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Instructions to Authors

SCOPE

The Journal of Chromatographic Science is devoted to the dissemination of information concerning all methods of chromatographic analysis. The standard manuscript is a description of recent original research that covers any or all phases of a specific separation problem, principle, or method. Manuscripts which have a high degree of novelty and fundamental significance to the field of separation science are particularly encouraged. It is expected the authors will clearly state in the Introduction how their method compares in some markedly new and improved way to previous published related methods. Analytical performance characteristics of new methods including sensitivity, tested limits of detection or quantification, accuracy, precision, and specificity should be provided.

Manuscripts which describe a straightforward extension of a known analytical method or an application to a previously analyzed and/or uncomplicated sample matrix will not normally be reviewed favorably. In addition to regular research papers, “Technical Notes” are published. These are brief disclosures of new chromatographic concepts or practices or brief descriptions of novel apparatuses or techniques. “Expedited Papers” are those determined by our reviewers to be of interest to most chromatographers and requiring minimal revision. They are published in the next available issue. General comments on the content of the Journal are appropriate for “Letters to the Editor,” as are comments on the work of specific authors, in which case the authors will be allowed to reply. The editors encourage readers to communicate questions and criticisms inspired by the Journal.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

At the point of submission, Journal of Chromatographic Science policy requires that each author reveal any financial interests or connections, direct or indirect, or other situations that might raise the question of bias in the work reported or the conclusions, implications, or opinions stated—including pertinent commercial or other sources of funding for the individual author(s) or for the associated department(s) or organization(s), personal relationships, or direct academic competition. When considering whether you should declare a conflicting interest or connection please consider the conflict of interest test: Is there any arrangement that would embarrass you or any of your co-authors if it was to emerge after publication and you had not declared it?

As part of the online submission process, Corresponding authors are required to confirm whether they or their co-authors have any conflicts of interest to declare, and to provide details of these. It is the Corresponding author’s responsibility to ensure that all authors adhere to this policy.

Examples of potential conflicts of interest which should be disclosed include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. Potential conflicts of interest should be disclosed at the earliest possible stage and if the manuscript is accepted, conflict of interest information will be communicated in a statement in the published paper.

SUBMISSION OF MANUSCRIPTS

Submission of a paper to this journal implies that the manuscript has not been published in, or submitted to, any other journal and that the author(s) have obtained appropriate permission to use data obtained for and contained in the manuscript. Previous presentation at professional meetings should be mentioned in a footnote.

General Points

Manuscripts should be prepared carefully according to the The American Chemical Society’s ACS Style Guide: A Manual for Authors and Editors, 2nd ed. American Chemical Society, Washington, D.C., 1997. The most important rule of good style is to be consistent throughout a manuscript. Manuscripts accepted for publication must conform strictly to these style guidelines, and the editor reserves the right to make appropriate changes. If a manuscript is not in suitably usable condition, the editor reserves the right to postpone or refuse publication or request retyping.

Manuscripts should be in their final form when they are submitted, so that proofs require only correction of typographical errors. All parts of the manuscript (except figures) should be double-spaced throughout and should be in a word-processing file.

Sections of the manuscript

Manuscripts should be subdivided into the following sequence of sections:

  • Title page
  • Abstract
  • Keywords
  • Introduction
  • Experimental
  • Instrumentation and Reagents
  • Methods
  • Results
  • Discussion
  • Conclusion
  • Funding
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
  • Tables
  • Legends to figures
  • Figures (if not in a graphic-type file like PDF, tif, eps, etc.)
  • Supplementary data

The text should describe the equipment and method(s) in sufficient detail to permit duplication of the results.

Language

Manuscripts must be clearly and concisely written in English. The Editors reserve the right to reject without review those that cannot adequately be assessed because of a poor standard of English. Authors whose first language is not English are encouraged to have their manuscript checked by a native English speaker. If you have difficulty with this you can obtain further help and information here.

Title

No longer than 10 words; also to include country where research undertaken in title (if relevant).

Key words

Please include a minimum of two words “key words” to aid literature searching, and a maximum of five.

Abstracts

The second page of every manuscript must contain only the Abstract, which should not exceed 200 words. The Abstract should be comprehensible to readers before they have read the paper, and abbreviations and reference citations should be avoided. It is essential that the Abstract clearly states the biological importance of the work described in the paper.

Word count

Manuscript length not to exceed 7000 words of text, allowing approximately:

  • 5800 words for body of text
  • 200 words for abstract
  • 1000 words for references

Variations can be made to the length of these individual sections but the total word count must not exceed 7000 words. Please state clearly on the manuscript the breakdown of the total word count.

Tables

Data should not be represented in both table and figure form. In addition, straight line calibration plots will generally not be published; this data can be summarized as a linear least squares regression analysis equation with n= number of points, range of data, and correlation coefficient.

Tables should be typed on separate sheets and numbered consecutively with roman numerals (i.e., Table I, Table II, etc). Tables should be self-explanatory and include a brief descriptive title. Tables can include note(s) that appear below the table. Note(s) usually include full definitions of abbreviations that appear in the table. Footnotes are also acceptable and are indicated by lowercase letters. But footnotes should not include extensive experimental detail. Tables must be called out in the text.

