INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS
Types of paper
(a) Research Papers: these
papers are fully documented, interpreted accounts of significant findings of
original research. Authors should aim for no more than eight figures per paper.
Any non-essential figures can be included in the Supplementary Material (see
Supplementary Material section below). Papers not conforming to these
guidelines may be rejected, at the Editor's discretion.
(b) Review Papers: these
are critical and comprehensive reviews that provide new insights or
interpretation of a subject through thorough and systematic evaluation of
available evidence. We would not expect to receive a review paper that is
shorter than 8000 words.
(c) Mini Review: these are
short, timely articles that summarise recent developments in a field without
providing an exhaustive review of all the literature. We encourage Mini-Reviews
which propose provocative new ideas or which challenge currently accepted
opinions. We would expect a Mini Review to be around 3000 words. Section
headings should be short and informative. No more than four figures should be
included.
(d) Commentaries should
normally take the form of a ‘letter’ and present significant comments or
questions about a work published in the Journal. A commentary would normally
include substantiated disagreement with, or alternative interpretation of, one
or more aspects of a paper. It would also normally discuss associated
implications for the conclusions reached. Commentaries should be received
within 3 months of the publication date of the paper on which they comment.
Authors of potential discussions are encouraged to enter into communication
with the Editor-in-Chief before preparation or submission of text. While there
is no word limit, commentaries should be brief and tightly focused. A
commentary, if accepted, will normally be shared with the authors of the paper
concerned who will be provided opportunity to respond.
If needed, a template on
how to format your paper can be found here.
American Science Research Journals accept original research articles, reviews, communications, cases
reports, case studies, opinions, editorials, perspectives and letters for
publication. Authors are requested to follow the guiding principles before
submission of the articles to the American Science Research journals.
Ethics in publishing
You will be required to
accept the American Science Research Ethics Statement for Authors when you
submit your paper to the journal. The statement covers authorship, originality
and conflicts of interest. Please read this statement to ensure your submission
complies.
Note that conference
proceedings are a form of publication.
CHANGES TO AUTHORSHIP
If you wish to add, delete
or rearrange the authors of your accepted paper:
Before online publication:
The corresponding author should contact the Journals Manager, and provide (a)
the reason for the change, and (b) the written consent of all co-authors,
including the authors being added or removed. Please note that your paper will
not be published until the changes have been agreed.
After online publication:
Any requests to add, delete, or rearrange author names in an article published
in an online issue will follow the same policies as noted above and result in a
corrigendum.
COPYRIGHT
If your paper is selected
for publication you will be expected to sign our copyright assignment form.
Where necessary you must obtain permission to publish material protected by
copyright. Provision is made on the form for work performed for the United
States Government (for which Copyright cannot be assigned) and other
extenuating circumstances.
For open access articles:
Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete an 'Exclusive
License Agreement' (for more information see our Rights and Permissions page).
Permitted third party reuse of open access articles is determined by the
author's choice of user license. More information is available on our Open
Access page.
AUTHOR RIGHTS
For the rights of the
author to reuse your work, please refer to the Rights and Permissions page.
ROLE OF THE FUNDING SOURCE
You are requested to
identify who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or
preparation of the article and to briefly describe the role of the sponsor(s),
if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of
data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the article
for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement then this
should be stated.
PUBLISHING OPTIONS
If your paper is accepted
for publication, you will be able to choose from two publication options.
Open Access papers are freely available on American Science Research
Usage of papers published
open access by third parties is defined by the type of Creative Commons user
licence selected by the author (see all options on our Open Access page).
A fee is payable to publish
your paper Open Access. Please see our Open Access Fees page for more
information.
Readers without a
subscription can pay a one-off fee to download the paper.
LANGUAGE
Papers must be in good,
grammatically correct English. If your paper cannot be understood, it will be
rejected. If English is not your native language, you should seek the
assistance of a colleague or professional translator.
In addition, you should
always have your manuscript read by at least two other people to avoid typing
errors before submitting to a journal.
SUBMISSION
Articles should be provided
in electronic form (uploaded to our online submission site and comply with the
instructions below.
REVIEWERS
You are required to submit,
with the manuscript, the names and addresses of 3 potential reviewers that can
give an independent review. You should make sure that these reviewers are not
within your institution and where possible use reviewers from different
countries. If in doubt please look at your references.
REVISION
Major corrections cannot be
undertaken by either the editor or the publishers; if your paper is not
prepared in accordance with these instructions it may not be considered
further. Where requested to do so in the course of the peer review process,
authors must revise their papers within one month of the request; otherwise the
contribution will be considered withdrawn.
