For those who submitted abstracts which have been accepted for submission of a full paper, instructions for producing the paper are given below

Author instructions for paper preparation

Download template from here.

Authors are required to follow instructions for preparing their paper as laid out below. The final copy of the paper will be checked by the Editor to ensure that assessor/editor requirements on the first draft have been fully met. He will also check formatting, spelling and English construction. The Editor and Organising Committee reserve the right to reject papers that do not substantially meet the instructions below or where the spelling/grammar/English construction would require considerable work by the Editor to bring the paper up to the standards required for the Proceedings.

General points

  1. The paper with a minimum length of 7 pages and a maximum of 8 pages must be supplied as a Microsoft Word file. If your abstract is accepted, you will get an invitation by e-mail to write a paper from the editor. An e-mail from the web site will arrive later and will include a link for submitting your paper. Follow that link and upload the file.
  2. Authors who are not native English speakers are strongly advised to have their papers checked/corrected by a competent native English speaker before submitting the paper.
  3. There is no flexibility on the date that will be in the email from the editor  for manuscripts to be submitted to the publisher. Authors must therefore keep to the deadline indicated to them.
  4. Colour figures can be included in the paper. The hardcopy of the proceedings will be printed in B/W so do check that your figures will appear OK in grayscale. However, in the pdf file of the proceedings, all figures will be in colour.
  5. Avoid use of personal pronouns / royal ‘we’ throughout paper – use passive.

Format & structure 

Font: 12 pt Times New Roman
Line spacing: single
No line or page numbers. No headers or footers (other than footnotes). Do not include paper/abstract ID number.
Margins: 30mm all sides.
Section titles – main sections: left adjusted, bold, sentence case; sub-sections: left adjusted, regular, sentence case, under scored.  No section numbering.
One blank line before and after main section titles.
One blank line before sub-section titles.
Paragraphs should be fully justified.

The structure of the paper must be:

  • Title – bold, left adjusted, sentence case
  • Authors – surname and initial only (no first names), regular, left adjusted, sentence case
  • Institutions and Addresses of authors – italics, left adjusted, sentence case
  • Email address of corresponding author – regular, left adjusted, sentence case
  • Abstract – approximately 100 words
  • Keywords – 5 maximum (do not include ‘precision agriculture’ or similar)
  • Introduction
  • Further sections – usually Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References

Figures

  1. Figures should be embedded in the paper close to where they are referenced in the text.
  2. Figures should preferably be placed at the top or bottom of a page.
  3. All figures must have a figure number and a caption placed underneath the figure.
  4. All axes should have legends with units (where appropriate).
  5. All captions/legends on a figure must be clearly legible – note that the A4 pages will be reduced to about three quarters in each direction when printed in the Proceedings.
  6. All maps must have a length scale.
  7. There should be no overall frame to a figure.
  8. The proceedings will be printed in B/W. Therefore, authors should check for clarity/quality of colour figures converted to B/W or gray scale to include in their paper.

Tables

  1. Tables should be placed close to where they are referenced in the text. They should be in text format – not a graphics.
  2. A table number and caption should be placed above each table.
  3. The number of vertical and horizontal lines in a table must be kept to a minimum. Generally, there should be no vertical lines and no horizontal lines within the body of a table.
  4. Values in a table should be in regular font.

Equations

  1. Preferably, equations should be written in Microsoft Equation Editor.
  2. Equations should normally be placed on separate lines from the text.
  3. Equations should be numbered sequentially, the number appearing to the right of the equation and in round parentheses ().

References

  1. Literature quoted in the text should be indicated by author and publication year – one author (Smith, 2012); two authors (Smith & Jones, 2012); more than two authors (Smith et al, 2012).
  2. References must be listed in alphabetical order of 1st author (then 2nd author etc).  Surnames, initials of all authors must be included.  If a paper has more than 6 authors then author names must be truncated to first six and ‘et al’ added.
  3. The reference must contain – author(s) name(s), year, title (sentence case), journal name in full (or ‘In: proceedings of….’ or book publisher), volume number, issue, page range.  Quote publisher in format publ location (city, country): publisher name.
  4. Non-English titles should be followed by English translation of the title in parentheses.
  5. Proceedings (or collected works) editors should be named where known. Publisher and publisher location (city, country) for conference proceedings should be included – not conference location and date.
  6. Only published works and those accepted for publication may be included. Submitted but not yet accepted papers may not be included.
  7. Internet references are acceptable but must be checked for current availability.  Web address must be followed by ‘(last accessed )’
  8. No references in abstract or conclusions.