Submissions

Author Guidelines

Please note that this journal publishes manuscripts in English only. Authors from Ukraine should provide an additional abstract in Ukrainian.

Article types

The following article types are published in the Microbiological Journal.

• Research Article

The study, results, and interpretations of original research. Authors should describe new and carefully confirmed findings. The experimental procedures should be given in sufficient detail for others to recreate the work. Word limit: 3 000–7 000 words and may contain no more than 15 Figures/Tables.

• Short Communication

An alternative to the Research Article for describing smaller pieces of work. It is suitable for reporting completed small-scale investigations, or giving details of new models or hypotheses, innovative methods, null or negative data, and many other research findings. Short Communication should have the following sections like the Research Article. Word limit: 1 000–3 000 words and may contain no more than 2 Figures/Tables.

• Review

Submissions of reviews covering topics of current interest for a wide audience. The text should present controversial areas of the topic in a clear and objective way and should not give undue emphasis to the authors’ work. Review articles should have the following section: Abstract, Introduction, Subsections relevant for the subject, Conclusions. Word limit: 5 000–10 000 words, structured as agreed with the Editors-in-Chief and may contain no more than 15 Figures/Tables.

• Mini-Review

An alternative to the Review for describing smaller pieces of work. Mini-Review articles should have the following section: Abstract, Introduction, Subsections relevant for the subject, Conclusions. Word limit: 3 000–5 000 words, structured as agreed with the Editors-in-Chief and may contain no more than 4 Figures/Tables.

How to prepare an article for submission?

Articles should be submitted as a single file (e.g., Author.docx) with line numbers, preferably readable by Microsoft Word, using a standard typeface Times New Roman 14. All text on the title page, and throughout your paper, should be 1.5 line spaced. For Research Articles, please follow the outline below.

Article structure

The paper should follow this structure in the given order: Title page, Abstract, Introduction, Materials and methods, Results, Discussions, Conclusions, Funding information, Acknowledgments, Conflicts of interest, References.

Title page

The Title must be focused and succinct and that it should not contain abbreviations or words that serve no purpose. Your title may take up one or two lines.

Beneath the title, type the author's name: first name, middle initial(s), and last name. Do not use titles (Dr.) or degrees (PhD). If the authors’ work in different institutions, then the end of the authors’ names should indicate the Arabic numerals (use Superscript). Please indicate the corresponding author in the paper (use Asterisk).

Affiliation: the institutional affiliation or organization and mailing address, which should indicate the location where the author(s) conducted the research.

Corresponding author: the email address and phone number for the corresponding author. Include the line "*Author for correspondence; e-mail: your_mail@mail.com; phone number: your_number" under the Corresponding author heading.

Abstract

The Abstract should be informative, structured abstract, that includes the headings: Aim, Methods, Results, Conclusions. Before the “Aim” section, a brief statement of the scientific problem addressed by the research should be made (2-4 sentences). The abstract should be 150 to 350 words in length. Standard nomenclature should be used, and abbreviations should be avoided. References should not be cited.

Keywords: following the abstract, between three and seven keywords that will make your article easily searchable.

Main body of the article

Introduction

The Introduction (untitled) should be succinct, detailed and the current state of the issue to allow readers to interpret the rest of the article. Cite any topical works to set the scene for state the objectives in the article.

Materials and methods

The "Materials and methods" section should be comprehensive. All methods presented in the section according to the described conditions and reagents should be reproducible other authors. For well-known methods it is enough to give references to a literary source. Specify the types and number of studies objects and indicate the names of the firms and manufacturers of the reagents, materials, and hardware used in the experiments. Subheadings should be used.

If specific microorganisms were used in the studies, the first mention of the microorganisms in the text should indicate the full species name in Latin (italic) according to modern taxonomy. In the case of subsequent mention of this microorganism, the genus name shall be abbreviated by one capital letter and the species name shall be entered in full. When microorganisms with unknown species are used in the study, the genus name shall not be reduced, for example, Bacillus spp.

The probability of differences in indicators of the obtained data should be justified by statistical analysis with references to specific methods and indication the computer program that were used for statistical analysis of the obtained results.

