Submissions

Author Guidelines

Guide for Authors

Neotropical Veterinary and Animal Science (NVAS) is a peer-reviewed, open-access, broad-scope journal published by CSVET Editora (Brazil). It covers all areas of veterinary medicine and animal science and all animal species, from basic and translational research to clinical practice, animal production, applied technology, food safety, One Health and policy, with special interest in the Neotropics and other tropical regions. See About the Journal for the full scope.

These instructions follow the ICMJE Recommendations, the COPE Core Practices and the reporting guidelines of the EQUATOR Network. Manuscripts that do not follow them are returned to the authors before peer review.

1. Article types

Word limits refer to the main text (excluding abstract, tables, figure legends and references). Longer manuscripts may be accepted when justified in the cover letter.

Editorials and Proceedings/Supplements (abstracts or papers from scientific events) are commissioned by the editors; event organizers interested in a supplement should contact the editorial office.

2. Before you submit

2.1 Animal research ethics

• Studies involving live animals must have been approved by an institutional animal ethics committee before they began. In Brazil this is the CEUA, under Law 11,794/2008 and the regulations of CONCEA; elsewhere, the equivalent national body. Report the committee, the protocol number and the date in the Methods.
• Describe how the 3Rs (Replacement, Reduction, Refinement), humane endpoints, anaesthesia, analgesia and euthanasia were applied, and report animal research according to ARRIVE 2.0.
• Client-owned animals: state that the owner gave written informed consent for the procedures and for publication. Case reports of routine clinical care do not require ethics committee approval, but do require owner consent.
• Wild fauna: report the collection or handling permit (in Brazil, SISBIO/ICMBio). Access to Brazilian genetic heritage or associated traditional knowledge must be registered in SisGen (Law 13,123/2015); report the registration number.
• Manuscripts describing procedures that cause unnecessary suffering will be rejected regardless of their scientific merit.

2.2 Research with production animals

• Studies carried out on commercial farms, feedlots, hatcheries, aquaculture facilities or slaughterhouses must report ethics committee approval (or an exemption issued by the committee when only routine husbandry is observed) and the written consent of the owner or manager of the establishment.
• Housing, handling, feeding, transport and slaughter must meet at least the welfare standards of the applicable legislation and of good commercial practice; describe stocking density, environmental conditions and the slaughter method, with stunning when required.
• Field trials with vaccines, drugs, feed additives or other investigational veterinary products must report the regulatory authorization required (in Brazil, from the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, MAPA) and comply with biosecurity rules and withdrawal periods; animals and products from such trials must not enter the food chain unless allowed by the authority.
• Do not identify farms, owners or companies in a way that may expose them, unless they consented in writing.

2.3 Research involving people

• Studies with questionnaires, interviews or focus groups (owners, farmers, veterinarians, students), with human biological samples or with identifiable personal data require approval by a human research ethics committee (in Brazil, a CEP registered in Plataforma Brasil, under CNS Resolutions 466/2012 and 510/2016) and the informed consent of participants. Report the committee, the approval number (CAAE) and the date.
• Personal data must be handled according to data protection law (in Brazil, the LGPD, Law 13,709/2018) and anonymized in the manuscript and in shared datasets.

2.4 Publication ethics

• The manuscript must be original, not published and not under consideration elsewhere. Preprints are allowed: report the preprint DOI at submission. Conference abstracts do not count as prior publication.
• All submissions are checked with similarity-detection software. Plagiarism, self-plagiarism, duplicate or salami publication, image manipulation, data fabrication or citation manipulation are handled according to the COPE flowcharts and may lead to rejection or retraction.
• Senior author requirement: every manuscript must include at least one author who has completed an undergraduate degree in veterinary medicine, animal science or a related field (e.g. biology, agronomy, biomedical sciences). Manuscripts authored only by students are not accepted: student authors must include their supervisor or a graduated professional responsible for the work as co-author. This author acts as the guarantor of the scientific integrity of the work and must be identified on the title page with the degree, the institution and a verifiable profile: the Lattes CV link or professional registration (in Brazil, CRMV) or the ORCID record or institutional page (other countries). The editorial office verifies this information at screening; manuscripts that do not meet the requirement are returned without review.
• Authorship follows the ICMJE criteria. Describe each author's contribution with the CRediT taxonomy. Changes to the author list after submission require a justified request signed by all authors.
• Conflicts of interest: all authors must declare financial and non-financial interests (funding, employment, consultancies, products studied). If there are none, state "The authors declare no conflicts of interest".
• Funding: name all funders and grant numbers (e.g. CNPq, CAPES, FAPESP), including the CAPES Finance Code 001 when applicable.
• Artificial intelligence: see Section 2.5.

