Guide for Authors
INTRODUCTION
Polymer
Degradation and Stability deals with the degradation reactions and their control which are a major preoccupation of practitioners
of the many and diverse aspects of modern polymer technology.
Deteriorative reactions occur during processing, when polymers are
subjected to heat, oxygen and mechanical stress, and during the useful life of the materials when oxygen and sunlight are the most important
degradative agencies. In more specialised applications, degradation may be induced by high energy radiation, ozone, atmospheric pollutants,
mechanical stress, biological action, hydrolysis and many other influences. The mechanisms of these reactions and stabilisation processes
must be understood if the technology and application of polymers are to continue to advance. The reporting of investigations of this
kind is therefore a major function of this journal.
However there are also new developments in polymer technology in which degradation
processes find positive applications. For example, photodegradable plastics are now available, the recycling of polymeric products will
become increasingly important, degradation and combustion studies are involved in the definition of the fire hazards which are associated
with polymeric materials and the microelectronics industry is vitally dependent upon polymer degradation in the manufacture of its circuitry.
Polymer properties may also be improved by processes like curing and grafting, the chemistry of which can be closely related to that
which causes physical deterioration in other circumstances.
Radiation of various kinds is used to initiate many of these modern technological
processes so that polymer photochemistry has come to a new prominence and finds a major place in this journal.
The study of all these
processes has made extensive use of modern instrumental analytical methods and the various spectrometric, chromatographic and thermal
analysis techniques have been particularly prominent.
There is clearly a strong common bond between investigations in various parts
of the field.
Polymer Degradation and Stability provides a forum for the publication of their work.
Types
of paper
Original research papers; review articles; technical notes; short reports; news and announcements; book reviews;
letters to the editors.
Papers essentially of an advertising nature will not be accepted.
Ethics in publishing
For information on Ethics in publishing and Ethical guidelines
for journal publication see
http://www.elsevier.com/publishingethics and
http://www.elsevier.com/ethicalguidelines.
Conflict of interest
All authors are requested to disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest including
any financial, personal or other relationships with other people or organizations within three years of beginning the submitted work
that could inappropriately influence, or be perceived to influence, their work. See also
http://www.elsevier.com/conflictsofinterest.
Submission declaration
Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously
(except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication
elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was
carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere including electronically in the same form, in English or in any
other language, without the written consent of the copyright-holder.
Changes to authorship
This
policy concerns the addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names in the authorship of accepted manuscripts:
Before the
accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Requests to add or remove an author, or to rearrange the author names, must
be sent to the Journal Manager from the corresponding author of the accepted manuscript and must include: (a) the reason the name should
be added or removed, or the author names rearranged and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, fax, letter) from all authors that they agree
with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author
being added or removed. Requests that are not sent by the corresponding author will be forwarded by the Journal Manager to the corresponding
author, who must follow the procedure as described above. Note that: (1) Journal Managers will inform the Journal Editors of any such
requests and (2) publication of the accepted manuscript in an online issue is suspended until authorship has been agreed.
After
the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: 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
Upon
acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' (for more information on this and copyright
see
http://www.elsevier.com/copyright). Acceptance of the agreement will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information.
An e-mail will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript together with a 'Journal Publishing Agreement'
form or a link to the online version of this agreement.
Subscribers may reproduce tables of contents or prepare lists of articles
including abstracts for internal circulation within their institutions. Permission of the Publisher is required for resale or distribution
outside the institution and for all other derivative works, including compilations and translations (please consult
http://www.elsevier.com/permissions).
If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included, the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit
the source(s) in the article. Elsevier has preprinted forms for use by authors in these cases: please consult
http://www.elsevier.com/permissions.
Retained author rights
As an author you (or your employer or institution) retain certain rights; for details
you are referred to:
http://www.elsevier.com/authorsrights.
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. Please see
http://www.elsevier.com/funding.
Funding body agreements and
policies
Elsevier has established agreements and developed policies to allow authors whose articles appear in journals
published by Elsevier, to comply with potential manuscript archiving requirements as specified as conditions of their grant awards. To
learn more about existing agreements and policies please visit
http://www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies.
