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The Covenant Journal of Physical and Life Sciences is a peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary journal consisting of original research articles, short communications, and review articles with scopes covering applied biology and biotechnology, biochemistry, chemistry, physics, microbiology, mathematics, and other related fields in the physical and life sciences. The Journal, published biannually and online with an open-access theme, welcomes the submission of manuscripts that meet the general criteria of significance and scientific excellence.
Submission of manuscripts
Manuscripts should be submitted electronically; the text, tables, and figures should be in a single Microsoft Word file (preferably Times New Roman font). To expedite the review process, authors must submit the names of four (4) individuals who are qualified to review their work. Include the email address of each potential referee, as much contact information as possible, and state briefly why you feel this person is competent to review your work. You should not have collaborated with any of the suggested reviewers within the past five years. In order to enhance a global perspective and the communication of science, these individuals should be associated with institutions from as many different regions as possible (Europe, North America, Asia, etc.). The Editor-in-Chief will send an e-mail confirming the receipt of a submitted manuscript to the corresponding author within five (5) business working days of its receipt.
Article Types
Original Research Articles: Research articles should describe new, original and confirmed findings, and experimental procedures should be given in sufficient detail to enable other investigators to verify the data. The length of a Research Article should be the minimum required to describe and interpret the work clearly.
Short Communications: A Short Communication is suitable for any of the following: (i) describing the results of a completed, small research undertaking; (ii) providing details of a new hypothesis; (iii) describing an innovative method, a new technique or a new instrument. The style of the main sections need not conform to that of full-length research articles. A Short Communication should not be longer than four (4) printed pages.
Reviews: Reviews covering topics of current interest are solicited and encouraged. These should be concise and should not be longer than six (6) printed pages.
Review Process
Each manuscript will be peer-reviewed by three referees. The reviewers’ comments will be returned by e-mail to the corresponding author not later than four weeks after the confirmation of receipt of a manuscript. The author(s) will make any requested amendments to their manuscript and resubmit it within one month. Any amended manuscript not returned within one month will be treated as a new manuscript. Authors are free to rebut any comment they feel is inappropriate; but they must provide sufficient evidence to back up their rebuttal.
Fees and Charges
Authors publish their articles free of charge and they authorize the Publisher (or its Agent) to archive the article into databases and indexes (such as Google Scholar, Scopus, etc.). They permit the Publisher to apply a digital object identifier (DOI) to their article. The Journal is available online, free for view and download.
Formatting instructions
Prepare the text in Microsoft Word in order to prevent conversion errors. Use a font size of 12 and double line spacing with no paragraph indents. All manuscript pages should be numbered, starting from the title page. Do not italicize common Latin terms (e.g., i.e., in vivo, in vitro, et al., ad libitum).
Regular articles
The Title should be a brief phrase, not more than 150 characters, describing the contents of the paper. The title page should include the authors' full names and affiliations, the name of the corresponding author along with phone, fax and E-mail information. The present addresses of authors, if different from their affiliations, should appear as a footnote.
The Abstract should not be more than 250 words in length and should briefly present the topic, state the scope of the experiments, indicate significant data, and point out major findings and conclusions. Standard nomenclature should be used and abbreviations should be avoided. No literature should be cited. Following the abstract, provide five key words for indexing purposes.
In general, non-standard Abbreviations should be used only when the full term is very long and is used often. A list of non-standard abbreviations should be added. Each abbreviation should be spelled out and introduced in parentheses the first time it is used in the text.
The Introduction should provide a clear statement of the problem, the relevant literature on the subject, and the proposed approach or solution. It should be understandable to colleagues from a broad range of scientific disciplines.
Materials and Methods should be complete enough to allow experiments to be reproduced. However, only truly new procedures should be described in detail; previously published procedures should be cited, and important modifications of published procedures should be mentioned briefly. Methods in general use need not be described in detail. Capitalize trade names and include the manufacturer's name and address.
The Results should be written in the past tense. It should describe the findings in the authors' experiments clearly and precisely. Results should be explained, but largely without referring to the literature.