PEER REVIEW PROCESS
All papers that an Editor
sends for review, will be peer reviewed, you can see the full process. More
information on how to review a paper can be found.
PREPARATION
Use of word processing
software
The preferred format for
electronic versions is Microsoft Word, though we can accept most other
word-processing packages in PC or Macintosh formats; however, please do not
supply your typescript as a PDF. Authors should not add their own macros.
Please supply only the final version of your file (with no hidden text), to
avoid any risk of old versions of the text being used in error.
The source files of figures
are required if a paper is accepted and you should embed the figures in the
main text (see below).
Article structure
Do not number or letter
section headings.
Use line numbering
throughout your paper.
Papers should be well
structured; they must comprise:
•
Title
•
Short title of no more than 80 characters
•
Author name(s), full postal and email addresses for each author. Please
indicate who the corresponding author is.
•
Abstract: no more than 200 words briefly specifying the aims of the work, the
main results obtained, and the conclusions drawn. Citations must not be
included in the Abstract.
•
Keywords: up to 6 keywords (in alphabetical order) which will enable subsequent
abstracting or information retrieval systems to locate the paper.
•
Highlights: up to 5 numbered points which describe the novelty and/or the
impact of your research. The highlights should help increase the
discoverability of your article. Ensure the highlights are, concise, easy to
read, and include key search terms (you should not simply rewrite the
abstract).
•
Graphical Abstract: this should offer readers an at-a-glance visualisation of
your paper via a single, concise image. Graphical abstracts are optional, but
helpful for readers and for the promotion of your paper.
Main text: for clarity this
should be subdivided into:
•
Introduction: describing the background of the work and its aims.
•
Methods: a brief description of the methods/techniques used (the principles of
these methods should not be described if readers can be directed to easily
accessible references or standard texts).
•
Results and Discussion: a clear presentation of experimental results obtained,
highlighting any trends or points of interest.
•
Conclusions: a brief explanation of the significance and implications of the
work reported.
•
References: these should be to accessible sources. Please ensure that all work
cited in the text is included in the reference list, and that the dates and
authors given in the text match those in the reference list. References must
always be given in sufficient detail for the reader to locate the work cited
(see below for formats). Note that your paper is at risk of rejection if there
are too few (<10) or too many (>25) references, or if a disproportionate
share of the references cited are your own.
Supplementary Material:
Appendices and other Supplementary Material are permitted, and will be
published online only.
Data: We encourage authors
to make the dataset on which their paper is based available to access. Authors
may upload all data related to the results reported in the manuscript as
supplementary materials with the submission, or provided via a URL to a public
repository. Data should be presented in a format that facilitates
readability and reuse.
Where restrictions apply,
submissions should be accompanied by a statement of the conditions of access
and permitted reuse of the data.
For Review Papers the
organisation of the paper can be different. It is however important that a
review is more than a summary of the literature; an in-depth critical
discussion is essential for acceptance of a review paper.
Nomenclature and Units
Please take care that all
terminology and notation used will be widely understood. Abbreviations and
acronyms should be spelled out in full at their first occurrence in the text.
In describing wastewater treatment processes authors should consult Corominas
et al. (2010). New framework for standardized notation in wastewater treatment
modelling. Water Science & Technology, 61(4), 841-857.
SI units are strongly
recommended. If non-SI units must be used, SI equivalents (or conversion
factors) must also be given. Please use the spellings 'litre' and 'metre' (a
'meter' is a measuring instrument).
Please use a decimal point
rather than a comma in numbers (i.e. 3.142 not 3,142).
Write equations in
dimensionless form or in metric units. Please use italic letters to denote variables
(in text or in displayed equations).
Artwork
All figures should be
embedded and correctly positioned within your Word files, and should also be
supplied as separate graphics files in their original formats. EPS, TIFF or PSD
formats are preferred.
The journal is printed in
black and white, with colour graphics in the online version. Authors can have
figures printed in colour at a cost of £100 per figure.
Figures should appear in
numerical order, be described in the body of the text and be positioned close
to where they are first cited. Each figure should have a caption which
describes the illustration, and that can be understood independently of the
main text. The caption should be given in the text, and not on the figure
itself.
Make sure all figures and
tables will fit inside the text area.
Because figures may be
resized in the course of production please use scale bars and not magnification
factors.
Tables
Please submit tables as
editable text and not as images. Number tables consecutively in accordance with
their appearance in the text and place any table notes below the table body. Be
sparing in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in them do not
duplicate results described elsewhere in the article. Please avoid using
vertical rules.