Open access
This journal offers you the option of making your article freely available to all via the ScienceDirect
platform. To prevent any conflict of interest, you can only make this choice after receiving notification that your article has been
accepted for publication. The fee of $3,000 excludes taxes and other potential author fees such as color charges. In some cases, institutions
and funding bodies have entered into agreement with Elsevier to meet these fees on behalf of their authors. Details of these agreements
are available at
http://www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies. Authors of accepted articles, who wish to take advantage of this
option, should complete and submit the order form (available at
http://www.elsevier.com/locate/openaccessform.pdf). Whatever
access option you choose, you retain many rights as an author, including the right to post a revised personal version of your article
on your own website. More information can be found here:
http://www.elsevier.com/authorsrights.
Language
and language services
Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture
of these). Authors who require information about language editing and copyediting services pre- and post-submission please visit
http://webshop.elsevier.com/languageservices or our customer support
site at
http://support.elsevier.com
for more information.
Submission
Submission to this journal proceeds totally online and
you will be guided stepwise through the creation and uploading of your files. The system automatically converts source files to a single
PDF file of the article, which is used in the peer-review process. Please note that even though manuscript source files are converted
to PDF files at submission for the review process, these source files are needed for further processing after acceptance. All correspondence,
including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, takes place by e-mail removing the need for a paper trail.
Submit your article
Please submit your article via
http://ees.elsevier.com/pdst/
Referees
Please submit, with the manuscript, the names, addresses and e-mail addresses of three potential
referees. Note that the editor retains the sole right to decide whether or not the suggested reviewers are used.
General
Manuscripts must be typewritten, double-spaced with wide margins. A font size of 12 or 10 pt is required.
Use of wordprocessing software
It is important that the file be saved in the native format of the wordprocessor
used. The text should be in single-column format. Keep the layout of the text as simple as possible. Most formatting codes will be removed
and replaced on processing the article. In particular, do not use the wordprocessor's options to justify text or to hyphenate words.
However, do use bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts etc. When preparing tables, if you are using a table grid, use only one
grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row. If no grid is used, use tabs, not spaces, to align columns. The electronic
text should be prepared in a way very similar to that of conventional manuscripts (see also the Guide to Publishing with Elsevier:
http://www.elsevier.com/guidepublication).
Note that source files of figures, tables and text graphics will be required whether or not you embed your figures in the text. See also
the section on Electronic artwork.
To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the 'spell-check' and 'grammar-check'
functions of your wordprocessor.
LaTeX
If the LaTeX file is suitable, proofs will be produced
without rekeying the text. The article should preferably be written using Elsevier's document class 'elsarticle', or alternatively any
of the other recognized classes and formats supported in Elsevier's electronic submissions system, for further information see
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authorsview.authors/latex-ees-supported.
The Elsevier 'elsarticle' LaTeX style file package (including detailed instructions for LaTeX preparation) can be obtained
from the Quickguide:
http://www.elsevier.com/latex. It consists of the file: elsarticle.cls, complete user documentation
for the class file, bibliographic style files in various styles, and template files for a quick start.
Article
structure
Follow this order when typing manuscripts: Title, Authors, Affiliations, Abstract, Keywords, Main text, Acknowledgements,
Appendix, References, Figure Captions and then Tables.
Subdivision - numbered sections
Divide
your article into clearly defined and numbered sections. Subsections should be numbered 1.1 (then 1.1.1, 1.1.2, ...), 1.2, etc. (the
abstract is not included in section numbering). Use this numbering also for internal cross-referencing: do not just refer to 'the text'.
Any subsection may be given a brief heading. Each heading should appear on its own separate line.
Introduction
State
the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.
Material and methods
Provide sufficient detail to allow the work to be reproduced. Methods already published
should be indicated by a reference: only relevant modifications should be described.
Theory/calculation
A
Theory section should extend, not repeat, the background to the article already dealt with in the Introduction and lay the foundation
for further work. In contrast, a Calculation section represents a practical development from a theoretical basis.
Results
Results
should be clear and concise.
Discussion
This should explore the significance of the results
of the work, not repeat them. A combined Results and Discussion section is often appropriate. Avoid extensive citations and discussion
of published literature.
Conclusions
The main conclusions of the study may be presented
in a short Conclusions section, which may stand alone or form a subsection of a Discussion or Results and Discussion section.
Appendices
If there is more than one appendix, they should be identified as A, B, etc. Formulae and equations
in appendices should be given separate numbering: Eq. (A.1), Eq. (A.2), etc.; in a subsequent appendix, Eq. (B.1) and so on. Similarly
for tables and figures: Table A.1; Fig. A.1, etc.