Correspondence

The Editorial Office will correspond directly with authors on the acceptability of their papers.

Unique submissions

Authors may not submit manuscripts that are under consideration for publication elsewhere.

Online submission

Manuscripts must be submitted online via the online submission system http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jcs. Please see further submission details below.

Review Procedure

All submissions except those sent as “Letters to the Editor” are subject to review by two or more independent reviewers selected by the editor(s). Authors may suggest reviewers. The reviewers are asked to indicate the paper’s degree of interest to JCS readers and whether the manuscript should be published without change; with major or minor revision; or not at all. A request for a revised re-submission of a rejected manuscript may also be made by the editor.

Publication Time

Manuscripts requiring only minor revision may be published within six months of submission. The average time before publication is six months after a manuscript or its revision is deemed acceptable. If possible, manuscripts accepted as “Expedited Papers” are published within eight weeks.

Chromatography Problem Solving and Troubleshooting

The editors welcome questions from readers regarding equipment and application techniques. Questions should be emailed to jcs.editorialoffice@oup.com, and should include a name and affiliation.

Preparing Documents for Submission

  • Enter text in the style and order of the Journal (see "References" section below).
  • Insert figure captions and tables at the end of the file.
  • Save any tables, diagrams, figures, graphs or illustrations generated electronically as separate files and not embedded into the text file. Tables must be in editable format (e.g. Excel). Figures can be in editable or image format.
  • Type headings in the style of the Journal.
  • Where possible use Times for the text font and Symbol for the Greek and special characters. Please use the word processing formatting features to indicate Bold, Italic, Greek, Math, Superscript and Subscript characters.

Once your manuscript is ready for submission, please follow the online submission instructions here.

Equations

Number equations consecutively using Arabic numerals. Place superscripts and subscripts accurately, indicate capital letters and italics, and distinguish between characters that may be confused—e.g., number one and lower-case “L” or zero and upper-case “O”. Avoid superscripts that may be confused with exponents. Variables should be in italics.

Abbreviations and Units

Any word you intend to abbreviate should be spelled out at first occurrence. The first spelled out occurrence should be followed by the abbreviation in parenthesis. Standard units of measurement may be used without definition in the body of the paper. The international system of units (IUPAC) is the preferred system for expressing measurements. Use abbreviations as given in The ACS Style Guide or the International Serials Catalogue.

Figure Submission

Images on disk can be accepted in Adobe PhotoShop compatible formats. Images should be saved in TIFF format. Chromatograms generated by most instruments are not of high enough quality for publication. The signal response versus time data, saved as an ASCII file, can be effectively re-plotted using Origin Pro software (Origin Lab). Plotting chromatograms with Excel is not recommended due to excessive smoothing of data. Origin Pro is also recommended for plotting data with error bars. Please be aware that the figure requirements for initial online submission (peer review) and for reproduction in the journal are now the same. Authors should now supply final high-resolution .tif or .eps files for reproduction in the journal at the time of submission. Figure legends should be typed separately from the figures and placed in the main text document.

These should be submitted in the desired final printed size so that reduction can be avoided. Ideally figures should fit either a single or a double column. Images should be of sufficiently high quality with respect to detail, contrast, and fineness of grain to withstand the inevitable loss of contrast and detail inherent in the printing process. Image resolution should be a minimum of 300 dpi.

All supplementary figures and supplementary figure legends must be separate from the main document file.

Color Figures

The cost of printing color figures is £350/US$600/€525 per figure. Please submit figures for printing in color only if you agree to the color charge. Black & white figures may not be substituted for color figures after a manuscript has been reviewed and accepted. Authors of accepted manuscripts containing color figures in print will be obligated to pay the color figure charges. Authors ordering offprints of articles that contain color figures will incur an additional charge for color reproduction. If you ticked the color charge approval box in ScholarOne Manuscripts, the online submission site for the journal, you will incur color figure charges. Orders from the UK will be subject to the current UK VAT charge. For orders from elsewhere in the EU, you or your institution should account for VAT by way of a reverse charge. Please provide us with your or your institution’s VAT number.

Alternatively, figures can be printed in black and white in the printed journal but in color online only.

REFERENCES

Reference list

  • References should be listed at the end of the main text.
  • Text references. Number references in the text in the order in which they appear. Use arabic numbers in parentheses, not superscripts.
  • Authors should check all references carefully, and in particular ensure that all references in the Reference section are cited in the text.
  • Personal communications, unpublished results, manuscripts submitted or in preparation, statistical packages, computer programs and web sites should be cited in the text only, NOT included in the References section.
  • Accession numbers may be cited either within the text or in the form of a reference. The normal form of listed references is author's surname, initials; article title; journal name in full, year in parenthesis; volume number and inclusive page numbers.
  • Include titles with all journal articles. In addition, if you are citing a work listed as "In Press", please provide a copy of that work with your submitted manuscript.

Examples

Journal article (already published in an issue):Vanatta, L.E., Slingsby, R.W.; United States Environmental perchlorate Method 332.0 via microbore and capillary chromatographic formats; Journal of Chromatographic Science, (2009); 47: 1-7.