REFERENCES
Citations in text
Use surname of author and
year of publication: Jones (2002) or (Jones 2002).
Insert initials only if
there are two different authors with the same surname and same year of
publication.
Two or more years in
parentheses following an author's name are cited in ascending order of year,
and two or more references published in the same year by the same author are
differentiated by letters a, b, c, etc. For example: Brown (1999, 2002, 2003a,
b).
Different references cited
together should be in date order, for example: (Smith 1959; Thomson & Jones
2008; Green 2015).
If a paper has been
accepted for publication but has not been published the term "(in
press)" should be used instead of a date.
If a paper has been
submitted but not definitely accepted the term "(submitted)" should
be used. If the paper is still being prepared the term "(in
preparation)" should be used.
The abbreviation "et
al." should be used in the text when there are more than two co-authors of
a cited paper.
Please double-check: every
citation in the text must match up to an entry in the reference list and
vice-versa.
REFERENCE LINKS
We use digital object
identifiers (DOIs) to link references to the source material. This can only be
done if the data provided in the references are correct. Please be very
careful, especially when copying references, to ensure that surnames,
journal/book titles, publication year and pagination are all correct. Please
include DOIs where available.
LIST OF REFERENCES
References should be listed
alphabetically at the end of the paper. Although "et al." is
preferable in the text, in the list of references all authors should be given.
JOURNAL REFERENCE STYLE:
Zeng RJ, Lemaire R, Yuan Z,
Keller J. A novel wastewater treatment process: simultaneous nitrification,
denitrification and phosphorus removal. Water Science and Technology,
2004;50(10):163-170.
Book reference styles - (i)
article in compilation; (ii) multi-author work; (iii) standard reference; (iv)
report; (v) thesis:
(i) McInerney M. J. 1999
Anaerobic metabolism and its regulation. In: Biotechnology, J. Winter (ed.),
2nd edn, Wiley-VCH Verlag, Weinheim, Germany, pp. 455-478.
(ii) Henze M., Harremoës
P., LaCour Jansen J. & Arvin E. 1995 Wastewater Treatment: Biological and
Chemical Processes. Springer, Heidelberg.
(iii) Standard Methods for
the Examination of Water and Wastewater 1998 20th edn, American Public Health
Association/American Water Works Association/Water Environment Federation,
Washington DC, USA.
(iv) Sobsey M. D. &
Pfaender F. K. 2002 Evaluation of the H2S method for Detection of Fecal
Contamination of Drinking Water, Report WHO/SDE/WSH/02.08, Water Sanitation and
Health Programme, WHO, Geneva, Switzerland.
(v) Bell J. 2002 Treatment
of Dye Wastewaters in the Anaerobic Baffled Reactor and Characterisation of the
Associated Microbial Populations. PhD thesis, Pollution Research Group,
University of Natal, Durban, South Africa.
SUBMISSION CHECKLIST
The following list will be
useful during the final checking of an article prior to sending it to the
journal for review. Please consult this Instruction for Authors for further
details of any item.
Ensure that the following
items are present:
One author has been
designated as the corresponding author with contact details:
• E-mail address
• Full postal address
• All co-author E-mail
addresses for verification
All necessary files have
been uploaded, and contain:
• Keywords
• All figure captions
• All tables (including
title, description, footnotes)
FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS
• Manuscript has been
'spell-checked' and 'grammar-checked'
• References are in the
correct format for this journal
• All references mentioned
in the Reference list are cited in the text, and vice versa
• Permission has been
obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the
Internet)
Printed version of figures
(if applicable) in colour or black and white
• Indicate clearly whether
or not colour or black and white in print is required
• For reproduction in black
and white, please supply black and white versions of the figures for printing
purposes if necessary
AFTER ACCEPTANCE
Use of the Digital Object
Identifier
The DOI is a unique set of
letters and numbers which can be used to cite and link to your paper online.
The DOI is assigned to your paper when the first proof is generated, and it
will not change, meaning you can cite an Uncorrected Proof immediately using
the DOI.
Proofs
Proofs will be sent by
e-mail to the listed corresponding author. Any corrections must be returned
within one week of receipt and should only cover typesetting errors. All
corrections must be returned to us in one communication. Proofreading is the
sole responsibility of the authors.
Offprints
Upon publication, the
Corresponding Author will receive an electronic file of the paper.
Additionally, hardcopy offprints can be ordered using the Offprint Order Form,
available from American Science Research on request.
Article Processing Fees: https://americanscienceresearch.com/blogpage/article-processing-charges
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