Manuscript Checklist Before Submitting to an Agriculture and Nutrition Journal

Most manuscripts returned by an agriculture and nutrition journal in the first week fail on things the author could have checked in an afternoon: page count, spacing, a missing file, an unstated sample size, references in the wrong order. This is that afternoon, in the order worth doing it.

1. Format and Length

MS Word (.doc or .docx), not PDF
Times New Roman, size 12
Single line spacing, one column
Margins of one inch (2.5 cm) on all four sides
Not more than 15 pages
Review article: not more than 4,500 words. Short communication and case report: shorter still — check the instructions for your type

Do the page count last, after figures and tables are in place. This is the limit an agriculture and nutrition journal checks first. A manuscript that is 14 pages of text becomes 19 once the tables are added, and the limit applies to what you submit.

2. The Three Files

Cover letter in MS Word, with the declarations
Signed authorship responsibility form, on behalf of all authors
Complete manuscript, every figure with a heading and every table with a heading or legend

Sample files for all three can be downloaded from the instructions to authors page. Send them together. A submission missing one file waits until somebody notices it is missing.

3. Title Page and Abstract

Title concise and informative — it carries most of your searchability
All authors with affiliations, and the corresponding author's full postal address, email and phone
Abstract not more than 300 words
No abbreviations, no references, no taxonomic authorities in the abstract
3 to 6 keywords, none of them repeating words already in the title

4. Methods a Reviewer Can Follow

Could someone repeat this without contacting me?
Site, season and year given; weather over the crop period stated for a field study
Design named, with replications and plot or sample size
Sample size justified in one sentence
Every rate and dose with units — no “recommended dose”
Every analytical method with a reference; every modification stated
Food composition table or reference standard named, with its edition or year
Statistical model, software and post-hoc test named
Ethics approval and consent statement present where human participants or animals are involved

5. Results and Discussion

Every mean has a measure of dispersion and an n
Every p-value has the test that produced it
Non-significant outcomes reported, not quietly dropped
No interpretation in the results, no references in the results
No data presented as both a table and a figure
Discussion explains differences with earlier work rather than only noting them
Limitations specific and tied to particular conclusions
Conclusion sized to the sample — would it survive a reader who has only your n?

6. Figures and Tables

Figures JPG or JPEG, 300 dpi, 75 mm or 155 mm width — exported, not copied and pasted
Axis labels with units; error bars defined in the caption with n
Readable in greyscale, since the print edition may not carry colour
Tables placed after the references, horizontal lines only
Every table has a self-descriptive heading
Significance letters explained in a footnote naming the test
Everything cited in the text, numbered in order of first citation

7. References

Vancouver style — numbered in citation order, not alphabetically
Reference manager style set to Vancouver before export
Journal titles abbreviated, or written in full where no standard abbreviation exists
Up to six authors listed, then et al.
Three references checked against the original papers, not the database record
Three DOIs pasted into doi.org to confirm they resolve
Every in-text number has an entry, and every entry is cited

8. Originality and Ethics

Own similarity check run before submitting
Method text reused from your own earlier papers is cited
Every figure, table or dataset taken from elsewhere is attributed, with permission where needed
No image adjusted in a way that changes what it shows
Conflicts of interest declared
All named authors have read the manuscript and approved the submission

A Note on Order

The nine sections above are in the order that wastes least time, and the order matters more than it looks.

Scope comes before everything — there is no point formatting a manuscript for an agriculture and nutrition journal that will return it in a week for being outside the subject. Read two recent issues first, then start the list.

Formatting comes early because it is mechanical and can be done while the science is still settling. References come late because they change every time you add a citation. The page count comes last, after tables and figures are in, since that is what decides whether you are inside the 15-page limit.

Doing it in the reverse order — polishing references first, checking scope last — is how authors discover in week three that the paper was never going to fit.

Who Should Run This List

Not the person who wrote the paper, if you can avoid it. After weeks with a manuscript you read what you meant rather than what is on the page, and the errors this list catches are exactly the ones that become invisible to the author.

A co-author with an hour, or a colleague in the same department, will find things you cannot. For research students it is worth agreeing this explicitly with a supervisor: one full pass against the checklist before submission, treated as a job rather than a courtesy read.

The alternative is a nutrition journal editorial office running the same list for you, which they will do, at a cost of one to two weeks per item they find.

9. The Last Read

Two checks that catch what a list cannot.

Read the methods aloud to someone outside the project. If they cannot tell you what you did, a reviewer will not manage it either.

Read the abstract and the conclusion together, nothing else. They should agree, and neither should promise more than the results section delivers. Papers overreach in exactly these two places, because they are usually written last and in a hurry.

A last suggestion: keep the version of this list that matches the journal you are submitting to. Page limits, abstract lengths and referencing styles differ, and a checklist built for one agriculture and nutrition journal will quietly mislead you at the next. Five minutes reading the instructions and updating the numbers is part of choosing where to submit, not a separate task.

What This Checklist Cannot Do

It removes avoidable rejections. It does not make a weak study strong. If the design cannot answer the question — no control, no replication, a sample too small for the claim — no amount of formatting will save it, and a nutrition journal reviewer will say so in the first paragraph of the report.

Used properly, though, it changes the kind of reply you get. Instead of a return in week one for formatting, you get reviewer comments about the science, which is the conversation worth having.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the page limit for this agriculture and nutrition journal?

Not more than 15 pages for a regular manuscript, in MS Word, Times New Roman 12, single spaced, one column, with one-inch margins. A review article should not exceed 4,500 words.

What are the three files I have to submit?

A cover letter in MS Word, a signed authorship responsibility form, and the complete manuscript with all figures and tables carrying headings. Samples of all three can be downloaded from the instructions to authors page.

Does the 15-page limit include tables and figures?

It applies to the manuscript you submit, so count the pages after everything is in place. This is why the page count belongs at the end of the checklist rather than the beginning.

Should I run a plagiarism check before submitting?

Yes. Every submission is screened anyway, and finding a problem yourself costs an hour while finding it at screening costs the submission. Pay particular attention to method text reused from your own earlier papers, which must be cited.

How do I know if my paper fits the journal's scope?

Open the last two issues in the archives. If nothing there resembles your subject in method or topic, the paper will be returned before review however good it is. Two recent issues tell you more than any scope statement.

What is the single most common avoidable mistake?

References in alphabetical order in a Vancouver journal, closely followed by a missing authorship responsibility form. Both take minutes to fix beforehand and cost a week each when they are found by the office instead.

Related Guides

The individual sections, explained:

Created by Lucia Moretti • 10 Aug 2026