2.5 Use of artificial intelligence (AI)

This policy follows the positions of COPE, ICMJE and WAME and the policies of major publishers (Elsevier, Wiley, Springer Nature). It applies to generative AI and AI-assisted tools (e.g. ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, DeepL Write, image generators).

AI cannot be an author. AI tools cannot take responsibility for the work, approve the final version or answer for its integrity, so they cannot be listed as authors or co-authors, nor cited as authors in references.

Permitted uses, with declaration:

• Improving the language, grammar and readability of text written by the authors, including translation.
• Support for literature searching, coding or formatting, as long as every source and every result is checked by the authors.
• AI as a research method (e.g. machine learning, computer vision, image analysis, large language models as the object of study): must be fully described in the Materials and Methods, with the tool, version, parameters, training and validation data, and performance metrics, so that the work can be reproduced.

Prohibited uses:

• Generating scientific content in place of the authors: results, data, interpretation, discussion or conclusions not produced and verified by them.
• Creating, altering or "enhancing" figures, photographs, micrographs, radiographs, gels or blots with generative AI. Adjustments of brightness, contrast or colour applied to the whole image are allowed if they do not hide or remove information. AI-generated images are accepted only when they are the object of the research and are described in the Methods.
• Fabricating or falsifying data, or citing references that the authors have not read. Non-existent or incorrect references generated by AI are treated as research misconduct.
• Entering confidential or personal data (owners, patients, farms, unpublished data of third parties) into AI tools that do not guarantee confidentiality.

Declaration. Before the References, include a section "Declaration of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process". Example: "During the preparation of this work the authors used [tool, version] in order to [purpose, e.g. improve the readability of the English text]. After using this tool, the authors reviewed and edited the content as needed and take full responsibility for the content of the publication." If no tool was used, state: "The authors did not use generative AI in the preparation of this manuscript." Spelling and grammar checkers built into word processors and reference managers do not need to be declared.

Responsibility. The authors are fully responsible for the accuracy, originality and integrity of all content, including any part produced with AI assistance. The journal may use detection tools and request the authors' records; undeclared or prohibited use is handled according to COPE guidance and may lead to rejection, correction or retraction.

Reviewers and editors. Manuscripts and review reports are confidential: reviewers and editors must not upload them, in whole or in part, to generative AI tools, and must not use AI to write the evaluation or the editorial decision. Reviewers may use AI only to improve the language of a report they wrote themselves, and must declare it to the editor.

2.6 Research data

NVAS encourages authors to share the data, code and materials that support their findings, following the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable). Authors can choose one or more of the options below:

• Deposit in a data repository (recommended): deposit the raw or processed data in a public repository that assigns a DOI, such as Zenodo, Figshare, Dryad, Mendeley Data, OSF or an institutional repository (e.g. Dataverse), and cite the dataset in the Data Availability Statement and in the reference list. An embargo or private reviewer link may be used during peer review.
• Discipline-specific repositories: nucleotide and protein sequences must be deposited in GenBank, ENA or DDBJ, and genomic and transcriptomic data in SRA/ENA or GEO, with accession numbers reported in the manuscript. Use other community repositories when they exist (e.g. PDB for structures, MorphoBank for morphological data).
• Supplementary material: datasets, extended tables, videos and protocols may be submitted as supplementary files, published with the article. Use open formats (CSV, XLSX, TXT, PDF, MP4).
• Data Article: authors of a research article may co-submit to NVAS a Data Article describing the dataset in detail, which is peer-reviewed, receives its own DOI and is linked to the research article (similar to Elsevier's Data in Brief).
• Code and protocols: share analysis code and software in a public repository (e.g. GitHub archived on Zenodo with a DOI) and detailed protocols on platforms such as protocols.io.
• Restricted data: when data cannot be shared (personal data, commercial confidentiality, biosecurity or legal restrictions), explain the reason and how researchers can request access.

