Author Guidelines
When writing an article, please use the template: download
Sample design of the list of references: download
Dear authors!
The below requirements to the articles’ layout have been developed by the Editor to assist you in submitting all necessary data and avoiding most common errors.
1. The journal gives priority to the articles related to inter- and multidisciplinary studies, as well as to those presenting the results obtained with digital technologies.
2. The journal accepts articles in Russian, English, Chinese and Mongolian, submitted by authors working in Russian and foreign universities, academic and branch research institutes, as well as in mining-and-geological organizations.
3. An article is submitted together with:
– electronic versions (scans) of all the documents, including:
the author’s application filled in and signed by all the coauthors;
the author’s contract;
information on every author in Russian and English, including: name of the organization; position and department; information about the degree, academic rank, postal and e-mail addresses of each author of the article, as well as the phone number of the author responsible for communication;
an expert opinion report stating the possibility of open publication;
– a good quality color portrait photograph of every author against a light background (business style), PNG/JPEG;
– at the author’s request, additional information can be included: RSCI (Russian Science Citation Index) profile, ORCID profile, SCOPUS profile, as well as other citation systems profiles; a link to the personal Internet webpage or to the social networks pages.
Please note that all the above-mentioned information is publicly available when published!
4. An article is submitted via the form available at our website or by e-mail at nzn@istu.edu as a Windows Microsoft Word electronic version, Arial, size 12, line spacing 1, automatic word-division. Page parameters: space before and after 2.5 cm, right and left indent 2 cm, indentation 0.6 cm, page orientation – book.
5. The journal accepts three types of articles:
Original article
The original article is an original research manuscript. This kind of work should report the results of scientifically based experiments and contain a significant amount of new information. The preparation of the original article implies the use of the most recent and relevant sources in this field. The structure of such work includes sections "Introduction", "Materials and methods of research", "Research results", "Discussion of the results" and "Conclusion". The recommended minimum volume of a scientific article is 3500 words.
Review article
The review article assumes a comprehensive analysis of the existing literature in the field of research, which identifies current gaps or problems. Such work should be critical and constructive and contain recommendations for future research. It should not present any new unpublished data. The structure of the review article may include an introduction, other necessary sections, a discussion of the results obtained, as well as a conclusion indicating future directions for possible research. The recommended minimum volume of a review article is 4000 words.
Brief report
The brief report is a short article dedicated to a new object, technology, method. It may also contain preliminary results of the study or a summary of the full study. The brief report should describe important modifications or unique applications of the described method. Brief reports usually contain two or three figures and/or a table; the section "Materials and research methods" in them should be detailed to ensure reproducibility of the presented work, and the overview part is shortened. The structure of such work is similar to the structure of a scientific article and includes sections such as "Introduction", "Materials and methods of research", "Research results", "Discussion of the results" and "Conclusion". The recommended minimum volume of a brief report is 2500 words. It is allowed to publish the expanded material presented in a short message in our or another publication with a mandatory link to the first article.
6. An article should be structured according to the IMRAD standard. The structure requirements: UDC index; title; the author(s) surname (family name), first name, middle name; the name of the organization; abstract; keywords in the source language and in English; introduction; objective of the study; research material and methods; research results and discussion; conclusion(s); references; authorship criteria; conflict of interest; information about the author(s). The article is submitted as one file with the title The first author’s surname – The first three to four words of the title.doc.
7. The recommended length of the title is up to 100 characters with blanks. The title should describe the contents of the article in a precise and concrete manner, without any abbreviations. It should be long enough to unambiguously express the main idea of the article, and so short that if any word is skipped, the meaning is affected.
8. The abstract should present the main idea of the article, as it is a key source of information on the study for most readers. The length of the abstract is 1,500-2,000 characters with blanks. The abstract structure: objective, subject, object, methods and procedures, results, and conclusions. The abstract is printed together with the main text of the article and separately, thus the authors are recommended not to refer to the tables and/or figures presented in the main text or to the used information sources. The authors should not use abbreviations or formulae in the abstract as the format of most databases (starting from RSCI) excludes formulae imaging.
The keywords list should represent the subject matter of the study and thus, facilitate the work of the search engines. Requirements: not more than 10 keyword entries, up to three words in a phrase.