Please, include the number of times your experiment was repeated.

• Statistical analyses

The assumptions and (or) the model underlying any statistical analysis should be clearly stated. Do not use symbols such as * and ** to denote levels of significance unless accompanied by actual p values. The numerical results should be rounded to second sign and the type of result shown (mean, median, representative, etc.).

• Equations

Supply simple, inline equations in Word, without using MathType. Insert symbols from Word’s “Symbol” palette or using MathType only if they cannot be found in the “Symbol” palette. Please ensure that equations are editable.

• Units of measure

Please, use International System of Units of measure throughout your article where possible.

Results

Results section should include the outcomes of the experiments, any interpretation of the results and indicate the key questions being addressed. Authors should not duplicate the same data in tables and figures. Please, include you figures and tables in the text to assist Editors and reviewers in assessing the work more easily. Indicate the variability of the results statistically wherever possible (e.g., Tables and Figures). The results should be written in the past tense. Previously published findings should be written in the present tense and have references. Results should be explained, but largely without referring to the literature. The Results section can include subheadings.

Figures and tables

• In general

Cite each figure and table, and name them in order of first appearance in the text (Figure 1, Figure 2, Table 1, Table 2, etc.). Figures and tables should add information to the article, not duplicate results that are (or could be) explained briefly in the text. Figures and tables should be understandable without having to read the article. Any abbreviations or symbols used should be defined in the caption (Figures) or in the Note (Tables).

• Figures

Figures should be submitted in the text in an editable format of high quality, between 300-600 dpi. You can upload figures separately in the following formats: JPEG, TIFF, EPS, DOC/DOCX, XLS/XLSX, or PPT/PPTX. Try to avoid large file sizes. Remove all elements that are not intended for publication. Use standard typefaces, such as Times New Roman 14. All fonts should be embedded in the image files. Provide captions for the figures (e.g., Fig. 1. Text).

• Tables

Supply tables in an editable format in the text, i.e., Word (table function in DOC or DOCX) or Excel (spreadsheet in XLS or XLSX). Provide a table caption (e.g., Table 1. Text).

Discussion

The discussion should be based on the compare your research findings and with the most important scientific facts on the literature and the current state of the problem. The Discussion section can include subheadings.

Conclusions

List the main conclusions (untitled) in a few sentences at the end of the paper. The conclusion should include the most important idea of the experiment, possible solutions to the problem, recommendations for further research, the author’s own findings, etc.

Funding information

Make sure the grant title and grant number are included in the grant references as follows:

This work was supported by the [Funding Agency] under Grant [number ####]; [Funding Agency #2] under Grant [number ####]; and [Funding Agency #3] under Grant [number ####].

Acknowledgements

Brief acknowledgments should be given to researchers, research teams and organizations (if required).

Conflicts of interest

You must declare any potential conflicts of interest in the article. If no conflict exists, include the line "The author(s) declare that there are no conflicts of interest" under the Conflicts of interest heading.

References

References must be in APA (American Psychological Association) style. References should be clearly cited in the body of the text, e.g. (Jackson, 2019; Svendsen & Løber, 2020; Grady et al., 2019). The addition of DOI (Digital Object Identifier) numbers is recommended but not essential. If you have multiple works by the same author (or group of authors) in the same year, please put “a”, “b”, “c”, etc., order alphabetically by article title, e.g. (Jackson, 2019a, 2019b; Grady et al., 2020a, 2020b). At the end of the paper the author(s) should present full References in the alphabetical order as follows:

• Journal article

If the journal article does not have a DOI but does have a URL that will resolve for readers (e.g., it is from an online journal that is not part of a database), include the URL of the article at the end of the reference.

• Journal article with an article number

If the journal article has an article number instead of a page range, include the word “Article” and then the article number instead of the page range.

• Whole authored book

Provide the author, year of publication, title, and publisher of the book. Use the same format for both print books and ebooks.

• Whole edited book

Use the abbreviation “(Ed.)” for one editor and the abbreviation “(Eds.)” for multiple editors after the editor names, followed by a period. In the case of multiple editors, include the role once, after all the names.

