Call for Papers

Notification of intent to prepare a paper or a poster: By 30 SEPTEMBER 2024 email the title, author name(s) and outline to the Editor using the template available on the ISSCT website. So that adequate information is available to ISSCT to assess the outlines and to ensure that all necessary information is available, the format of the abstract must be as indicated in the Format of the Abstract paragraph below.

Subject matter: Papers and posters should be of interest to an international audience and should present original data, new concepts, novel analysis, or innovative presentation or interpretation of previously published material. Papers may be of a scientific, economic or technological nature but must not be of an overtly commercial nature or written with inadequate disclosure of relevant information for commercial reasons.

Length of Full Papers: These should be no more than 3500 words, excluding the title, list of authors, and the abstract. Only tables, figures and references that are strictly necessary for the presentation should be included. The abstract must conform to the format outlined below.

Length of Poster Papers: No more than 1000 words will be accepted, excluding the title, list of authors and the abstract, and strictly limited tables and figures.

Format of the Abstract: The abstracts for both full length and poster papers are the only parts of the papers/posters that are printed in hard copy. It is therefore most important that the abstracts are reasonably comprehensive and give the reader an adequate summary of the paper. Consequently, the abstracts should be about 300 words and must cover the following topics:

• Why the study was done (maximum two sentences)
• How the study was done (maximum four sentences)
• The results obtained (maximum six sentences), and
• The conclusions drawn from the study (maximum four sentences). The abstracts must not contain any figures or tables.

Language: Papers and abstracts must be presented in English. Authors should include abstracts in French and/or Spanish if they are able.

Eligibility: At least one of the authors must be a member of ISSCT before the paper/poster is accepted. Authors must make every effort to present their paper at the congress. However, if they are unable to attend, they must ensure that someone with a good knowledge of the work can make the presentation on their behalf. The presenter must be able to answer detailed questions on the paper. This must be advised to the Chair of the Technical Program Committee at least 2 weeks before the congress.

Peer Review: The ISSCT Commissioners in collaboration with the Section Chairs and the Editor will arrange for papers and posters to be peer reviewed.

Preparation: Commissioners may reject papers that require excessive editing. Before submission, authors must have their papers reviewed by colleagues, and, if appropriate, by a person fluent in English. Authors who are not fully conversant with technical English and the type of sentence construction used in technical papers of the type required by ISSCT must have their paper reviewed by a person fluent in English before emailing their paper to the Editor. If there is any doubt on this point, authors must email their paper to the Editor well before the stipulated deadline. Furthermore, authors are encouraged to contact the relevant Commissioner before submitting their papers to clarify any doubts they may have concerning the technical content and related matters for their papers.

Deadlines: Manuscripts of full papers and poster papers must be received by the Editor by email by 31 DECEMBER 2024 to be eligible. Email will be the only form of communication between the Editor and the authors.

Agreement Form: ISSCT must obtain assurances from authors that the papers and posters are the original work of the authors, have not been published previously, and do not violate existing copyright or intellectual property rights. Authors are required to complete an ‘ISSCT Agreement Form’ to give these assurances.

The organizing committee of the XXXII ISSCT Congress 2025 cordially invites scientists, technologists, administrators/industry professionals, sugar cane growers, companies and institutions that form part of the sugar cane industry and its related products to consider applying to speak at the Congress. All those interested in presenting their research findings or case studies or wish to share pioneering or innovative experiences from the sector are invited to submit their academic proposals before 30^th August 2024.

30^th September 2024 Deadline to send paper and poster titles and abstracts to editors. 

31^st December 2024 Deadline to submit manuscripts and posters to editors. Manuscripts should be prepared in ISSCT style.

Please note:

• All proposals must be submitted using the official ISSCT form. Download it here: https://issct.org/intent-to-submit_2025/ 
• All manuscripts must comply with ISSCT editorial standards. Download it here: https://issct.org/issct-instructions-to-authors/
• All papers must be submitted in English.
• Manuscripts are reviewed and approved by the ISSCT.

Overall Layout of the Paper: An example that should be used in the preparation of a full- length paper is available on the ISSCT website at http://www.issct.org. The template shows the overall layout and format of the papers.

Title: The title should be as brief as possible, in capital letters not underlined, and followed by the author’s name(s), using initials or preferred given name.