Journals article (e-pub ahead of print): Fling, B.W.; Fundamental differences in callosal structure, neurophysiologic function, and bimanual control in young and older adults; Cerebral Cortex, December 12, 2011: 10.1093/cercor/bhr349

Chapter in a book: Ahuja, S.; Perspectives on evaluation of steroisomers as drug candidates. In Chiral separations by chromatography, 1st edition, Chapter 2. Oxford University Press, New York, NY, (2000), pp. 15-37.

Book (Editor as author): Striegel, A. (ed). Multiple Detection in Size-Exclusion Chromatography. Oxford University Press, New York, NY, (2004), pp. 5-17.

Number of authors: Single author: Shaw, S.
Two authors: Kennedy, T. and Jones, R.
More than three authors: Zerjal, T., Singh, L. and Thangaraj, Jr K.
More than six authors: If more than 6, retain first six authors and put et al.

Electronic source: : EPA. (2006) US Outdoor Water Use. Water Sense. http://www.epa.gov/WaterSense/pubs/outdoor.html (accessed October 18, 2010).

Page Charges

There are no page charges.

PROOFS

Authors are sent page proofs. Please provide an email address to enable page proofs to be sent as PDF files via email. To avoid delays in publication, proofs should be checked immediately for typographical errors. Final page proofs are not customarily sent to the authors. Responsibility for accuracy of the published manuscript lies solely with the author.

LICENSE TO PUBLISH/ OFFPRINTS

Upon receipt of accepted manuscripts at Oxford Journals authors will be invited to complete an online copyright license to publish form.

This ensures that requests from third parties to reproduce articles are handled efficiently and consistently and will also allow the article to be as widely disseminated as possible. In granting an exclusive license, authors may use their own material in publications provided that the Journal is acknowledged as the original place of publication, and Oxford University Press is notified in writing and in advance. In consideration for granting an exclusive license, the publisher will provide free online access to your article. Printed offprints may be ordered at extra cost at the proof stage.

To download the offprint form, please click here.

Orders from the UK will be subject to the current UK VAT charge. For orders from elsewhere in the EU you or your institution should account for VAT by way of a reverse charge. Please provide us with your or your institution’s VAT number.

Please note that by submitting an article for publication you confirm that you are the corresponding/submitting author and that Oxford University Press ("OUP") may retain your email address for the purpose of communicating with you about the article. You agree to notify OUP immediately if your details change. If your article is accepted for publication OUP will contact you using the email address you have used in the registration process. Please note that OUP does not retain copies of rejected articles.

OPEN ACCESS OPTION FOR AUTHORS

Journal of Chromatographic Science authors have the option to publish their paper under the Oxford Open initiative; whereby, for a charge, their paper will be made freely available online immediately upon publication. After your manuscript is accepted the corresponding author will be required to accept a mandatory license to publish agreement. As part of the licensing process you will be asked to indicate whether or not you wish to pay for open access. If you do not select the open access option, your paper will be published with standard subscription-based access and you will not be charged.

If you choose the Open Access option you can pay the Open Access charges using our Author Services site. This will enable you to pay online with a credit/debit card, or request an invoice by email or post. Open Access charges can be viewed here in detail; discounted rates are available for authors based in some developing countries (click here for a list of qualifying countries).

Orders from the UK will be subject to the current UK VAT charge. For orders from the rest of the European Union, OUP will assume that the service is provided for business purposes. Please provide a VAT number for yourself or your institution and ensure you account for your own local VAT correctly.

FUNDING

Please submit a separate title page (to be designated as “Title Page”) with author address and contact details, funding sources, word count and any acknowledgements.

For the funding statement the following rules should be followed:

  • The sentence should begin: ‘This work was supported by …’
  • The full official funding agency name should be given, i.e. ‘the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health’ or simply 'National Institutes of Health' not ‘NCI' (one of the 27 subinstitutions) or 'NCI at NIH’ (full RIN-approved list of UK funding agencies) Grant numbers should be complete and accurate and provided in brackets as follows: ‘[grant number ABX CDXXXXXX]’
  • Multiple grant numbers should be separated by a comma as follows: ‘[grant numbers ABX CDXXXXXX, EFX GHXXXXXX]’
  • Agencies should be separated by a semi-colon (plus ‘and’ before the last funding agency)
  • Where individuals need to be specified for certain sources of funding the following text should be added after the relevant agency or grant number 'to [author initials]'.
  • An example is given here: ‘This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health [AA123456 to C.S., BB765432 to M.H.]; and the Alcohol & Education Research Council [P50 CA098252 and CA118790 to R.B.S.R.].’

Oxford Journals will deposit all NIH-funded articles in PubMed Central. See http://www.oxfordjournals.org/for_authors/repositories.html for details. Authors must ensure that manuscripts are clearly indicated as NIH-funded using the guidelines above.

Author Self-Archiving/Public Access policy

For information about this journal's policy, please visit our Author Self-Archiving policy page.

COMMUNICATIONS

Correspondence should be directed to: jcs.editorialoffice@oup.com