Essential title page information
•
Title.
Concise and informative. Titles are often used in information-retrieval systems. Avoid abbreviations and formulae
where possible. Where the title exceeds 70 characters, a suggestion for an abbreviated running title should be given.
•
Author
names and affiliations.
Where the family name may be ambiguous (e.g., a double name), please indicate this clearly. Present
the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names. Indicate all affiliations with a lower-case superscript
letter immediately after the author's name and in front of the appropriate address. Provide the full postal address of each affiliation,
including the country name, and, if available, the e-mail address of each author.
•
Corresponding author.
Clearly
indicate who will handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also post-publication.
Ensure that telephone
and fax numbers (with country and area code) are provided in addition to the e-mail address and the complete postal address.
•
Present/permanent address.
If an author has moved since the work described in the article was done, or was visiting at
the time, a "Present address" (or "Permanent address") may be indicated as a footnote to that author's name. The address at which the
author actually did the work must be retained as the main, affiliation address. Superscript Arabic numerals are used for such footnotes.
Abstract
A concise and factual abstract is required. The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the
research, the principal results and major conclusions. An abstract is often presented separately from the article, so it must be able
to stand alone. For this reason, References should be avoided, but if essential, then cite the author(s) and year(s). Also, non-standard
or uncommon abbreviations should be avoided, but if essential they must be defined at their first mention in the abstract itself.
Keywords
Immediately after the abstract, provide a maximum of 6 keywords, using American spelling and avoiding
general and plural terms and multiple concepts (avoid, for example, 'and', 'of'). Be sparing with abbreviations: only abbreviations firmly
established in the field may be eligible. These keywords will be used for indexing purposes.
Abbreviations
Define
abbreviations that are not standard in this field in a footnote to be placed on the first page of the article. Such abbreviations that
are unavoidable in the abstract must be defined at their first mention there, as well as in the footnote. Ensure consistency of abbreviations
throughout the article.
Acknowledgements
Collate acknowledgements in a separate section
at the end of the article before the references and do not, therefore, include them on the title page, as a footnote to the title or
otherwise. List here those individuals who provided help during the research (e.g., providing language help, writing assistance or proof
reading the article, etc.).
Units
Follow internationally accepted rules and conventions:
use the international system of units (SI). If other units are mentioned, please give their equivalent in SI.
The SI system should
be used for all scientific and laboratory data; if, in certain instances, it is necessary to quote other units, these should be added
in parentheses. Temperatures should be given in degrees Celsius. The unit billion (109 in America, 1012 in Europe) is ambiguous and should
not be used.
Abbreviations for units should follow the suggestions of the British Standards publication BS 1991. The full stop should
not be included in abbreviations, e.g. m (not m.), ppm (not p.p.m.), and should be used in preference to per cent and per. Where abbreviations
are likely to cause ambiguity or may not be readily understood by an international readership, units should be put in full. Current recognised
(IUPAC) chemical nomenclature should be used, although commonly accepted trivial names may be used where there is no risk of ambiguity.
Math formulae
Present simple formulae in the line of normal text where possible and use the solidus (/) instead
of a horizontal line for small fractional terms, e.g., X/Y. In principle, variables are to be presented in italics. Powers of e are often
more conveniently denoted by exp. Number consecutively any equations that have to be displayed separately from the text (if referred
to explicitly in the text).
Footnotes
Footnotes should be used sparingly. Number them consecutively
throughout the article, using superscript Arabic numbers. Many wordprocessors build footnotes into the text, and this feature may be
used. Should this not be the case, indicate the position of footnotes in the text and present the footnotes themselves separately at
the end of the article. Do not include footnotes in the Reference list.
Table footnotes
Indicate each footnote in a
table with a superscript lowercase letter.
Artwork
Electronic artwork
General
points
• Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of your original artwork.
• Save text in illustrations
as 'graphics' or enclose the font.
• Only use the following fonts in your illustrations: Arial, Courier, Times, Symbol.
•
Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text.
• Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files.
• Provide captions to illustrations separately.
• Produce images near to the desired size of the printed version.
•
Submit each figure as a separate file.
A detailed guide on electronic artwork is available on our website:
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions
You are urged to visit this site; some excerpts from the detailed information are given here.
