Guide for Authors
Official journal of the
Controlled Release Society, and of the Japan Society of Drug Delivery System
SCOPE OF THE JOURNAL
The journal publishes papers innovative, original research involving the controlled
release and delivery of drugs and other biologically active agents. The terms "controlled release" and "delivery"
are used in their broadest sense to include mechanisms such as diffusion, chemical and enzymatic reactions, dissolution, osmosis, targeting,
as well as the utilization and manipulation of biological processes. A broad spectrum of studies dealing with all aspects of controlled
release and delivery, including gene delivery, tissue engineering and diagnostic agents, is encouraged. The use of prodrugs and carriers
such as water-soluble polymers, micro and nanoparticles, liposomes and micelles is included in the scope.
Papers that provide no
new concepts or mechanistic insights will not be considered. The Letter of Submission should explain in one paragraph the originality
and significance of the submitted work. The manuscript will not be processed without this information.
It is recommended that all
articles do not exceed a total of 14 single-spaced, font size 12, typewritten pages, including references, tables, figure legends and
figures. Review articles are allowed up to 28 pages. Please note that figures and tables should be embedded in the text as close as possible
to where they are initially cited. It is also mandatory to upload separate graphic and table files as these will be required if your
manuscript is accepted for publication.
Contact details for submission
Persons
considering submitting a 'Review' article are encouraged to send an outline and a CV to the Review Editor.
Review Editor
Prof. V.P. Torchilin, School of Pharmacy, Bouve College of Health Sciences, Northeastern University, Mugar Building, Room 312,
360 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA 02115, USA; e-mail:
v.torchilin@neu.edu
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 in the same form, in English or in any other language, without
the written consent of the copyright-holder.
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 paper 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.
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://www.elsevier.com/languagepolishing or our customer support site at
http://epsupport.elsevier.com
for more information. Please note Elsevier neither endorses nor takes responsibility for any products, goods or services offered by outside
vendors through our services or in any advertising. For more information please refer to our Terms & Conditions:
http://www.elsevier.com/termsandconditions.
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.
Additional information
The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if
the authors have used the work and/or words of others, this has been appropriately cited or quoted. An author should not in general publish
manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal of primary publication. Plagiarism in all its forms as
well as submission of the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and are unacceptable.
Thus, the Letter of Submission should explain in one paragraph the originality and significance of the submitted work. The manuscript
will not be processed without this information.
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).
See also the section on Electronic illustrations.
To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the "spell-check" and
"grammar-check" functions of your wordprocessor.
Article structure
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.
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.
Essential title page information
•
Title.
Concise and informative. Titles are often used in information-retrieval
systems. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible.
•
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.
Graphical abstract
Authors must supply a graphical abstract at the time the paper is submitted. The abstract
should summarize the contents of the paper in a concise, pictorial form designed to capture the attention of a wide readership and for
compilation of databases. The graphical abstract is posted online only. Carefully drawn figures that serve to illustrate the theme of
the paper are desired. Authors may also provide appropriate text, not exceeding 30 words. The content of the graphical abstract will
be typeset and should be kept within an area of 5 cm by 17 cm (189 x 642 pixels), images should have a minimum resolution of 300 dpi
and line art should be between 1000dpi and 1200dpi. Authors must supply the graphic separately as an electronic file. For examples of
graphical abstracts, please visit the home page of
Journal of Controlled Release at
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01683659.
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.).
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.
DOC, XLS or PPT: If your electronic artwork is created in any of these Microsoft Office applications
please supply "as is".
Please do not:
• Supply files that are optimised for screen use (like 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. 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 style
Text: Indicate references by number(s) in square brackets in line with the text. The actual
authors can be referred to, but the reference number(s) must always be given.
Example: "..... as demonstrated [3,6]. Barnaby and
Jones [8] obtained a different result ...."
List: Number the references (numbers in square brackets) in the list in the
order in which they appear in the text.
Examples:
Reference to a journal publication:
[1] J. van der Geer, J.A.J.
Hanraads, R.A. Lupton, The art of writing a scientific article, J. Sci. Commun. 163 (2000) 51-59.
Reference to a book:
[2] W.
Strunk Jr., E.B. White, The Elements of Style, third ed., Macmillan, New York, 1979.
Reference to a chapter in an edited book:
[3]
G.R. Mettam, L.B. Adams, How to prepare an electronic version of your article, in: B.S. Jones, R.Z. Smith (Eds.), Introduction to the
Electronic Age, E-Publishing Inc., New York, 1999, pp. 281-304.
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 serial title word abbreviations:
http://www.issn.org/2-22661-LTWA-online.php;
CAS (Chemical Abstracts Service):
http://www.cas.org/sent.html.
Supplementary material
Elsevier
accepts electronic supplementary material to support and enhance your scientific research. Supplementary files offer the author additional
possibilities to publish supporting applications, movies, animation sequences, 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 ensure that data are provided 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. Video files: please supply 'stills' with your files:
you can choose any frame from the video or make a separate image. These will be used instead of standard icons and will personalize the
link to your supplementary information. For more detailed instructions please visit our artwork instruction pages at
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
Submission checklist
It is hoped that this list will be useful during the final checking of an article
prior to sending it to the journal's Editor for review. Please consult this Guide for Authors for further details of any item.
Ensure
that the following items are present:
One Author designated as corresponding Author:
• E-mail address
• Full
postal address
• Telephone and fax numbers
All necessary files have been uploaded
• Keywords
• All figure
captions
• All tables (including title, description, footnotes)
Further considerations
• Manuscript has been "spellchecked"
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://epsupport.elsevier.com.
Additional
information
Sources of commercial products need not be listed unless unique. Published methods need not be restated but must
be referenced. Where the reference is to papers under review or in press, copies should be provided to the Editor to facilitate review.
Full chemical names of drugs/polymers/exipients, etc. should be given. Trade names should not be used. Appropriate statistical analysis
of data should be provided
The Declaration of Helsinki as amended in Seoul
2008 for humans, and the European Community guidelines as accepted principles for the use of experimental animals, must be adhered to.
Therefore, the Journal of Controlled Release will only consider manuscripts that describe experiments that have been carried out under
approval of an institutional or local ethics committee. Authors must state in the manuscript that the protocol complies with the particular
recommendation and that approval of their protocols was obtained.
Full chemical names of drugs/polymers/exipients, etc. should be
given. Trade names should not be used. Appropriate statistical analysis of data should be provided.
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.2003.10.071
When you use the DOI to create URL hyperlinks to documents on the web, they 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://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html.
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/acrobat/acrrsystemreqs.html#70win.
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. Therefore, it is important to ensure that all of your 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.
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. Additional paper offprints can be ordered by the authors. An order form with prices will be
sent to the corresponding author.
For inquiries relating
to the submission of articles (including electronic submission where available) please visit this journal's homepage. You can track accepted
articles at
http://www.elsevier.com/trackarticle and set up e-mail alerts to inform you of when an article's status has
changed. Also accessible from here is information on copyright, frequently asked questions and more. Contact details for questions arising
after acceptance of an article, especially those relating to proofs, will be provided by the publisher.
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