9. Formulas in the text must be typed in the special Microsoft Word formula editor using the option "insert" – "equation".
10. The tables should contain only the necessary material representing generalized and statistically processed data with the explanation of the used variables. Every table should have a title. Requirements for creating tables: book layout, horizontal type direction.
11. Graphic materials. Maximum 6 images (figures and/or photographs) are allowed. The images should meet the requirements to geological graphics. The chosen scale should be suitable for duplication, the maximum image size being 170×245 mm. The images should allow offsetting and size change. Every figure should have inscriptions in the contents part, and a caption with the explanation of all the elements. The titles of figures and captions should be as concise as possible, as the full information is presented in the main text.
All captions on the figures should be editable and made in 8-pin Arial font (regular) in the language of the text of the article. In some cases the font size can be reduced to 5-6 pt. If there are legends in the images, they should be numbered, and their decoding should be included in the explication to the image. Alphabetic numbering of figures is performed by 10 point font Arial (bold italics) in English. In addition to the text of the manuscript, figures should be provided as separate files. Vector graphics are provided in CDR, AI formats with the possibility of editing, when exporting from other programs, the PostScript (EPS) format with a resolution of 300 dpi should be used. Photographs, scanned materials are submitted in TIFF or PNG/JPEG format (saving should be done in the highest possible quality). Resolution of raster graphics should be not less than 600 dpi for black and white drawings and not less than 300 dpi for photographs. Diagrams, graphs, charts are provided with the extension .xis (MS Excel).
12. References to the sources are presented in the main text as figures in square brackets in ascending order. The list of references is formed as the entries are mentioned in the text.
The recommended number of sources in the bibliographic list is at least 20, while at least 50 % of the list is recommended to be occupied by materials published over the past 5 years, including at least 5 sources should be articles from foreign journals. Self-citation of the author should not exceed 25 % of the total number of sources, self-citation of the journal is recommended to be kept to a minimum.
References to articles from scientific journals, from collections of materials of scientific conferences, from non-periodic collections of scientific articles, to books devoted to scientific research, as well as copyright patents are allowed in the list of references. The Editorial Board recommends in the list of references to refer to articles from journals included in the core of the RSCI (Russian Science Citation Index, Web of Science Core Collection, Scopus).
References to normative legal acts (laws, codes, decrees, regulations, etc.), educational publications (textbooks, manuals, lecture notes, methodological guidelines, etc.), reference publications (reference books, dictionaries and encyclopedias), dissertations and abstracts, geological maps, as well as pages of electronic resources are not allowed. not having a specific authorship. If it is necessary to refer to these sources, a link to them should be placed in a footnote.
13. List of references for the articles in Russian is presented in two versions. The first version is in the source language following the GOST (State Standard) 7.0.5 2008. The second version is a transliterated (Latin alphabet) list of references with an English translation included to trace the author(s)’ citation. The bibliographical description of an article should enumerate all the authors.
14. At the end of the article, it is necessary to register an individual contribution for each of the co-authors, which is selected from the following list:
– conceptualization;
– methodology;
– data curation;
– formal analysis;
– funding acquisition;
– investigation;
– project administration;
– resources;
– software;
– supervision;
– validation;
– visualization;
– writing – original draft;
– writing – editing.
15. When submitting the article, the author(s) should include the following information in English: the title of the article, information about the authors, abstract, keywords, table titles and captions, references, сontribution of the authors.
16. The authors should observe the rules specified in the Editorial Policy of the journal.
17. The Editor reserves the right to reject the articles that do not meet the above requirements. The submitted material is not subject to return.
18. The Editor reserves the right of scientific and literary editing of the submitted articles subsequently agreed upon with the author(s).
19. The submitted papers are checked for plagiarism.
20. The periodicity of the journal is 4 times a year.
Attention! Publication of the articles is free of charge.
We invite all those concerned to participate in the project as authors, advertisers, and readers.
The articles should be addressed to the Executive Secretary Maria Nikolayevna Dolgikh via the form available at our website or by e-mail nzn@istu.edu; 83 Lermontov St., room I-026, Irkutsk, 664074, Russia, Tel.: +7 (952) 6214436.