Data Availability Statement (mandatory, at the end of the manuscript). Examples:

• "The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in [repository] at https://doi.org/[DOI]."
• "The data are available in the supplementary material of this article."
• "The data are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request, owing to [reason]."
• "No data were generated or analysed in this study."

Cite datasets in the reference list as: Author(s). Title of dataset [dataset]. Repository; Year. doi:10.xxxx/xxxxx

2.7 Reporting guidelines

Follow the guideline that applies to your study and upload the completed checklist as a supplementary file:

• Animal experiments: ARRIVE 2.0, doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.3000410
• Observational studies (cohort, case-control, cross-sectional): STROBE-Vet, doi:10.1111/jvim.14574 and doi:10.1111/jvim.14592
• Randomized trials: CONSORT 2010, doi:10.1136/bmj.c332; livestock and food safety trials: REFLECT, doi:10.1111/j.1939-1676.2009.0441.x
• Diagnostic accuracy: STARD 2015, doi:10.1136/bmj.h5527
• Case reports: CARE, adapted to veterinary cases, doi:10.1136/bcr-2013-201554
• Systematic reviews and meta-analyses: PRISMA 2020, doi:10.1136/bmj.n71; scoping reviews: PRISMA-ScR, doi:10.7326/M18-0850
• Narrative reviews: self-assessment with SANRA, doi:10.1186/s41073-019-0064-8
• Other designs: see the EQUATOR Network.

Systematic reviews must be registered before data extraction (e.g. OSF Registries, PROSPERO when eligible, SYREAF) and the last search must be no older than 12 months at submission.

3. Language

Manuscripts must be written in clear English (American or British, used consistently). Authors whose first language is not English are encouraged to have the text reviewed before submission; manuscripts with language problems that prevent evaluation are returned without review. An optional abstract in Portuguese (Resumo) or Spanish (Resumen) may be added and will be published with the English abstract.

4. Manuscript preparation

4.1 Submission files

Peer review is double-anonymous. The article itself is submitted only once, without author information: do not prepare two complete versions of the manuscript (with and without authors). Author details go in a short separate title page. Upload the following files:

Separate high-resolution figure files are not needed at submission; they are requested only after acceptance (see Section 4.7). Each uploaded file should not exceed 20 MB; larger datasets or videos should be deposited in a repository and linked. During submission, choose for each file the corresponding component (e.g. "Article Text" for the anonymized manuscript, "Other" for the title page, cover letter and forms) so that only the files marked "Seen by reviewers" are shared with them.

4.2 Format

A4 page, 12-pt font, double line spacing, continuous line numbering and page numbers. Use SI units, generic drug names, and the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature and ICTV for scientific names (italicized; full name at first mention, e.g. Staphylococcus pseudintermedius, then S. pseudintermedius). Gene symbols follow the official nomenclature of the species. Define abbreviations at first use and keep them to a minimum.

4.3 Structure

• Original Research Articles: Title; Abstract structured as Background, Objectives, Methods, Results and Conclusions; 4 to 6 Keywords (not repeating the title); Introduction; Materials and Methods; Results; Discussion; Conclusions; Declarations; References.
• Short Communications, Methods and Data Articles: same sections in condensed form. Data Articles describe the data collection, data structure, quality control, repository, licence and DOI of the dataset.
• Case Reports and Case Series: Introduction (why the case is relevant); Case presentation (signalment, history, clinical findings, diagnostic investigation, differential diagnoses, treatment and outcome, with a timeline when useful); Discussion (comparison with the literature, limitations); Conclusion; Learning points (3 to 5 bullets). The diagnosis must be confirmed by appropriate methods (e.g. histopathology, culture, PCR, imaging).
• Clinical Images: title, one or two high-quality images with legend, and a short text (signalment, history, findings, diagnosis and the educational message).
• Reviews: structure appropriate to the type; systematic reviews follow PRISMA 2020. Narrative reviews and mini-reviews must justify, in the Introduction, what they add to existing reviews.

4.4 Statistics

Describe the study design, sample size calculation or justification, the experimental unit, randomization and blinding, the statistical methods and software (with version), and how assumptions were checked. Report effect sizes with 95% confidence intervals and exact P values (e.g. P = 0.032; P < 0.001), not only "significant". A statistical review may be requested.