Detail of Author(s): The name(s) of the author(s) should be accompanied by the institution they represent and its abbreviated address. In the case of multiple authors from different institutions, the name of each author should be marked with a superscript number beginning with 1. The addresses corresponding to each author should also be marked with the same superscript number. The professional title and rank of the author should not be included. The email address of the principal author should be presented under the addresses.
ISSCT discourages the listing of more than four authors. Authors must have made a significant contribution to the substance of the paper. Persons who only offered advice, who assisted with the experimental program and/or who directed the work of an institution should be mentioned in the Acknowledgements (see below).

Abstract: An abstract of no more than 300 words must be supplied, positioned below the title and author headings. It must be reasonably comprehensive and self-explanatory and give:

• why the study was done (maximum two sentences),
• how the study was done (maximum four sentences),
• the results obtained (maximum six sentences), and
• the conclusions drawn from the study (maximum four sentences).

The abstract will be published in a separate hard-copy document. The abstract will help a reader decide whether to read the full paper from the USB stick, so it must have sufficient detail for the reader to make this decision. French- and Spanish-speaking authors must also supply an abstract in their language at submission of the final manuscript.

Keywords: Immediately following the abstract, authors should write ‘Keywords: …’ and give no more than five keywords that cover the main elements of the paper.

Introduction: The introduction should inform the reader of the overall purpose of the paper and provide information on the previous work or experience on the theme of the paper.

Main Body of the Paper: In the case of scientific papers, it is suggested that authors follow the standard presentation involving the following sections: materials and methods, results, discussion and conclusions.

For reviews and description of technological processes, authors should decide on the layout most suitable for their presentation. However, a section of conclusions should be included.

Acknowledgments: Authors may include a short section of Acknowledgments. It should not be more than 50 words. If there are more than four authors listed for the paper, serious consideration should be given to acknowledging some of the ‘authors’ in the acknowledgements section and removing their names from the authors listing.

References: References to literature are given in the text as Bloggs (1992) or (Bloggs 1992), or Bloggs and Higgins (1992) for two authors, or Wilkins et al. (1993) for three or more authors. While use of the term et al. is appropriate in the text for references to more than two authors, all author names must be provided in the list of references except that, if there are more than six authors, only the first three should be listed, followed by et al. This list is collected at the end of the paper in alphabetical order of the first author’s surname, in the following format: Author(s) – surname first, initials last –, date in parentheses, the title, publication, publisher and place of publication (for books), volume number, page numbers for journals.

References to articles presented in Proceedings should include: name(s) of the author(s), the year of publication in brackets, the full title of the article, the title of the proceedings, the venue and date of the meeting, the name(s) of the editors, the publisher and the inclusive pages of the article cited.

Each reference to a book should include: author(s) name, year of publication, title of the book, publisher and place of publication, and total number of pages.

Each of these elements MUST be present to constitute a VALID reference. If a work cannot be found because of insufficient detail, it will be deleted as useless, and authors risk accusations of plagiarism.

The above three fictional references would then be cited as:

Bloggs CP. 1992. A sugarcane productivity model. Australian Journal of Agricultural Research 21: 91-96.

Bloggs CP, Higgins JC. 1992. Sugarcane photosynthesis. In: Proceedings of the World Photosynthesis Symposium, Trivandrum, India, 1991. D Snooks and S Tan (Eds). Pathan Press, New Delhi pp. 120-128.

Wilkins SY, Yoshida T, Chen SK. 1993. Photosynthesis of Sugarcane. Caneworld Publishers,New York.

Conference papers produced on CD or USB stick without continuous pagination should have the following format:

McBain GD, Harris JA, Miller KF, Vigh SN. 2002. Temperature distribution in a vertical cooling crystalliser. Proceedings of the Australian Society of Sugar Cane Technologists 24: 7 pp.

If the reference is to an article from a website, please use the following format:

Poland D. 1998. The hot button. Roughcut. Turner Network Television. Accessed 28 Oct. 1998. http://www.roughcut.com

References in the text that are not in the list of references will be deleted; similarly, references in the reference list not referred to in the text will be deleted. If several papers by the same authors in one year are cited, a, b, c etc. are placed after the year of publication.