Formats
Regardless
of the application used, when your electronic artwork is finalised, please 'save as' or convert the images to one of the following formats
(note the resolution requirements for line drawings, halftones, and line/halftone combinations given below):
EPS: Vector drawings.
Embed the font or save the text as 'graphics'.
TIFF: Color or grayscale photographs (halftones): always use a minimum of 300 dpi.
TIFF: Bitmapped line drawings: use a minimum of 1000 dpi.
TIFF: Combinations bitmapped line/half-tone (color or grayscale): a
minimum of 500 dpi is required.
If your electronic artwork is created in a Microsoft Office application (Word, PowerPoint, Excel)
then please supply 'as is'.
Please do not:
• Supply files that are optimised for screen use (e.g., GIF, BMP, PICT,
WPG); the resolution is too low;
• Supply files that are too low in resolution;
• Submit graphics that are disproportionately
large for the content.
Color artwork
Please make sure that artwork files are in an acceptable
format (TIFF, EPS or MS Office files) and with the correct resolution. If, together with your accepted article, you submit usable color
figures then Elsevier will ensure, at no additional charge, that these figures will appear in color on the Web (e.g., ScienceDirect and
other sites) regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in color in the printed version.
For color reproduction
in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Elsevier after receipt of your accepted article. Please indicate
your preference for color: in print or on the Web only. For further information on the preparation of electronic artwork, please see
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
Please note: Because of technical complications which can arise by converting
color figures to 'gray scale' (for the printed version should you not opt for color in print) please submit in addition usable black
and white versions of all the color illustrations.
Figure captions
Ensure that each illustration
has a caption. Supply captions separately, not attached to the figure. A caption should comprise a brief title (
not on the figure
itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations
used.
Tables
Number tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text.
Place footnotes to tables below the table body and indicate them with superscript lowercase letters. Avoid vertical rules. Be sparing
in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in tables do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article.
References
Citation in text
Please ensure that every reference cited in the
text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Any references cited in the abstract must be given in full. Unpublished
results and personal communications are not recommended in the reference list, but may be mentioned in the text. If these references
are included in the reference list they should follow the standard reference style of the journal and should include a substitution of
the publication date with either 'Unpublished results' or 'Personal communication'. Citation of a reference as 'in press' implies that
the item has been accepted for publication.
Web references
As a minimum, the full URL should
be given and the date when the reference was last accessed. Any further information, if known (DOI, author names, dates, reference to
a source publication, etc.), should also be given. Web references can be listed separately (e.g., after the reference list) under a different
heading if desired, or can be included in the reference list.
References in a special issue
Please
ensure that the words 'this issue' are added to any references in the list (and any citations in the text) to other articles in the same
Special Issue.
Reference management software
This journal has standard templates available
in key reference management packages EndNote (
http://www.endnote.com/support/enstyles.asp) and Reference Manager (
http://refman.com/support/rmstyles.asp).
Using plug-ins to wordprocessing packages, authors only need to select the appropriate journal template when preparing their article
and the list of references and citations to these will be formatted according to the journal style which is described below.
Reference style
All publications cited in the text should be presented in a list of references following the
text of the manuscript. In the text refer to references by a number in square brackets on the line (e.g. Since Coskun [1]), and the full
reference should be given in a numerical list at the end of the paper.
References should be given in the following form:
1.
Coskun M, Demirelli K. Thermal degradation of sulphonylated polystrene. Polym Degrad Stab 1996;51(2):173-178.
2. Andrade JD, editor.
Polymer surface dynamics. New York: Plenum Press, 1988.
3. Ratner BD, Yoon SC, Kaul A, Rahman R. In: Planck H, Syre I, Dauner M,
Egbers G, editors. Progress in biomedical engineering, Vol. 3: Polyurethanes in biomedical engineering II. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1987.
p. 213.
4. Tai D, Terazawa M, Chen CL, Kirk TK. Proceedings International Symposium Wood Pulping Chemistry 1983;4:144-149.
Journal abbreviations source
Journal names should be abbreviated according to
Index Medicus journal abbreviations:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/serials/lji.html;
List of title word abbreviations:
http://www.issn.org/2-22661-LTWA-online.php;
CAS (Chemical Abstracts Service):
http://www.cas.org/sent.html.