4.5 Declarations (end of the manuscript and on the title page)

Ethics approval and consent; Author contributions (CRediT); Conflicts of interest; Funding; Data availability; Use of generative AI; Acknowledgements (title page only, during review).

4.6 Tables

Tables must be editable (created with the table tool, not pasted as images), numbered in order of citation, with a self-explanatory title; define abbreviations and statistical symbols in footnotes. Do not duplicate data in tables and figures.

4.7 Figures and image quality

At submission, figures are embedded in the anonymized manuscript at a resolution sufficient for review. After acceptance, provide each figure as a separate file meeting the requirements below; figures that do not meet them delay publication.

• Size: prepare figures at their final width: 8.5 cm (single column), 11.5 to 14 cm (1.5 column) or 17.5 cm (full width); maximum height 23 cm.
• Text in figures: sans-serif font (Arial or Helvetica), 7 to 10 pt at final size; panels labelled with capital letters (A, B, C); units on all axes.
• Colour: RGB colour mode; use colour-blind-friendly palettes and avoid red/green contrasts; figures must remain interpretable in greyscale when possible.
• Micrographs: include a scale bar on the image (not only the magnification) and state the staining method in the legend; arrows and symbols must be explained.
• Diagnostic images: remove patient, owner, hospital and date identifiers from the image and from the file metadata (anonymized DICOM export); indicate view and orientation (e.g. laterolateral, right/left).
• Video: MP4 (H.264), up to 50 MB per file, submitted as supplementary material; longer videos should be deposited in a repository and linked.
• Legends: each figure has a self-explanatory legend in the manuscript (not inside the image file), describing every panel.
• Image integrity: do not enhance, obscure, move, remove or introduce any specific feature. Adjustments of brightness, contrast or colour are acceptable only when applied to the whole image and when they do not hide information. Panels combined from different images or gels must be clearly separated and stated in the legend. Keep the original, unprocessed files: the editors may request them at any time.
• Permissions: images taken from other publications require written permission from the copyright holder; images of identifiable people require their consent.

4.8 References

Use the numbered Vancouver style: cite in the text with numbers in square brackets in order of first citation [1], [2-4], and list the references in that order. Include the DOI for every reference that has one. Example:

1. Smith AB, Silva CD. Title of the article. Abbreviated Journal Title. 2024;12(3):123-30. doi:10.xxxx/xxxxx

Prefer peer-reviewed sources; avoid citing theses, abstracts and non-indexed sources unless essential. Excessive self-citation is not accepted.

5. Submission and peer review

• Submit online through this site (Make a Submission), choosing the section that corresponds to the article type. You may suggest up to three potential reviewers, who must not be from your institution or have co-authored with you in the last five years.
• Editorial screening (usually within 7 days): scope, ethics, reporting, language and similarity. Manuscripts may be returned for correction or rejected without review.
• Peer review: double-anonymous, by at least two independent reviewers; a statistical or methodological review may be requested. Decisions: accept, minor revision, major revision or reject.
• Revisions: submit within 30 days (minor) or 60 days (major) with a point-by-point response to the reviewers and a version with tracked changes.
• Appeals: send them to the Editor-in-Chief with justification within 30 days of the decision.
• The editors never guarantee acceptance or publication times in exchange for fees. Peer review and decisions are independent of any payment.

6. After acceptance

• Authors receive page proofs and must return corrections within 72 hours; only typographical corrections are accepted at this stage.
• Articles are published online as soon as they are ready (continuous publication) with a DOI and are grouped into one volume per year.
• Errors discovered after publication are corrected through correction notices; serious problems may lead to an expression of concern or retraction, following COPE guidance.

7. Open access, copyright and fees

• All articles are published in open access under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC BY 4.0). Authors retain copyright and grant the journal the right of first publication.
• Authors may deposit any version of their work in institutional or thematic repositories, with a link to the published article.
• Fees: there are no submission fees. No article processing charge (APC) is charged for manuscripts accepted on or before 31 January 2027. Any APC for manuscripts accepted after that date will be announced on this page in advance, with full or partial waivers for authors from low- and middle-income countries, students and authors without funding.