• Several volumes of a multivolume work

Provide the name(s) of the editor(s)-in-chief as the editors of the work, even if the volume editors are different.

• Chapter in an edited book

Use this format for both print and ebook edited book chapters, including edited book chapters from academic research databases. Do not include the publisher location.

• Webpage on a website with a government agency group author

For a page on a government website without individual authors, use the specific agency responsible for the webpage as the author. Provide as specific a date as possible for the webpage. Italicize the title of the webpage. End the reference with the URL.

• Webpage on a website with an organizational group author

For a page from an organization’s website without individual authors, use the name of the organization as the author. Provide as specific a date as possible for the webpage. Italicize the title of the webpage. End the reference with the URL.

How find your references on the Crossref website?

Easily search and find metadata for journal articles, books, standards, datasets and more.

1. Follow the link https://search.crossref.org
2. Start typing title, author, DOI, etc.
3. Click ENTER on keyboard.
4. Find your record (always compare title, journal, volume, issue, pages or DOI).
5. Click on the "Action" button.
6. Click on the "Cite" button.
7. Click on the "APA" button.
8. Copy your reference in the APA style.
9. Paste copied reference to your document.

You are responsible for the accuracy of reference information.

Nomenclature

Nomenclature should follow the rules established by international authoritative bodies.

• Nomenclature of microorganisms

You must use the correct name of all organisms referenced in your article, conforming with international rules of nomenclature:

Prokaryotes: International Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes

Viruses: International Code of Virus Classification and Nomenclature

Algae and fungi: International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants

Protozoa: International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, ZooBank

Yeasts: The Yeasts, a taxonomic study, 5th edition Edited by C Kurtzman, JW Fell & T Boekhout. 2011, Elsevier, Amsterdam.

Many microorganisms are known by their scientific and vernacular names. If using the latter, be sure to provide the scientific name the first time the microorganism is mentioned in your article. In subsequent mentions of the same species, the genus is abbreviated to the first letter (e.g., P. aeruginosa). If there are several generic names in the text with the same initial letter, the names should be spelled out at each occurrence. Genera are always written in full at the beginning of a sentence. In lists of names of species of the same genus, the genus name may be abbreviated after its first use for subsequent species in the list. Non-valid names must be enclosed in quotation marks.

• Chemical and biochemical nomenclature

Follow the recommendations of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) for chemical nomenclature, and those of the Nomenclature Committee of the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (IUBMB) and the IUPAC–IUBMB Joint Commission on Biochemical Nomenclature for biochemical nomenclature. Similarly, follow the IUBMB system for enzyme nomenclature.

• Genetic nomenclature

Distinguish between genes and the proteins that they encode: genes written in lowercase italics (e.g., gag); proteins not italicized, with the first letter capitalized (e.g., Gag). Insertion sequences should be named as given in the ISfinder Database.

• Abbreviations and acronyms

Define abbreviations and acronyms when they are first mentioned in the text.

How to submission an article?

This journal uses Open Journal Systems to manage the peer-review process. If you haven't submitted a paper to this journal before, you will need to create an account on the link. Please note that all manuscripts will be checked by plagiarism detection software. By submitting your paper to Microbiological Journal, you are agreeing to originality checks during the peer-review and production processes.

Ensure that any manuscript you submit conforms to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommendations for ethics, as well as to the general Microbiological Journal article requirements.

• Article templates

The document is currently under development. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Publishing fees

The standard article publishing charge for this journal is zero. There is no submission charge.

Editorial Policy

The manuscript submitted to the journal is subject to single blind peer review by two independent experts in the field appointed by the head of the section. If necessary, a copy of the manuscript with reviewer comments can be sent to the corresponding author for revision. The manuscript corrected by the author, agreed with the reviewers, is considered as final; it must be signed by the authors and reviewers, after which the replacement of text, figures, tables, etc. is impossible.
The editors reserve the right to correct misprints and make other corrections to the final text (without changing its content) in order to improve the perception of the text of the article without additional agreement with the authors.
For final approval, the editorial board sends an e-mail with article layout to the corresponding author, which must be read immediately and report about all detected errors (or their absence) in the reply e-mail not later than three consecutive days. If errors are found, the edits are made in the layout pdf-file sent by the editorial board. Edits are adding by highlighting the text (color change) that needs editing and adding a footnote describing the content of the edit. If the author does not respond in time, the editorial board reserves the right to delay the publication of the article. In case of article rejection by the reviewers, the editorial board sends an email to the corresponding author.
In case of article rejection by the reviewers, the editorial board sends an e-mail to the corresponding author.

