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News and Views
Commentary
Research Articles
Research Letters
Review Articles

News and Views

The longer articles included under this heading cover such matters as the more important local scientific meetings and conferences, announcements of new research programmes, and personalia.

Commentary

Opinion pieces about current issues that affect the practice of science and its role in society.

Research Articles

Articles should serve multidisciplinary or multi-institutional areas of interest. They should be the original work of the authors named and be written in a manner which is intelligible to specialists in other fields and be of more than specialist interest. Authors should aim at an upper limit of 6000 words and try to restrict themselves to no more than six display items (tables and figures). They do not generally have more than 50 references.

Research Letters

These are shorter reports on original research and ideally are no longer than 2000 words of text. They should be up-to-date accounts, usually preliminary, of scientific findings worth reporting in a multidisciplinary (rather than a specialist) journal. Although these reports may be concerned with very particular advances, they should be written in a manner which is intelligible to readers in other fields. They do not generally have more than 25 references.

Review Articles

These should be either up-to-date surveys of unfamiliar topics, or else relatively novel interpretations of familiar subjects. The criteria of novelty and comprehensive review of the literature are firmly applied. The subject-matter should ideally be of particular relevance to researchers in Africa. Authors should aim at an upper limit of 6 000 words.