Video data
Elsevier
accepts video material and animation sequences to support and enhance your scientific research. Authors who have video or animation files
that they wish to submit with their article are strongly encouraged to include these within the body of the article. This can be done
in the same way as a figure or table by referring to the video or animation content and noting in the body text where it should be placed.
All submitted files should be properly labeled so that they directly relate to the video file's content. In order to ensure that your
video or animation material is directly usable, please provide the files in one of our recommended file formats with a preferred maximum
size of 50 MB. Video and animation files supplied will be published online in the electronic version of your article in Elsevier Web
products, including ScienceDirect:
http://www.sciencedirect.com. Please supply 'stills' with your files: you can choose
any frame from the video or animation or make a separate image. These will be used instead of standard icons and will personalize the
link to your video data. For more detailed instructions please visit our video instruction pages at
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
Note: since video and animation cannot be embedded in the print version of the journal, please provide text for both the electronic and
the print version for the portions of the article that refer to this content.
Supplementary data
Elsevier
accepts electronic supplementary material to support and enhance your scientific research. Supplementary files offer the author additional
possibilities to publish supporting applications, high-resolution images, background datasets, sound clips and more. Supplementary files
supplied will be published online alongside the electronic version of your article in Elsevier Web products, including ScienceDirect:
http://www.sciencedirect.com. In order to ensure that your submitted material is directly usable, please provide the data
in one of our recommended file formats. Authors should submit the material in electronic format together with the article and supply
a concise and descriptive caption for each file. For more detailed instructions please visit our artwork instruction pages at
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
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 Guide 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
• Telephone and fax numbers
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 Web)
• Color figures are clearly marked as being intended for color
reproduction on the Web (free of charge) and in print, or to be reproduced in color on the Web (free of charge) and in black-and-white
in print
• If only color on the Web is required, black-and-white versions of the figures are also supplied for printing purposes
For any further information please visit our customer support site at
http://support.elsevier.com.
Use of the Digital
Object Identifier
The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) may be used to cite and link to electronic documents. The DOI consists
of a unique alpha-numeric character string which is assigned to a document by the publisher upon the initial electronic publication.
The assigned DOI never changes. Therefore, it is an ideal medium for citing a document, particularly 'Articles in press' because they
have not yet received their full bibliographic information. The correct format for citing a DOI is shown as follows (example taken from
a document in the journal
Physics Letters B):
doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2010.09.059
When you use the DOI to create URL
hyperlinks to documents on the web, the DOIs are guaranteed never to change.
Proofs
One
set of page proofs (as PDF files) will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author (if we do not have an e-mail address then paper
proofs will be sent by post) or, a link will be provided in the e-mail so that authors can download the files themselves. Elsevier now
provides authors with PDF proofs which can be annotated; for this you will need to download Adobe Reader version 7 (or higher) available
free from
http://get.adobe.com/reader. Instructions on how to annotate PDF files will accompany the proofs (also given online).
The exact system requirements are given at the Adobe site:
http://www.adobe.com/products/reader/tech-specs.html.
If
you do not wish to use the PDF annotations function, you may list the corrections (including replies to the Query Form) and return them
to Elsevier in an e-mail. Please list your corrections quoting line number. If, for any reason, this is not possible, then mark the corrections
and any other comments (including replies to the Query Form) on a printout of your proof and return by fax, or scan the pages and e-mail,
or by post. Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text, tables and figures.
Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the Editor.
We will do everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately – please let us have all your corrections within
48 hours. It is important to ensure that all corrections are sent back to us in one communication: please check carefully before replying,
as inclusion of any subsequent corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility. Note that Elsevier may proceed
with the publication of your article if no response is received.
Offprints
The corresponding
author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article via e-mail. For an extra charge, paper offprints can be ordered via
the offprint order form which is sent once the article is accepted for publication. The PDF file is a watermarked version of the published
article and includes a cover sheet with the journal cover image and a disclaimer outlining the terms and conditions of use.
For inquiries relating to the submission of articles (including electronic submission) please
visit this journal's homepage. Contact details for questions arising after acceptance of an article, especially those relating to proofs,
will be provided by the publisher. You can track accepted articles at
http://www.elsevier.com/trackarticle. You can also
check our Author FAQs (
http://www.elsevier.com/authorFAQ) and/or contact Customer Support via
http://support.elsevier.com.
