Instructions for Authors

The LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN BULLETIN OF MEDICINAL AND AROMATIC PLANTS (BLACPMA) (ISSN 0717 7917), is an international scientific journal that is published bimonthly, which since 2020 belongs to Editorial MS-Editions (Santiago, Chile), an entity that little to little will begin to put a different stamp and a new nuance, with some important changes but that does not intend to modify the philosophy or scientific approach of the Journal.

Among the features that are consolidated and new ones are:

  1. It will continue to be evaluated by peers, which will be known from the January 2021 issue, on the cover of each article when it is published.
  2. The magazine will be open to all articles that are within the areas it covers:
  • Ethnobotany and Ethnopharmacology of medicinal plants.
  • Phytochemistry and biological activity of medicinal plants.
  • Extraction, isolation and structural elucidation of bioactive compounds.
  • Genetic Resources and Agroecology of Medicinal Plants.
  • Organic synthesis of natural medicinal products, structure - activity relationships.
  • Advanced analytical techniques applied to natural products.
  • Quality control, development and innovation in natural products.
  • Biotechnology applied to the cultivation, conservation and propagation of medicinal plants.
  • Therapeutic applications and clinical trials with medicinal plants.
  • Regulations and legal aspects of medicinal plants.
  • Review Articles.

Publications that are outside these areas will be evaluated by the Editorial Committee who will decide their publication considering their importance and impact.

  1. The languages ​​of publication will remain English and Spanish.
  2. Review articles will have priority to be published.
  3. BLACPMA will continue to be free to readers, but with article processing charges paid by the authors or their institutions.

  4. All articles published in BLACPMA are published in full open access. However, to cover the costs of text editing, layout, long-term archiving and publication management, an article processing fee of $600.00 USD (includes tax) will be applied to articles received from February 2024, once accepted after peer review. Payment method is through PayPal.

  • Researchers from Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela are exempt from payment (all authors of the respective article must be residents of one of these countries).
  • Invited researchers (Guest Articles) are exempt from payment.
  • The articles received before September 15, 2020 and that are in the evaluation process or accepted do not pay the aforementioned cost.

New INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE AUTHORS that correspond to modifications of those published in 2017 are attached. The authors should carefully consider the “IMPORTANT RECOMMENDATIONS”. Failure to comply with any of these recommendations is a cause of non-acceptance of the article for publication. 

1. TYPES OF CONTRIBUTION 

  • Original Articles: original research manuscripts. The journal will consider all original research manuscripts as long as the paper reports scientifically sound experiments and provides a substantial amount of new information, without limit of length, in Spanish or English.
  • Review Articles: they provide concise and precise updates on the latest advances made in a given area of research, related to the topics covered by the journal, with no extension limit only in English.
  • Opinion Articles: these are comments on a current contingent topic, whose authors are a maximum of three, with a maximum of 25 references where 75% are from the last 2 years, they will not quote theses or web pages, all in English. They will be quickly evaluated and will have publication preference.
  • Invited Articles: these are articles that will be special for their content, or another reason, they will be evaluated like any article and will have publication preference. They can be written in Spanish or English.

2. IMPORTANT RECOMMENDATIONS

  • Isolation studies of compounds of known structure from new plant sources will be accepted, only when justified by the ethnobotanical use of plant species.
  • Studies that evaluate the biological properties of an extract will not be considered without adequate phytochemical characterization. As an example, phenolic compound extracts should be fully characterized by HPLC using standards or HPLC-MS.
  • Studies on medicinal plants with determination of a biological activity unrelated to the ethnopharmacological use of the plant species will not be considered.
  • Publication of the in vitro determination of the antioxidant effect of plant extracts will not be considered. The Scientific Committee may make exceptions if the extracts come from unstudied medicinal plants and are fully characterized (eg HPLC or HPLC-MS).
  • The identification of the essential oil components (EA) must include all data from the analysis, calculated retention index (IR) and its comparison with the literature values. The AE studied must be associated with the medicinal properties of the plant studied or with the hypothesis developed in the introduction. Papers that correspond to "analytical exercises" will not be accepted.
  • Works with determination of antimicrobial activity with a single dose will not be accepted. It is necessary to include the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC).
  • Fragmented works, a new biological property of a previously studied extract, for which related biological properties have been published (eg antibacterial properties), will not be accepted.

