that answers the question specified in the introductory part of the article. The Results and Discussion sections may be combined into one section.

Tables
Tables should be provided in Word or Excel format and must be editable (not pasted in as a picture). Each table should be numbered consecutively in numerals and should include a caption and column headings that contain enough information. Units of measurement should be abbreviated and placed below the column headings. Explanatory footnotes should be related to the legend or table using superscript, lower-case letters. All abbreviations should be defined after the footnotes, beneath the table body.

Figures
Figures should be provided separately from the main text. Figures must be cited in the order that they appear. The figure number must appear well outside the boundaries of the image itself. Include a legend describing the figure and it should be below the figure. Provide each axis with a brief but informative title (including units of measurement). It is the author’s responsibility to ensure that figures are provided at a sufficiently high resolution to ensure high-quality reproduction in the final article. Please note that it is the responsibility of the author(s) to obtain permission from the copyright holder to reproduce figures or tables that have previously been published elsewhere.
Acceptable file formats: TIFF, JPEG, and PNG.

Declarations (following statements to be added just before References):
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements of any financial support and personal assistance for the work being published must be indicated.

Conflict of Interest
All authors must declare any conflict of interest or any affiliation or involvement in any organization whether it is academic, commercial, financial, personal and professionally relevant to the work under consideration to avoid the potential for bias and accept responsibility for what is said in the manuscript.

Authors’ Contribution
Each author contribution should be clearly mentioned.

Funding
Kindly mention the Grant number and the funding organisation name, if any.

Ethics Statement
If the study involves an experiment on humans and animals; then the name of the authorizing body should be stated in the paper.

Informed Consent
If the study involves an experiment on humans and animals; Manuscripts should include a statement that the informed consent was obtained for experimentation and that it conforms to the standards currently applied in the country of origin. The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed.

Data Availability
Kindly mention the database or the repository name(s) along with the Accession number(s) if all datasets generated or analyzed during this study are not included in the manuscript and/or the Supplementary files.

References
The References section should include all relevant journal articles, books and patents cited in the text, tables or figures. Arrange the reference list in the order of their appearance in the main text, and then number the list consecutively (not in alphabetic order) and should be cited in the text in superscripts only. The author(s) must check the accuracy of all reference numbers, JPAM follows AMA (American Medical Association) reference style.

The referencing styles shown in the examples below should be used.

Print Journal Article:

El-Naggar MY, Yousry MG, Khouloud M, Nowara SA. Physiological response, anti bacterial activity, and cinnamaldehyde production by a marine Streptomyces chartreusis. J Pure Appl Microbiol. 2016;10(3):1797-1808.

Online Journal Article with DOI:

Hamed A, Nedal A, Al-Mnayyis A, et al. COVID-19 – Knowledge, Attitude and Practice among Medical and Non-Medical University Students in Jordan, J Pure Appl Microbiol. 2020;14(1):17-24. https://doi.org/10.22207/JPAM.14.1.04

Online Journal Article without DOI:

Salman SA, Gokcen D, Baldan R, et al. Molecular Characterization of Carbapenem Resistant Acinetobacter baumannii and Investigation of Genetic Diversity Between Local and International Clones, J Pure Appl Microbiol, 2016;10(3):1675-1682. https://microbiologyjournal.org/molecular-characterization-of-carbapenem-resistant-acinetobacter-baumannii-and-investigation-of-genetic-diversity-between-local-and-international-clones. Accessed November 25, 2019.

Books:
Brock TD, Madigan MT. Biology of Microorganisms, 5th Ed. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. 1988.

Specific Chapter in books:
Gershon AA, Russa P La, Steinberg SP. Varicella-zoster virus. In Murray PR, Baron EJ, Pfaller MA, Tenover FC, Yolken RH (eds.), Manual of Clinical Microbiology, 7th Ed. American Society of Microbiology, Washington, D.C. 1999:900-911.

Patents:
Aviv H, Friedman K and Vered V. Submicron emulsions as ocular drug delivery vehicles. U.S. Patent US 5496811; 1996.

Websites:
Quick dissolving tablets. http://www.biospace.com, Accessed 27 may, 2001.

The list of references should only include works that are cited in the text and that have been published or accepted for publication. Personal communications and unpublished works should only be mentioned in the text not in references.

Nomenclature
Nomenclature for chemical and biochemical agents, microorganisms, proteins, enzymes and genetic should be used.

Abbreviations
Abbreviations should be defined at their first use in the text and to be used consistently thereafter.

(iv) Submission of Manuscripts

Manuscripts should only be submitted online through Article Submission Form in Word format only. Author(s) must provide an email address as all correspondence, notification and comments regarding the manuscript will be through email.

Covering letter
The covering letter must contain a statement that the content is submitted only to JPAM and has not published already, neither it is under consideration for publication or in press elsewhere. All authors acknowledge that they have substantially participated in research work and in preparation of the manuscript and do not contain any material taken from other copyright sources and wherever such material has been included, proper citation is included in the reference section.

