Guide for Authors

You can use this list to carry out a final check of your submission before you send it to the journal for review. Please check the relevant section in this Guide for Authors for more details.

Ensure that the following items are present:

Download the manuscript template from the platform One author has been designated as the corresponding author with contact details:
• E-mail address
• Full postal address
• All necessary files have been uploaded:

Manuscript:
• Include keywords
• All figures (include relevant captions)
• All tables (including titles, description, footnotes)
• Ensure all figure and table citations in the text match the files provided
• Indicate clearly if colour should be used for any figures in printFurther considerations

Further considerations
• Manuscript has been "spell checked" and "grammar checked"
• All references mentioned in the Reference List are cited in the text, and vice versa
• Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Internet)
• A competing interests statement is provided, even if the authors have no competing interests to declare
• Journal policies detailed in this guide have been reviewed

Please see our information pages on Publishing Ethics .

All authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. Examples of potential competing interests include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. Authors must disclose any interests in two places: 1. A summary declaration of interest statement in the title page file (if double-blind) or the manuscript file (if single-blind). If there are no interests to declare then please state this: "Declarations of interest: none". This summary statement will be ultimately published if the article is accepted. 2. Detailed disclosures as part of a separate Declaration of Interest form, which forms part of the journal’s official records. It is important for potential interests to be declared in both places and that the information matches.

Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete a “Journal Publishing Agreement” （Click here to download Journal Publishing Agreement ）. An e-mail will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript together with a “Journal Publishing Agreement” form or a link to the online version of this agreement.

When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in their own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper if deemed necessary by the editor. If the editor or the publisher learn from a third party that a published work contains an error, it is the obligation of the author to cooperate with the editor, including providing evidence to the editor where requested.

Authors transfer copyright to the publisher as part of a journal publishing agreement, but have the right to:

Share their article for Personal Use, Internal Institutional Use and Scholarly Sharing purposes, with a DOI link to the version of record on CNKI.

Retain patent, trademark and other intellectual property rights (including research data).

Proper attribution and credit for the published work.

For both subscription and open access articles, published in proprietary titles, NIAJ is granted the following rights:
The exclusive right to publish and distribute an article, and to grant rights to others, including for commercial purposes.For open access articles, NIAJ will apply the relevant third party user license where NIAJ publishes the article on its online platforms.The right to provide the article in all forms and media so the article can be used on the latest technology even after publication.The authority to enforce the rights in the article, on behalf of an author, against third parties, for example in the case of plagiarism or copyright infringement.

Copyright aims to protect the specific way the article has been written to describe an experiment and the results. NIAJ is committed to its authors to protect and defend their work and their reputation and takes allegations of infringement, plagiarism, ethic disputes and fraud very seriously.

It is the goal of NIAJ that every peer-reviewed research article appearing in this journal will be published open access. This will mean that the article is universally and freely accessible via the internet in perpetuity, in an easily readable format immediately after publication. The author will not have any publication charges for open access.

Submission to this journal proceeds totally online. Use the following guidelines to prepare your article. Via the landing page of this journal (https://niaj.org) send your completed manuscript via email to the editor.niaj@nia.ng. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor"s decision and requests for revision, takes place by e-mail, removing the need for a hard-copy paper trail. If you are unable to provide an electronic version, please contact the editorial office prior to submission e-mail:editor.niaj@nia.ng; telephone: +2348086607159.

This journal operates a double blind review process. All contributions will be initially assessed by the editor for suitability for the journal. Papers deemed suitable are then typically sent to a minimum of two independent expert reviewers to assess the scientific quality of the paper. The Editor is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of articles. The Editor"s decision is final.The peer review process is following: Author submits paper to journal→ Editor‘s initial evaluation of paper (go to next step if it meets the requirements of journal, otherwise reject and inform author)→ Invite experts for peer review→ Experts send comments to editor→ Editor decides to accept (or reject and inform authors)→ Editor asks author to revise→ Author revises and submits revised paper→ Editor and/or original reviewers re-evaluate to decide further revisions needed or reject or accept→Inform author

Subdivision - numbered sections

Divide your article into clearly defined and numbered sections. Use this numbering also for internal cross-referencing: do not just refer to "the text". Any subsection may be given a brief heading. Each heading should appear on its own separate line.

Introduction

State the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.

Provide sufficient details to allow the work to be reproduced by an independent researcher. Methods that are already published should be summarized, and indicated by a reference. If quoting directly from a previously published method, use quotation marks and also cite the source. Any modifications to existing methods should also be described.

A Theory section should extend, not repeat, the background to the article already dealt with in the Introduction and lay the foundation for further work. In contrast, a Calculation section represents a practical development from a theoretical basis.

Results should be clear and concise.

This should explore the significance of the results of the work, not repeat them. A combined Results and Discussion section is often appropriate. Avoid extensive citations and discussion of published literature.

The main conclusions of the study may be presented in a short Conclusions section, which may stand alone or form a subsection of a Discussion or Results and Discussion section.

A concise and factual abstract is required. The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research, the principal results and major conclusions. An abstract is often presented separately from the article, so it must be able to stand alone. For this reason, References should be avoided, but if essential, then cite the author(s) and year(s). Also, non-standard or uncommon abbreviations should be avoided, but if essential they must be defined at their first mention in the abstract itself.

Immediately after the abstract, provide a maximum of 6 keywords, using American spelling and avoiding general and plural terms and multiple concepts (avoid, for example, "and", "of"). Be sparing with abbreviations: only abbreviations firmly established in the field may be eligible. These keywords will be used for indexing purposes.

Please submit tables as editable text and not as images. Tables can be placed either next to the relevant text in the article, or on separate page(s) at the end. Number tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text and place any table notes below the table body. Be sparing in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in them do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article. Please avoid using vertical rules and shading in table cells.

Citation in textPlease ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Any references cited in the abstract must be given in full. Unpublished results and personal communications are not recommended in the reference list, but may be mentioned in the text. If these references are included in the reference list they should follow the standard reference style of the journal and should include a substitution of the publication date with either "Unpublished results" or "Personal communication".
Citation of a reference as "in press" implies that the item has been accepted for publication.

As a minimum, the full URL should be given and the date when the reference was last accessed. Any further information, if known (DOI, author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.), should also be given. Web references can be listed separately (e.g., after the reference list) under a different heading if desired, or can be included in the reference list.References in a special issuePlease ensure that the words "this issue" are added to any references in the list (and any citations in the text) to other articles in the same Special Issue.

One set of page proofs (as PDF files) will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author or a link will be provided in the e-mail so that authors can download the files themselves. Please list your corrections quoting line number. If, for any reason, this is not possible, then mark the corrections and any other comments (including replies to the Query Form) on a printout of your proof and return by fax, or scan the pages and e-mail. Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text, tables and figures. Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the Editor. It is important to ensure that all corrections are sent back to us in one communication: please check carefully before replying, as inclusion of any subsequent corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility.

The corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article via e-mail (the PDF file is a watermarked version of the published article and includes a cover sheet with the journal cover image and a disclaimer outlining the terms and conditions of use). For an extra charge, paper offprints can be ordered via the offprint order form which is sent once the article is accepted for publication. If you encounter any problems at any stage with the submission system, please contact the editor via editor.niaj@nia.ng