3. CONTRIBUTION FORMAT 

The works will be presented in Microsoft Word format (using Times New Roman number 11). The articles will consist of:

  • Title
  • Summary
  • Keywords
  • Introduction
  • Material and methods
  • Results
  • Discussion
  • Conclusions
  • References

3.1. First page:

  • Title of the work: (in Spanish and English), the title should be short, but indicate what the article is about.
  • Authors: Name and surname of all authors (example: Paul A. Reyes), institution to which they belong (Department, Faculty, University, City, Country). Name and email of the corresponding author.
  • Abstract: In Spanish and abstract in English of no more than 150 words and include a minimum description as an introduction, the methods used, the relevant results and the conclusions. It should not include references.
  • Keywords: 5 in total (not less than 5 and not more than 5).

3.2. Text:

  • Original Articles: they will consist of Introduction, Materials and Methods (extensive description), Results (referred to tables and figures), Discussion (free extension), and Conclusions (as short as possible).
  • Review Articles: only in English, they will be structured according to the author's needs. The full Latin name of the species and the family (eg: Inula viscosa (L.) Aiton. Asteraceae) should be mentioned in full at least in the Materials section. Throughout the work, only the short Latin name (I. viscosa) will be used.
  • Tables: They should be written using a Word processor. Please do not use lines other than the 1 pt black ones. The text must be in Times New Roman 10. Always include Title (numbered and cited in the work) and the legend of the abbreviations, where appropriate.
  • Figures: Include the references separately (do not include the legends in the figure). The image is accepted in any of the following formats (JPEG, JPG; GIF, BMP, or TIFF). However, avoid TIFF if it is too large and GIF if the image is of poor quality. There are no restrictions on the number and color of the figures, but the inclusion of any figure must be justified. It is not possible to publish an image that has been copied from another publication. It is only possible to publish copies of images free of copyright, otherwise they must be redesigned with a suitable program. You can find free versions on the Internet. We suggest: • MarvinSketch (for Windows and other systems) (download free after registration) http://www.chemaxon.com/product/msketch.html • EasyChem for MacOS http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles. php? group_id = 90102
  • Opinion Articles: only in English, without abstract and normal parts of an article, will mainly reflect the personal opinion of the author (s) based on scientific literature, a subject of international contingency. Maximum of 25 references, 75% of the last two years; maximum length of 4 pages without references.

4. REFERENCES

4.1. Appointments:

The citations in the text should include the author's last name and the year, separated by commas and placed between parentheses (eg Reyes, 1995); if there is more than one work by the same author, they will be separated by commas (eg Reyes, 1987, 1995, 2001). If there are two authors, they will be cited separated by "and" or its equivalent, respecting the original language of the source. If there are more than two authors, only the first one will be cited followed by the expression et al.

While the references section must include all authors. If there are several works by the same author and year, it will be cited with a sequential letter appended to the year (example: Mayer et al., 1987a, 1987b). The reference will include ONLY the references mentioned in the text, ordered alphabetically by the last name of the first author, without a preceding number and without indentation. Last name / s of the author followed by the initials of the name, without periods or separation between them.

The name of the journal will be abbreviated according to ISO regulations or Pubmed Journals Database (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=Journal ISO abbreviation) that offers the possibility of confirming online the name and abbreviation of a huge number of journals. Finally, the volume of the publication will be cited, followed by the number in parentheses, a colon and the number of pages from x to y, without spaces in between. You must indicate the Doi where applicable. Book citations must specify the pages consulted as well as the year, city and country of publication. Incomplete citations will not be accepted and failure to comply with these rules will be a reason for the article to be delayed until it is corrected.

