Conferences coming:

3rd Annual World Congress of Industrial Biotechnology 2010 (ibio-2010), which will be held on July 25-27, 2010 Qingdao, China

1st Inaugurate Symposium on Enzymes & Biocatalysis-2010 (SEB-2010), which will be held on April 22-24, 2010 in Shanghai, China

Cover images:

Author Instructions
for BioResources Online Journal

All articles and opinion pieces to be considered for publication in BioResources are to be submitted online, using the Submit Item feature, by selecting "Author submissions" at left. More instructions regarding using the submissions software are given below. Articles must be written in English. Major forms of standard written English (e.g. U.S., British, Austrailian) may be used, as long as one is consistent. Authors must keep in mind that submitted articles must be previously unpublished material, with the exception that material appearing in the preprints to a conference, etc., can be republished, with the permission of the copyright owner and there must be an Aknowledgments section stating the first appearance of the material, as well as describing the permissions under which the material is being published again.

Author's certification: By the act of submitted an article to BioResources, the author(s) are certifying that the following statements all are true:

1.  The article and its contents are original.  The material was written by the author(s), and it has not been published elsewhere, except in the case of (a) a thesis by one of the authors, (b) an abstract having less than 1500 words, or (c) material accompanying a conference presentation, with the stipulation that the copyright owner has given permission for publication in BioResources and a statement describing the initial publication (even if just figures) and permission statement appears in an Acknowledgements section of the submitted article.
2.  No other journal is currently considering the submitted article for publication.
3.  Nothing in the article violates the personal or property rights of other individuals, including plagiarism or libel.
4.  Permission has been obtained for use of any previously copyrighted material that appears in the article, and such permissions are disclosed in an Acknowledgements section of the submitted article.
5. All new findings and conclusions in the submission have been generated as a result of controlled experimental or modeling designs and have been reached with acceptable levels of precision and/or accuracy commensurate with what is expected in a professional journal.

Authors are required to use a template (see below), so that the format matches the example. For instance, the font styles, sizes, and margins need to match that of the template example for each item in the article. After renaming a copy of the template file, it is recommended to copy items from your original file one-by-one, using the a commmand sequence such as "paste special, unformatted text," and copy to the next line after the corresponding item in the template file. Then make any adjustments so that the font style, size, margins, etc., exactly match the format of the original content of the template. Then delete the default text from the original template item.

Authors can ease the burden on the process of editing and reviewing by avoiding the use of excessively high resolution graphics. When incorporating images into an article to be submitted to BioResources, it is recommended that the image files be modified, as necessary, so that no one of them has a file size larger than about 250 kBytes. Most image processing software provides ways to descrease file size, often by reducing the nominal size of a JPEG image, etc. Due to the default settings that are used during the creation of PDF files, the resolution of the published version usually is not affected by moderate reductions in the resolution of the original image files that become inserted into a document.

If you are interested in submitting an Opinion Piece (Editorial) or a Review Article, then please scroll down (below the discussion of peer-review article submissions).

Peer-review articles: In the case of original research articles, prospective authors are required to use the exact format as exhibited in the downloadable MS WORD or Open Office Writer article template document. Please click on the appropriate link in the previous sentence, depending on the word processing system that you will be using to format your article. Just replace the title and other contents of the downloaded template document with your own title and other contents. Don't worry about the header and footer; the editors will take care of those details. (You also can download a PDF version of the article template, but you won't be able to edit it.) Within the text of the template you will find further author instructions. The following is a summary. A more detailed "Style Guide" for articles in general appears at the bottom of this page.

Abstract length: Target 150 words; maximum 200 words

Article length: Typically 4 to 20 pages, following the required format

Scope: Science and engineering of biomass from lignocellulosic sources for new end uses and new capabilities; examples include advances in wood science, new uses of crop residues, biofuels, biocomposites, papermaking, and chemical production that is based on plant material that contains substantial amounts of cellulose or lignin. The journal scope does not include consideration of articles mainly dealing with waste remediation, food, or pharmaceuticals (except as derived form lignocellulosic sources).

Audience: Please bear in mind that the likely audience will be multi-disciplinary; your work needs to be understood by scientists and specialists who may have very different backgrounds from your own.

Opinion pieces: The editors will have sole discretion in accepting a limited number of suitable opinion pieces, which will be called "Editorials." These items will not be peer-reviewed. Suitable opinion pieces will be selected based on the judgment of the editors that the ideas will help to stimulate a discussion among practitioners in the field of lignocellulosic bioresources. Prospective authors should use the exact format as exhibited in the downloadable MS WORD or Open Office Writer opinion peice template document. Note that this template is different in detail from that used for peer-review articles (see previous item). A PDF version is also available to look at, but you won't be able to use it as a template.

Length: Typically 1 to 2 pages, following the required format

Scope: We are particularly interested in opinions related to the pace, direction, and barriers to implementation of sustainable, environmentally responsible solutions to society's needs for energy, materials, and products.

Review articles: The editors may either request review articles or consider articles that are submitted without request. Review articles that appear to generally fall within the scope and other requirements of the journal will be subject to the same peer-review process that was discussed in the case of research articles.

Format: The required format is similar to that used for research articles, with the exception that headings such as "Experimental," "Results and Discussion," and "Conclusions" should be replaced with more appropriate headings, consistent with the contents of the article. Please use a downloadable review article template as an MS WORD or Open Office Writer file. You also can look at a PDF version, but you won't be able to use it as a template.