Publishing Ethics

The Editorial Board of Microbiologycal Journal in its work is guided by ethics of international scientific publications, including the concepts of integrity, confidentiality, oversight of publications and prevention of possible conflicts of interest and so on.
Editors, in turn, is follows the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics, and, in particular, the Publishing Ethics Resource Kit by publisher Elsevier, and based on the experience of reputable international publishers. Compliance with the rules of publications ethics of the all parties of the publishing process helps to ensure the intellectual property rights of creators, improvement of publication quality and prevention of possible misuse of copyrighted material for the benefit of individuals.
This Regulation meets the policy of the journal and is one of the main components of article review and journal publishing.

Duties of authors

The authors are personally responsible for submitted to the journal manuscript and must observe the following principles:

1. Provide reliable results of the conducted research. False or fraudulent statements are equal to unethical behavior and are unacceptable.
2. At the request of the Editorial Board provide baseline data for editor review. Authors must provide free access to such data and store this data for a reasonable time after their publication.
3. Ensure that research results contained in the manuscript, are an independent and original work. When using fragments of others’ work and/or borrowing statements of other authors, the article should have appropriate references with the obligatory indication of the author and the source. Excessive borrowing and plagiarism in any form, including incomplete references, paraphrasing or appropriation of rights to the results of others’ research is unethical and unacceptable. Articles which are a compilation of material published by other authors without own creative processing and author thinking are not accepted by the editorial.
4. Realize that the author(s) is (are) responsible for the initial novelty and reliability of the results of scientific research.
5. Recognize the contribution of all persons who influenced in any way the course of the study or determined the nature of the presented scientific research. In particular, the article should have references to publications that had some significance for the study.
6. Present in the journal only the original manuscript. Do not submit to the journal articles that have been sent to another journal and are now pending review, as well as articles published previously in another journal. Failure to observe this principle is regarded as gross misconduct of publication ethics and gives reason for removing the article from the review. If elements of the manuscript were previously published in another article, the authors are obliged to refer to their earlier work and specify how the new work is significantly different from the previous one. Verbatim copying of own work and its paraphrasing is unacceptable, it can only be used as a basis for new conclusions.
7. Ensure the correct composition of the list of co-authors. The co-authors of the article should include all the persons who have made a significant intellectual contribution to its concept, structure and in the conduct or interpretation of results of the presented work. Other persons (or organizations) who participated in some aspect of the work must be expressed gratitude. The author must also ensure that all co-authors are familiar with the final version of the article, approve it and agree to its submission for publication. All of the authors of the article have to bear public responsibility for the content of the article. If the article is a multidisciplinary work, co-authors are responsible each for their own contribution, leaving a collective responsibility for the overall result. It is unacceptable to include persons in co-authors who were not involved in the research.
8. In the event of emergence of significant errors or inaccuracies in the article at the stage of its review or immediately following its publication notify the editorial of the magazine and make a joint decision to recognize errors and/or correct them as soon as possible. If the journal becomes aware that a published work contains a significant error, the author is obliged to prepare for publication in the journal a report on the relevant error correction or submit proof of correctness of the information they provided.
9. The author should clearly indicate situations in their work where research is related to chemicals, physical and chemical processes or equipment, during which there is a risk to human or animal health. If the research involves the use of animals or humans as subjects, the author must ensure that all procedures were conducted according to the relevant laws and institutional principles, as well as the fact that the relevant government agencies have given their approval.
10. Specify in their manuscripts all sources of financial support for the project, information about the employer, patent applications/registrations, grants and other types of funding.
11. Disclose in their works about any information about significant conflicts of interest that could affect the results of the study or their interpretation. All potential conflicts of interest should be disclosed at the earliest stage possible.

