Submissions

Author Guidelines

General guidelines for original research-derived manuscripts

Reviews will be accepted for evaluation only with prior invitation by the editorial board of Biotecnia.

Only reviews will be published in the English language

As part of the reviewing process, authors should attend all elements described here. Those that do not comply with these instructions will be returned to authors for corrections.

The submitted manuscript should be in Word (.doc or .docx) format. Set the page size to 8.5 by 11 inches (ca. 21.6 by 28 cm), with every portion of the manuscript single-column and double-spaced (a minimum of 6 mm between lines), including figure legends, table footnotes, and References, and number all pages in sequence, including the abstract, figure legends, and tables. Use Times New Roman font with 12 points of size. The overall extension of the manuscript should be up to 25 pages. Manuscript pages should have continuous line numbers; manuscripts without line numbers may be editorially rejected by the editor, with a suggestion of resubmission after line numbers are added. The main sections of the manuscript should be in bold, centered uppercase text. Section subtitles should be in bold and left-aligned format, and have only the first letter of each word in uppercase format. The full document (body of text, tables, figures and annexes) should be send in a single file.

The Biotecnia Word template present in the following link should be used to prepare your manuscript: Biotecnia article template_Word

The manuscript should have the following sections:

• TITLE
• ABSTRACT
• INTRODUCTION
• MATERIALS AND METHODS
• RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
• CONCLUSIONS
• AKNOWLEDGEMENTS (Optional)
• REFERENCES
• TABLES
• FIGURES

The title should be presented both in English and Spanish, and be concise and self-explanatory. It should not have any abbreviations nor exceed 150 characters (including spaces), with upper and lowercase letters without paragraph period. Provide author’s names in full, beginning with first name, and separated by comma; institution’s affiliation and address should follow the title. If more than one author is referred, the corresponding author should be marked with and asterisk, including the e-mail address.

The abstract should be presented both in English and Spanish with a maximum extension of 200 words each, clearly stating the work’s objective, methodology’s general description, limitations and implications of the study, originality, main results, conclusions, and main contributions. Three to five keywords should be included at the end, in both English and Spanish to allow the identification of the manuscript’s content.

The introduction will clearly state the actual knowledge (theory basis) on the topic, the justification and importance as well as the objectives of the work. Write as a single paragraph section.

In the materials and methods the author will describe how the research was carried out, including type of research, experimental design, equipment, substances and materials used, methods, techniques, procedures, as well as the statistical analysis of the generated data. Full description is required when new or unusual methodologies are used, otherwise include only the corresponding references. When animals are involved, the corresponding ethics sections should be included, describing the procedures used and the official normativity applied and including the approval of the corresponding bioethics committee.

The results and discussion section can be as a single section. If it is presented separately, the discussion should focus on the comments of the results (without repeating them), in terms of their characteristics, correspondence with the hypothesis, similarities and differences with other similar reports. The use of tables and/or figures should be only as complement to the text.

The conclusion section is a generalization of the results; should be specific, clear and concise, without any discussion, with emphasis on new and important aspects of the results pointing out the end parameters of the study, with a clear relation with the title and objectives of the work.

The acknowledgments (optional) should not exceed five lines to express the author’s gratitude to persons or institutions who contributed to the work.

Figures and tables will be at the end of the text, after the references section, with titles in English and Spanish. Tables and equations should be prepared using the word processor’s editor. Figures in JPEG or TIF format with the following characteristics (in dots per inch):

-          300 ppp for gray-scale or color images.

-          600 ppp for image-text combinations.

-          1,200 ppp for line images.

Write scientific names in italics, the abbreviated genus only after the first mention on the text. Any scientific data unit should be in the international system (physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/). DO NOT use billions, considered ambiguous. Unit’s abbreviation should comply with international norms. Do NOT use the period sign in abbreviations, Example: kg (NOT kg.). Include a space between the number and the unit or symbol (ie 8 cm, 100 %). Avoid the use of footnotes.

References to previous publications should use the Harvard system, by author’s last name and year of publication in parenthesis. For two authors, connect each last names by “and” (ie: Acton and Dawson, 1994). For more of two authors, after the last name of the first author include “et al.,” (italics) and the year of publication. If several references are cited, they will be separated by “;” and in ascending chronological order (Mamat et al., 1994; Kitano et al., 1999). The author’s relation is in alphabetic order.

Book

AOAC. 1990. Official Methods of Analysis. 15th ed. Association of Official Analytical Chemists. Washington, D.C.

Book chapter

Acton, J.C. y Dawson. P.L. 1994. Color a functional property of proteins. En: Protein Functionality in Food Systems. N.S Hettiarachehy y G.R. Ziegler (ed.), pp 357-381. Marcel Dekker. Inc., New York.

Article in periodic journal

Mamat, A.B., Marey, J.E., Bishop, J.R. y Duncan, S.E. 1994. Modified atmosphere packaging to maintain direct-set cottage cheese quality. Journal of Food Science. 59: 1305-1308.

Bulletin

GAO. 1994. Food safety. Risk-based inspections and microbial monitoring needed for meat and poultry. Rept. GAO/RCED 94-110. General Accounting Office. Washington, D.C.

Patents

Hine, W.S. 1994. Non-fat cheese sauce. U.S. patent 5,304,387.

Thesis/Dissertation

Schenck, P.A. 1995. Mechanism of the Variable Response to Dietary Cholesterol. Ph. D. dissertation. University of Florida, Gainesville.

WEB pages

Norma Oficial Mexicana NOM-008-SSA3-2010, para el tratamiento integral del sobrepeso y la obesidad. [Consultado 7 Abril 2013] 2010. Disponible en: http://www.dof.gob.mx/nota_detalle.php?codigo=5154226&fecha=04/08/2010.

General preparation for reviews

The instructions for this type of manuscript are similar to those for original research. However, due to such contribution’s characteristics, no materials and methods sections are considered, nor results and discussion.

Preparation of Graphical Abstract

In the graphical abstract, the content of an article is synthetically represented using an illustration; it allows it to capture the attention of the readers conceptually and visually to favor the reading and citation of the articles. It will be prepared in free format and uploaded as an independent TIFF or JEPG file with quality greater than 300 dpi. Authors are encouraged to present this element in their submission; its presentation makes the submission preferable for per-review consideration.