Length: The length of review articles generally should be within 4 to 20 pages, but the literature references are not included in the page count. The editors reserve the right to waive the 20 page limit in case of reviews of unusual quality and importance. However, it is well appreciated that many articles can be improved in quality by shortening them.

Contact information: If questions remain that are not answered in this template document or elsewhere on the website, please feel free to contact the editors at one of the following email addresses: hubbe@ncsu.edu or lucian.lucia@ncsu.edu.

Submission Instructions

BioResources is one of many online journals that use an automated software system known as "Open Journal Systems" (OJS). This sytem is highly sophistocated and capable, but it is necessary to follow certain procedures. Please be aware that the appearance of some of the screens will change, depending on whether or not you have logged on, registered, etc. Here is a general stepwise procedure that may be useful in case you run into questions during the submissions process:

1. From the links at the upper left of the present screen, select "Author Submissions."

2. Log in. Unless you have set your system to log you in automatically, you ought to first look at the upper right of your screen. Look for the word USER. Below that heading find the word Username, with a box at the right. Below that you should see the word Password, with another box at the right. Please use these boxes if you already have registered. If you are not yet registered with the site (in other words, you don't yet have a user name and password), then click on the "Log In" box just below "Password," and then follow the prompts. Please write down your user name and password.

3. The next screen that you come to usually will have the title "BioResources" at the top, on a gray-green field. Below a series of links, you should see another heading, "User Home." Just below that, you should again see the word "BioResources" as well as the underlined word "Author," which is a link. To submit an article you must select your role as "Author."

4. The next screen may show your "Active Submissions," if you have previously submitted an article. To submit a new article, look near the bottom of the text area, just above the words, "URL:bioresourcesjournal.com". You will want to select the following underlined link: "STEP ONE OF THE SUBMISSIONS PROCESS." Select that link, and follow the prompts.

5. Continue through the process, following the prompts. Make sure to fill in the four required check-boxes, if true. If you run into difficulty (for instance maybe your file exceeds the 2 megabyte maximum size), please contact the editors. Though it is very helpful to the process to have the submission carried out by means of the software system, the editors also can enter the information after receiving a manuscript by e-mail. Make sure to select "save and continue" at the bottom of each screen, and do not stop until after you have selected "Finish submission" at the bottom of the final page.

Writing Style Suggestions for New Authors

Though BioResources welcomes a variety of writing styles, including various regional differences in spelling, we are proposing a set of style preferences to encourage uniformity in the journal. When in doubt, we would encourage authors to employ the following guidelines:

1. Generally avoid the use of personal pronouns. Use passive voice to describe actions done by the authors (e.g., "The tests were completed," "The central hypothesis of this work was tested in a level 5 cleanroom."). The reason behind this is to emphasize and encourage objectivity of scientific work to be published in the journal.

2. Generally use past tense when describing experimental methods and results (e.g., "All absorbance spectra were collected on a Model XXX HP diode array spectrophotomer."). The reason for this is that we want the reader to be able to know very clearly what parts of the article represent work by the authors.

3. Favor the use of present tense in the "Introduction" and in discussions that describe the state of the art of scientific knowledge in a given field. For example, if there is a consensus among researchers, the following conjectural statement is possible: "Cellulose solubility in water is higher after treatment with compound X than with compound Y (Smith 1997; Chu et al. 1999)." You can make an exception if something clearly was done in the past, e.g. , "Jones and El-Akhbar (1992) earlier reported contradictory findings."

4. New authors frequently pay inadequate attention to discussing their results. In particular, it is usually a good idea to compare and contrast your new results relative to past theoretical and empirical work by others. Depending on author preference, authors submitting to BioResources may either combine "Results and Discussion" or use separate "Results" and "Discussion" sections. In either case, the greatest value of scientific publications involves efforts to analyze, interpret, or prove your results relative to one or more hypotheses.

5. When writing your "Experimental" section, the main criterion to follow is that other researchers in the future should be able to repeat your work. It is perfectly satisfactory to just cite published procedures that you followed. However, you will need to carefully explain any procedures that were unique to your own study. In some cases, it may make sense to be more comprehensive in this section, depending on the novelty of the work or other considerations.

6. When writing the "Introduction," new authors should focus on providing sufficient context, based on the literature, so that readers somewhat unfamiliar with the field will be able to judge the relative importance of their new findings. Key articles, upon which the current work depends, should be emphasized. In a research article (as opposed to a review article) it is not necessary to include extensive explanations of concepts or facts that already are explained in other publications.

7. New authors are encouraged to write their Abstract after they have completed the rest of the writing. A good starting strategy is to use one or two sentences, each, to summarize the main thrust of each of the major sections of the article, e.g. Introduction, Experimental, Results, and Conclusions. Aim for the target word count, not the maximum permitted word count (see template for BioResources articles of different types).

8. Knowing that the title of your article will be the part that is read by the greatest number of people, it is a good idea to go back and scrutinize it again, after the rest of your writing it mostly done. Can the words be misinterpreted? Is the title readily understood by your intended audience? Does it capture people's attention? Does it adequately describe your topic?

9. Choose key words that adequately and succinctly represent the crux of your research article. Do they fairly cover the overall concepts, strategies, and methods used in the work? These words are very important since they are among various pointers that are used to direct attention to your article.

10. Finally, choose your figures and tables carefully to make the most impact to our readers. Can you put in a graph or plot what you would have put in a table (or vice versa) that facilitates comprehension of the research? Can you overlay spectra instead of having separate spectra? Are the figures easily read or do our readers need a magnifying glass to see the data?