Ethical principles of the reviewer

The reviewer provides scientific expertise of copyrighted material in order to objectively evaluate the quality of the submitted article and determine the level of its compliance with scientific, literary and ethical standards. In assessing the article the reviewer should be impartial and observe the following principles:

1. Expert evaluation should help the author improve the quality of the text and the editor-in-chief to decide on publication.
2. The reviewer who does not consider themselves an expert in the subject of the article or know that they cannot submit a timely review of the article should notify the editor-in-chief and decline to review.
3. The reviewer cannot be the author or co-author of the work presented for review. This also applies to supervisors of candidates to a scientific degree and/or staff of the department in which the author works.
4. Any manuscripts received by an expert from the editors for review shall be a confidential document. It cannot be discussed with other individuals except the aforementioned persons.
5. The reviewer must be objective. It is unacceptable to make personal remarks towards the author in the review. The reviewer should express their views clearly and reasonably.
6. The reviewer must identify published articles related to the reviewed articles, not cited by the author. Any statement in the review that some observations, conclusions or arguments in the reviewed article have previously appeared in literature should be accompanied by an accurate bibliographic reference to the source. The reviewer should also draw the attention of the chief editor to significant overlap or similarity of a reviewed article with any other previously published.
7. In the event of a reviewer suspecting plagiarism, authorship or falsification of data, they must contact the editorial board with a proposal for collective consideration of the author's article.
8. The reviewer should provide an objective opinion on the adequacy of citation of published articles in the literature on the given subject.
9. The reviewer should not use the information and ideas presented for review in the article for personal gain, following the principle of confidentiality.
10. The reviewer shall not accept for review manuscripts in cases of a conflict of interest caused by competition, cooperation, or other relationship with any authors or institutions associated with the article.

Principles of professional ethics in the work of the editorial board

Members of the editorial board are responsible for the publication of the provided manuscript following such fundamental principles:

1. When deciding on the publication the chief editor of the scientific journal is guided by authenticity of the submitted data and the scientific significance of the reviewed work.
2. The chief editor should not have their own interests in relation to the articles they reject or accept.
3. The chief editor is responsible for decisions about which of the presented articles will be accepted for publication, and which will be rejected. They are guided by the policy of the journal and adhere to the principles of law, preventing copyright infringement and plagiarism.
4. The chief editor evaluates the submitted article solely by its scientific content, regardless of the authors’ race, gender, sexual orientation, religious convictions, ethnicity, nationality, origin, social status or political views.
5. The chief editor, the editorial and publishing staff and the members of the editorial board should not report information presented in the journal article to anyone except the author(s), assigned and potential reviewers, other editorial staff and (if necessary) the publisher.
6. Unpublished data from manuscripts submitted for consideration should not be used by the chief editor, the editorial staff, members of the editorial and publishing groups or the editorial board for personal purposes or transfer to third parties.
7. The chief editor should not allow for publication a submitted article if there is sufficient reason to believe that it is plagiarism.
8. The chief editor together with the publisher should not leave unanswered claims relating to the reviewed manuscripts or published materials. In case of a conflict situation they should take all necessary measures to restore infringed rights, and in case of detected errors - to promote the publication of corrections or refutations.
9. The chief editor, the staff of the editorial or the journal publishing and editorial group must ensure the confidentiality of the names and other information relating to reviewers. If it is necessary, when deciding on assigning new reviewer, the latter may be informed of the names of previous reviewers.

Principles of professional ethics in publisher activity

The publisher is responsible for the publication of works following these basic principles and procedures:

1. Facilitate implementation of ethical responsibilities of editors, editorial and publishing group, editorial board, reviewers and authors in accordance with these requirements.
2. Support the journal in reviewing claims to the ethical aspects of published materials and help interact with other journals and/or publishers if it facilitates the duties of editors.
3. Observe the position that the activity of the journal is not commercial and does not intend to obtain profit.
4. Facilitate the process of publishing corrections, explanations, refutations and apologies when needed.
5. Provide the journal an opportunity to recall publications containing plagiarism and inaccurate data.