Manuscript Checklist for Final Submission

  • All authors Orcid IDs are provided in the manuscript.
  • A title doesn’t contain any abbreviations.
  • Abstract is not more than 250 words.
  • Keywords are provided in addition to those present in the title.
  • All references mentioned in the reference list are cited in the text and vice versa.
  • References formatted according to the requirement of JPAM i.e. as per AMA (American Medical Association) reference style.
  • Tables and Figures are properly numbered and are of good quality.
  • One author designated as the corresponding author, his/her email and address are included.
  • Page numbers and Line number have been included on each page.
  • All authors have read and approved the final version of the manuscript.

Editorial Office
Journal of Pure and Applied Microbiology
24, New Maulana Azad Colony,
Near St. Joseph Girls Convent School,
Idgah Hills, Bhopal – 462001
M.P., India.
E-mail: [email protected]
Contact No.: +91-9893809167

(v) Editorial Review and Acceptance

Manuscripts should be written in order that it is understandable to the professional reader and it should be clear and concise. All contributions will be initially assessed by the editor for their suitability. Papers deemed suitable are then typically sent to expert reviewers to assess the scientific quality of the paper. The editor reserves the right to modify typescripts to eliminate errors and repetitions and improve communication between author and reader. A paper may be accepted in its original form or subject to revision. If extensive alterations are required, the manuscript will be returned to the author for revision.  The Editor reserves the right to accept or reject any article. The Editor’s decision is final. Author(s) must provide an email address as all correspondence, notification and comments regarding the manuscript will be through email.

(vi) Manuscripts Accepted for publication

Proofs
Galley proofs (PDF format) for an accepted article will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author for corrections. The core content of an article cannot be changed during galley proofreading; only corrections should be restricted to typesetting errors. Authors are advised to check their proofs very carefully before return; since the subsequent changes are not acceptable. The proofs should be corrected and mailed to the Editorial office.

Publication Charges
The corresponding author will be charged as per their primary affiliation as mentioned below:
Indian Institutions/Universities (when all the authors are affiliated with Indian Institutions/Universities within India): Rs. 16000/-.
Foreign Institutions/Universities (when one or more authors are affiliated with Foreign Institutions/Universities outside India): Click here to check the charges

Copyright
Copyright on any open access article published in JPAM is retained by the author(s). Authors grant JPAM a license to publish the article and identify itself as the original publisher. Authors also grant any third party the right to use the article freely as long as its integrity is maintained and its original authors, citation details and publisher are identified.

Publishing Rights
JPAM allows its author(s) to retain publishing rights without restrictions.

Licensing Policy

Journal of Pure and Applied Microbiology (JPAM) an open access journal follows Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Preprint Policy
Journal of Pure and Applied Microbiology will consider for review articles previously posted as preprints on any preprint server provided that:

  • Author(s) should inform the journal at the time of submission if and where their article has been previously posted.
  • The version posted has not been peer-reviewed, edited, or typeset.
  • The articles have not previously been published in part or in whole within a scientific journal, book, or similar entity.
  • Upon acceptance of their article for publication in the Journal of Pure and Applied Microbiology the author(s) is still able to grant the journal License to publish the article, and agree to pay the article processing charge (APC).
  • Author(s) are requested to update any pre-publication versions with a link to the final published article via its Digital Object Identifier (DOI).

Self-Archiving
Journal of Pure and Applied Microbiology actively supports the author(s) self-archiving process. Journal encourages author(s) to self-archive any version of their manuscript to personal or institutional websites, in repositories and similar, prior to and after the publication of their manuscripts, provided that the author(s) must acknowledge the published source with citation and link the final published article via its Digital Object Identifier (DOI).

More information on the journal’s copyright and self-archiving policies is available on the SHERPA ROMEO website.

Article Corrections, Retractions, and Withdrawal Policy
Article Corrections Policy
Authors are encouraged to report errors in their articles with regard to the accuracy of published information. Only errors that impact the article significantly will be considered. Corrections are made at the journal’s discretion. The correction procedure depends on the publication stage of the article. Corrections will be published under corrections and addendum in a later issue of the journal.

Article Retractions Policy
The article may be retracted because of scientific misconduct in cases such as multiple submissions, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, or fraudulent use of data. A signed statement from the concerned authors will be required to be submitted before an article can be retracted. Agreement of all authors of a paper is required before a retraction can be published. A notice of retraction will be published and linked to the original article clearly marked as retracted. The notice will also include the reason for the retraction and who is retracting the article. The original article will not be removed from online or print versions of the journal but will be identified as a retracted article. Retractions will also be listed on the contents page.

Article Withdrawal Policy
Articles can be withdrawn by the authors only for the most compelling and unavoidable reasons, after submitting a letter signed by all the authors of the article to the editorial office stating the reason for article withdrawal. Authors must not assume that their article has been withdrawn until they have received appropriate notification to this effect from the editorial office.

If an author requests to withdraw the article after it has been peer-reviewed, they will be charged Rs. 2400/- (Within India) / USD 100 (Outside India) or after it has been typeset (but not yet published), they will be charged Rs. 3600/- (Within India ) / USD 150 (Outside India).