Tables: Tables MUST be kept to a minimum number and size. They must fit onto an A4 page in portrait format. Tables must be numbered consecutively, eg Table 1, Table 2, followed by a brief explanatory heading, referred to in the text as such. Authors must give due consideration to the necessity and relevance of data tables, rather than include them simply because they are readily available on computer. Note that data should not be presented in both a table and in a figure. In general, it is better to present the data in graphical form than in a table. Please remember that tables should be placed at the most appropriate place in the text, not in separate files or at the end of the text. All tables must be inserted in a format that allows them to be changed by the Editor (not inserted as a ‘picture’).

Equations: Simple equations (i.e. one-line equations with subscripts and superscripts) should be typed directly into the text. Others should be rendered in Microsoft Equation Editor, so that errors, changes or corrections can be applied to the electronic document. If appropriate, the equations should be numbered.

Figures/photographs: Authors must convert figures and diagrams into Microsoft Excel or Microsoft PowerPoint. Photographs should be supplied in .jpg format. Figures should be numbered consecutively, eg, Figure 1, Figure 2, followed by a brief explanatory title, and referred to in the text as such. Colour illustrations are encouraged.

All photographs, figures and diagrams should be placed in the body of the text.

Style: Do NOT underline headings or text. Please use capital letters sparingly. Do not confer capital letters on every mill station, tool, piece of equipment or apparatus etc. Whole numbers under 10 should be spelt out in the text, except when referring to identifiable quantities, eg 5 t/ha, and in tables. Botanical and zoological genus and species names should be rendered in italics. Names of chemicals should be written out in the text, at least at their first occurrence, except when reaction equations or complex compounds are dealt with, when standard symbols should be used.

Numbers, symbols and abbreviations: Use metric units for all measurements. Standard abbreviations should be used such as mm, cm, m², km, km², m³, ha (hectares), t (tonne), L (litre), mL, h (hour), kW, kWh, kJ, °, ‘, » (degree, minute, second), r/min, kPa, N, °C. Please use kg/m³ in preference to kg.m^-3, t/ha rather than t.ha^-1, etc. Numbers greater than 9999 should be written with a comma to denote the thousands separator, e.g. 15,687.

Page numbers: Number all pages in the upper right-hand corner.

Electronic format: Papers must be submitted to the Editor by email. The manuscript must be provided in Microsoft Word. Authors are requested to remove from the text file all highlights, comments, merge commands, and hyperlinks of all kinds, eg automatic table of contents links, reference links, etc. Papers must be submitted in one file, with all photographs, tables, and figures placed at an appropriate place in the text. If the resulting file is very big (e.g. the manuscript contains several photographs), the files should be WinZipped to reduce its size.

Communication with ISSCT: All communication between authors and ISSCT concerning full papers and posters MUST be with the Editor via email so that the processing and reviewing of papers is under effective control. The Editor will acknowledge receipt of all communications with authors. If authors do not receive acknowledgement of an email within two working days, they should assume that the email has failed to arrive and resubmit it.

Poster papers should follow the layout and instructions for full-length papers, as far as feasible. However, poster papers are limited to 1000 words (excluding the title, authors and abstract) and strictly limited tables and figures. If figures and/or tables are included, the number of words must be reduced to maintain approximately the same total length. The abstracts of the poster papers will be published in the separate hard copy document along with the abstracts from full-length papers.

Abstracts should have a maximum of 200 words.

Main body of paper: Authors should decide on the layout most suitable for this presentation.

BRIEF GUIDELINES ON POSTER PREPARATION

Poster boards will allow portrait-format A0 posters, so posters cannot exceed 841 mm width and 1189 mm height. They can be attached by drawing pins, Velcro or Blue Tac. Space will be provided for posters from each section, over a period nominated in the program. A poster should be self-explanatory and give the essentials of your message. Do not overload it with findings or text. Keep sentences short and pithy. The information flow within the poster should be given by arrows or numbers.

The Congress Organising Committee will provide a standardised header for each poster presentation board that displays the title and authors of the poster, including material for attaching the poster. The poster will be viewed generally from 1.5 to 3 m distance. Letters must be larger than 10 mm, lines heavier than 1 mm, and headings at least 20 mm. Typewritten information must not be used unless it is suitably enlarged.

Photos and figures must be at least 20 x 28 cm, preferably up to 30 x 41 cm. Limit the number of items in a table or curves in a graph. Use colour to add emphasis or contrast. Authors must be present at their posters during the times nominated in the program, in order to explain and discuss it further. You may also wish to have a short handout.