Submissions

This page is designed to help you ensure your submission is ready for and fits the scope of the journal. For additional information, please review our Information for Authors.

Before submitting you should read over the guidelines here, then register an account (or login if you have an existing account)

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About

Meat and Muscle Biology is the premier, fully open access journal that is a publication home for a broad scope of high quality, peer-reviewed manuscripts on all aspects of meat science (including meat derived from domestic mammals, avian species, aquaculture species, amphibians, wild capture mammals, synthetic meat analogs and cell culture) applied muscle biology and related topics.

Focus and Scope

The purpose of the journal is to provide an appropriate, open access medium for the dissemination of peer reviewed interdisciplinary knowledge on all antemortem and postmortem factors that influence the properties of meat that are marketed for consumption. High quality, pertinent, and timely basic and applied manuscripts that cover meat derived from domestic mammals, avian species, aquaculture species, amphibians, wild capture mammals, synthetic meat analogs and cell culture are considered. Topics considered can any factors affecting meat and its use, such as factors affecting production, quality, composition, safety and value of edible products. Examples of factors considered include muscle biology and biochemistry, nutrition, food safety, sensory evaluation, consumer science, new or improved meat-related analytical procedures, animal handling and its influence on products, advances in meat production technology, processing and sensing technologies, marketing of meat products, and sustainability of meat and meat related products and their production.

Types of papers considered

All manuscripts are subject to peer review.

  • Original research articles
  • Review papers by invitation or unsolicited
  • Short communications
  • Reciprocal Meat Conference abstracts that are accepted for the AMSA annual meeting
  • Proceedings of the RMC by invitation only

Submission Checklist

Title Page

  • Running head limited to 45 characters, no abbreviations
  • Listing of all authors’ full names and affiliations in correct order
  • Corresponding author name and email address on title page

Abstract

  • Maximum of 300 words, abbreviations defined at first use
  • Evidence of statistical analysis of data, e.g. P=0.012.
  • 1 or 2 sentences of the important findings or conclusions at end of abstract
  • Key words (6 or less) after the abstract

Text Sections

  • Centering, boldface, capitalized main headings
  • Secondary head flush left, boldface, italic, title case
  • Abbreviations defined at first use except for weights and measurements in SI format
  • Manufacturer/supplier name and location for all chemicals and uncommon equipment and instruments
  • Citations in text are in chronological order; if 2 or more publications in the same year, then alphabetical order; format of Smith and Jones (2008), (Smith and Jones, 2008), (Smith et al., 2008)
  • Commas for numbers greater than 1,000, zeroes before decimal point for numbers less than 1 
  • Equations are part of sentences, with all equation terms defined

Literature Cited

  • Author(s). Year. Title. Source vol.:inclusive pages
  • Citations in alphabetical order by author last name
  • Appropriate journal title abbreviations
  • Only citations used in text appear in this section
  • DOIs should appear in citations where available

Tables and Figures

  • Should be self-contained and self-explanatory, with explanations for all abbreviations
  • Concise figure captions and table titles
  • Tables and figures numbers chronologically in order of appearance in text

Copyright

Copyright Notice

Authors must agree to this copyright notice for each manuscript when it is submitted through the Iowa State University Digital Press website. Meat and Muscle Biology provides immediate open access to its articles. Author(s) retain copyright in their work and articles are published under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license, which allows readers to copy, share, and adapt the article so long as the original article in Meat and Muscle Biology is cited. Material produced by authors on official duty as U.S. government employees is considered to be in the public domain, which will be indicated on the published paper.

Authors of MMB manuscripts who are including materials, often tables or figures, from other copyrighted sources must obtain permission to use these materials from the copyright holder and submit the evidence that this permission has been obtained from the copyright holder when the manuscript is submitted to MMB. Acknowledgement of the use of this material and credit for the source of the material must be included in the manuscript.

Peer Review

Manuscripts are submitted to the journal and the Editor-in-Chief (EIC) does an initial review to ensure the manuscript meets the scope and basic quality standards of the journal. Depending on workload, the EIC either then assigns reviewers or assigns the manuscript to an Associate Editor to assign reviewers.

Once reviews are returned, the editor in charge of the paper evaluates the reviewer comments and decides if the manuscript is:

  1. “Acceptable for Publication As-Is”,
  2. is sent back to the author for revisions as suggested by the reviewers and editor, or
  3. rejected. 

If sent back to the authors for revisions, the authors have 2 weeks to make the revisions or to respond to them and send the updated manuscript (with the changes clearly marked) and a letter documenting responses to each comment made by reviewers (and editor, if applicable) back to the handling editor. The handling editor then will review the changes/responses and will decide

  1. whether to accept for publication,
  2. send the manuscript back to the authors for more clarification,
  3. send the manuscript back to one or more reviewers only if needed for clarification of adequacy of the changes or response, or
  4. to reject the manuscript.  

Once a manuscript is accepted for publication, the publisher will oversee coding, typesetting etc and the authors will review the final proof for publication.  The final decision on the manuscript will be made by the EIC.

The goal of the Meat and Muscle Biology Editorial Board is to render a first decision within at least 45 days of manuscript submission. Once an article has been accepted and the publication charges are paid, it takes approximately ten business days to complete the formatting and post the article online.

Of course, the actual time will vary based on how much editing is required. Author response time to questions and queries from the editorial staff plays a major role in the actual time to publish.

Acceptance Criteria

Manuscripts may be rejected and not published for several reasons. MMB has high scientific standards and does not accept works that are incomplete, poorly described, poorly designed, lack adequate statistical procedures, lack evidence to support conclusions, lack contributions to science or meat and muscle biology knowledge, or do not advance information in the field of meat and muscle biology science. Papers that are not deemed to fit the journal scope will also be rejected and alternative scientific publication venues will be recommended. Manuscripts that do not follow the guidelines in the Meat and Muscle Biology Policies Style Guide, and Instructions for Authors; are not written in clear, concise, organized, and coherent manners; or that have excessive grammar and language difficulties may be rejected before or after being subjected to peer review. Authors are responsible for the contents of manuscripts. Authors who are not proficient in English language and/or scientific writing are urged to have an editing service review the manuscript before it is submitted.

Licences

Meat and Muscle Biology allows the following licences for submission:

  • CC BY 4.0
    Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

Publication Fees

Meat and Muscle Biology charges the following article processing charges:

  • For Research and Review articles:
    • $850 for AMSA members
    • $1000 for non-members
  • For Short Communications:
    • $300 for AMSA members
    • $450 for non-members

After your manuscript has been accepted the American Meat Science Association (AMSA) will generate an invoice for your manuscript submission charge and email it to the author directly. Manuscripts will not be posted online until the invoice has been paid. For more information please contact AMSA.

Assistance may be available for corresponding authors from countries classified as low-, lower-middle, or upper-middle income countries by the World Bank. Please contact the Editor-in-Chief for more information.

Publication Cycle

The journal is published continuously, with articles released when they are accepted and are ready for publication. This publishing model ensures that research is made available as soon as possible.

Sections

Public Submissions

Peer Reviewed

Indexed

Research Article

Review Article

Short Communication

Reciprocal Meat Conference Invited Reviews