Abstract: This paper conducted the comparison analysis on the frequency of publication, number of pages, number of published articles, folio, format and information density of 17 provincial agricultural science journals from 2001 to 2016. The result indicated: compared with 2001, 13 out of 17 provincial agriculture science journals shortened their frequencies of publication, while monthly published journals accounted for 71%. Four of them remained the same frequencies of publication. The number of pages and number of published articles of 17 journals all significantly increased, 12 out of 17 journals used big 16mo format and five of them used 16mo format. From the perspective of format selection, 17 journals all used half measure, and the average number of pages per article of 17 journals increased from 2.40 pages to 3.79 pages. The average density per article decreased from 0.42 article per page to 0.26 article per page. The average quantity of information decreased from 6.67 articles per page to 4.22 articles per page. According to the analysis result, it proposed the suggestions, including enhancing the quality of edition, reasonably planning the layout and fully using extra space enables information density, so as to increase the amount of information of journals, scientifically and economically apply the layout and save costs.

Key words: provincial agricultural science journal