The Discussion should interpret the findings on the basis of the results obtained in the current and in past studies on the topic. It should highlight the main conclusions of the work, emphasizing its importance and relevance in as few sentences as possible. The Results and Discussion sections can include subheadings and, when appropriate, both sections can be combined.
Acknowledgments (if any) should be included at the very end of the paper before the references. It may include people, institutions and supporting grants.
Tables are to be typed double-spaced, including headings and footnotes. Each table should be on a separate page, numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals and supplied with a heading and a legend. Tables should be self-explanatory without reference to the text. The legend should describe the details of the methods used in the experiments instead of in the text. The same data should not be presented in both tabular and graphical form or repeated in the text.
Figure legends should be typed in numerical order on a separate sheet. Graphics should be prepared using applications capable of generating high resolution GIF, TIFF or JPEG before pasting in the Microsoft Word manuscript file. Use Arabic numerals to designate figures and upper case letters for their parts (e.g., Figure 1). Begin each legend with a title and include sufficient description so that the figure is understandable without reading the text. Information given in legends should not be repeated in the text.
References: Authors are fully responsible for ensuring that the information in each reference is complete and accurate. All references must be numbered consecutively and citations of references in the text should be identified using numbers in square brackets (e.g., “as discussed by Robbins [5]”; “as discussed elsewhere [3, 7]”). All references should be cited within the text; otherwise, they will be automatically removed.
References should be listed at the end of the manuscript in numerical order. The numbers should be contained within square brackets. Articles in preparation or articles submitted for publication, unpublished observations, personal communications, etc. should not be included in the reference list but should only be mentioned in the text (e.g., Glick, B. R., University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, personal communication).
Examples:
[1] Anonymous (1987) New Developments in Biotechnology-Background Paper: Public
Perceptions of Biotechnology. Office of Technology Assessment, U.S. Congress, U.S.
Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.
[2] Okonjo, K.O., Vega-Catalan, F.J. and Ubochi, C.I. (1989) Temperature-jump studies on
hemoglobin: kinetic evidence for a non-quaternary isomerization process in deoxy- and
carbonmonoxyhemoglobin, J. Mol. Biol. 208, 347-354
[3] Charnley, A. K. (1992) Mechanisms of fungal pathogenesis in insects with particular
reference to locusts. In: Lomer, C. J., Prior, C. (eds) Biological Controls of Locusts and
Grasshoppers: Proceedings of an international workshop held at Cotonou, Benin. Oxford:
CAB International, pp 181-190.
[4] Mundree, S. G., and Farrant, J. M. (2000) Some physiological and molecular insights into the
mechanisms of desiccation tolerance in the resurrection plant Xerophytaviscasa Baker. In
Cherry et al. (eds) Plant tolerance to abiotic stresses in Agriculture: Role of Genetic
Engineering, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Netherlands, pp 201-222.
[5] Owolabi, J. B. and Rosen B. P. (1990) Differential mRNA stability controls relative gene
expression within the plasmid-encoded arsenical resistance operon. J. Bacteriol. 172(5):
2367-71.
[6] Williams, A.B. (2011) Organochlorine pesticide residues in shellfishes and fin fishes from
Lagos Lagoon, Ph.D thesis, Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria
Short Communications
Short Communications should present a complete study that is more limited in scope than is found in full-length papers. They are limited to a maximum of two figures and one table. The items of manuscript preparation listed above apply to Short Communications with the following differences: (1) Abstracts are limited to 100 words; (2) instead of a separate Materials and Methods section, experimental procedures may be incorporated into Figure Legends and Table footnotes; (3) Results and Discussion should be combined into a single section.
Proofs and Reprints
Electronic proofs will be sent (as e-mail attachment) to the corresponding author as a PDF file. Page proofs are considered to be the final version of the manuscript. Corrected proofs must be returned to the publisher within 2-3 days of receipt. With the exception of typographical or minor clerical errors, no changes will be made in the manuscript at the proof stage. Authors have free electronic access to the full text of the article and can download the PDF file from which they can print unlimited copies of their articles.