4.1.1. Periodic Publications Models:

Cai LS, Gong SL, Chen M, Wu CY. 2006. Vinyl crown ether as a novel radical crosslinked sol – gel SPME fiber for determination of organophosphorus pesticides in food samples. Anal Chim Acta 559 (1): 89-96.

4.1.2. Books:

Durand A, Miranda M, Cuellar A. 1986. Manual of practical of laboratory of Pharmacognosy. Ed. I People and Education, Havana, Cuba, pp. 90, 120-121.

4.1.3. Edited book chapters:

Lopes de Almeida JM. 2000. Pharmaceutical formulation of phytotherapeutic products, pp. 113-124. In Sharapin N: Foundations of technology of phytotherapeutic products. Ed. CAB and CYTED, Bogotá, Colombia.

4.1.4. Thesis (acceptable only if there is no alternative source):

González D. 2000. Cianobacteria study with noxious effects (deleterious and toxic) in aquatic atmospheres of the county of San Luís. Thesis, National University of San Luis, Argentina.

4.1.5. Patents:

Babu GDK, Ahuja PS, Kaul VK, Singh V. 2005. Simple, portable mini distillation apparatus for the production of essential oils and hydrosols. US Patent No. 6,911,119B2. CSIR, June 28.

4.1.6. Electronic resources:

All web pages must be current at the time of publication.

In the absence of an author, or when there is no main responsible, the responsible institution is taken as equivalent to the author and is cited in the text (CNN, 2009). CNN. Cuba's health care manages despite seizure. http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0108/18/yh.00.html [Consulted October 10, 2020].

4.1.7. Online newsletters or journals with ISSN:

The source must be cited like any other journal. Example:

Muñoz A, Álvarez VC, Nino ME. 2011. Chemical characterization of the volatile fractions and essential oils of leaves and flowers of Chromolaena barranquillensis found in Sabanalarga (Atlántico, Colombia). Bol Latinoam Caribe Plant Med Aromat 10 (6): 581 - 589.

4.1.8. Communications to congresses

As of September 15, 2020, they are not accepted as references.

4.2. Important note about the citation of web pages

These days the growing ABUSE of the citation of Web pages is being verified to endorse scientific statements made by the authors, it is very dangerous for your credibility as an author, and for the credibility of this Bulletin, to cite information obtained in Web pages that do not have no scientifically recognized entity that is responsible for the aforementioned information. "Anonymous" web pages will not be accepted. Any abuse will be a reason for rejection for publication, even if it has already been (wrongly) accepted by the reviewers. In the case of online newsletters or journals with ISSN, the source must be cited like any other journals.

5. SUBMISSION OF WORKS AND EDITING PROCEDURE

They should be sent by email to the address editor.blacpma@ms-editions.cl

The works will be accompanied by a list containing the email and address of ALL the authors. The main author will be responsible for expressing their agreement on behalf of all authors, in relation to the publication in BLACPMA as well as any problem that originates from the authority and / or originality of the work. This will be clearly established in a formal note that will accompany the submitted work. Once received, the work will be refereed by a pair of reviewers, who may be members of our editorial committee, academics or recognized professionals, who will decide its approval or rejection. In any case, the editor has the power to decide whether the work complies with the Bulletin's approach and has the freedom to modify the final manuscript (see the next section).

6. FINAL AUTHORITY OF THE EDITORIAL COMMITTEE

The editors reserve the right to correct or modify the manuscript accepted for publication in BLACPMA, after consultation with the author so that it better suits the style and objectives of the Bulletin. This procedure will take place in those cases in which the manuscripts do not agree with the generally accepted scientific models or if the content is unnecessarily long, redundant or not sufficiently clear. These modifications may be requested directly from the authors and may delay the publication of the manuscript. Thank you for your important contribution and for keeping these guidelines in mind.

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