8. Submission checklist

• The article type and section are correct, and the text is within the limits of Section 1.
• Cover letter, title page with all authors and the corresponding author, a single anonymized manuscript (no second version with authors), and the signed author declaration and licence agreement.
• Ethics approval (animal: CEUA or equivalent; human: CEP/CAAE or equivalent), owner or farm consent, regulatory authorizations (MAPA) and permits (SISBIO, SisGen) reported when applicable.
• Data Availability Statement included; datasets deposited in a repository with DOI or provided as supplementary material, and sequences with accession numbers.
• Completed reporting checklist (ARRIVE, STROBE-Vet, CONSORT/REFLECT, STARD, CARE, PRISMA) uploaded.
• Declarations: author contributions (CRediT), conflicts of interest, funding, data availability and use of AI.
• Tables and figures embedded in the anonymized manuscript (high-resolution files only after acceptance), editable tables, and Vancouver references with DOIs.
• At least one author with a completed undergraduate degree in the field, identified on the title page with a Lattes CV, CRMV or ORCID link (manuscripts authored only by students are not accepted).
• ORCID iD for all authors (mandatory for the corresponding author).

Appendix A. Choosing and reporting a review

Reviews are classified by their method, not by their title. The editors may reclassify a manuscript whose methods do not match the declared type. Use the table to choose the type and the lists below to check the mandatory components.

A.1 Mandatory components: all reviews

• A title that states the type of review (e.g. "…: a systematic review and meta-analysis"; "…: a narrative review").
• An Introduction that cites recent reviews on the same topic and explains what the new review adds.
• A clear objective or review question.
• Conclusions that do not go beyond the evidence and that point out gaps and practical implications.
• Declarations (Section 4.5) and the completed checklist of the corresponding guideline.

A.2 Narrative review and mini-review

• A description of how the literature was identified: databases or sources, period, search terms and inclusion criteria (a "Methods" or "Literature search" paragraph).
• Critical appraisal, not only description: discuss conflicting findings, quality of the evidence and limitations.
• Balanced, up-to-date references, with a substantial share from the last five years.
• SANRA self-assessment uploaded as a supplementary file.
• Narrative reviews are accepted by invitation or after a pre-submission enquiry to the editors (title, 300-word outline, justification and the authors' expertise in the topic).

A.3 Systematic review, meta-analysis, integrative and rapid review

• Protocol registered before data extraction (OSF Registries, PROSPERO when eligible, SYREAF), with the registry name, number and date in the Abstract and Methods; any deviation from the protocol explained.
• Eligibility criteria structured by PICO/PECO (population/species, intervention or exposure, comparator, outcomes) and study designs.
• Search: at least two bibliographic databases relevant to veterinary science (e.g. PubMed/MEDLINE, CAB Abstracts, Web of Science, Scopus, Embase, AGRICOLA; for Latin America, LILACS/BVS-Vet and SciELO) plus grey literature; the full search strategy of every database as supplementary material; date of the last search (no older than 12 months at submission).
• Selection and data extraction by at least two independent reviewers, with the method for resolving disagreements; PRISMA flow diagram.
• Risk of bias of each included study with a tool appropriate to the design (RoB 2 for randomized trials; ROBINS-I for non-randomized studies; SYRCLE for animal experiments; QUADAS-2 for diagnostic accuracy; JBI checklists for other designs).
• Synthesis: when meta-analysis is not appropriate, a structured synthesis without meta-analysis (SWiM). For meta-analysis: effect measure, model (fixed or random effects) and its justification, heterogeneity (I², τ²), sensitivity and subgroup analyses, assessment of small-study effects or publication bias, software used.
• Certainty of the evidence for the main outcomes (GRADE) when applicable.
• Data extraction forms and extracted data made available (repository or supplementary material).
• Rapid reviews: list every simplification of the systematic review method and its possible impact.

A.4 Scoping review

• A broad question structured by PCC (population, concept, context).
• Protocol (recommended) and a systematic, reproducible search with the full strategy as supplementary material.
• Selection by two independent reviewers and a PRISMA-ScR flow diagram.
• Charting of the data (tables or figures) and a description of the evidence gaps; risk-of-bias assessment is optional and must not be used to draw conclusions on effectiveness.

A.5 Umbrella review

• Registered protocol; systematic search restricted to systematic reviews and meta-analyses.
• Quality appraisal of each review with AMSTAR 2 and analysis of the overlap of primary studies between reviews.
• Reporting according to PRIOR.

Questions: contato@csvet.com.br