Guide for Authors
An international journal dedicated to the applications of medicine and science in the administration of justice.
Forensic Science International is a peer-reviewed, international journal for
the publication of original contributions in the many different scientific disciplines comprising the forensic sciences. These fields
include, but are not limited to, forensic pathology and histochemistry, toxicology (including drugs, alcohol, etc.), serology, chemistry,
biochemistry, biology (including the identification of hairs and fibres), odontology, psychiatry, anthropology, the physical sciences,
firearms, and document examination, as well as the many other disciplines where science and medicine interact with the law.
Types of paper
1. Original Research Papers (Regular Papers)
2. Review Articles
3. Forensic Anthropology
Population Data
3. Preliminary Communications
4. Letters to the Editor
5. Case Reports
6. Book Reviews
7. Rapid
Communications
Please note that all contributions of type 4 to 7 will be published as e-only articles. Their citation details, including
e-page numbers, will continue to be listed in the relevant print issue of the journal's Table of Contents.
Announcement of Population
Data: these types of articles will be published in Forensic Science International: Genetics, only. Please submit these articles via
http://www.ees.elsevier.com/fsigen/.
Review Articles and Preliminary Communications (where brief accounts of
important new work may be announced with less delay than is inevitable with major papers) may be accepted after correspondence with the
appropriate Associate Editor.
Forensic Anthropology Population Data: Although the main focus of the anthropology section
of the journal remains on the publication of original research, authors are invited to submit their forensic anthropology population
data articles by selecting the "Forensic Anthropology Population Data" article type on the online submission system. When submitting
a Forensic Anthropology Population data article, please assure that "Forensic Anthropology Population Data" is included as
one of the keywords. These forensic anthropology population data articles involve the application of already published and standardised
methods of aging, sexing, determination of ancestry and stature and other well known diagnoses on different populations. This is at the
heart of applied forensic anthropology. For example, in order to correctly assess age, stature or even sex of individuals of different
ancestry or from different populations, it is fundamental that the method be tested on the specific population one is working on. In
building the biological profile of a skeleton in order to aid identification, one needs to calibrate such techniques on the population
of interest before applying them. The same may be true in a completely different scenario of anthropology, for example identifying criminals
taped on video surveillance systems and aging victims of juvenile pornography. This section is dedicated to forensic anthropological
population data and other types of updates (state of the art of particular issues, etc.), particularly concerning the following:
-
Sexing
- Aging sub adult skeletal remains
- Aging adult skeletal remains
- Aging living sub adults and adults
- Determining
ancestry
- Stature estimation
- Facial reconstruction
- Non metric trait distribution, pathology and trauma
- Positive
identification of human skeletal remains
- Positive identification of the living
Forensic Anthropology Population Data articles
will be published in abridged form in print (a clear, descriptive summary taken from the abstract), and the full length article will
be published online only. Full citation details and a reference to the online article, including e-page numbers, will be published in
the relevant print issue of the journal. All submitted manuscripts will be evaluated by a strict peer review process.
Case Reports
will be accepted only if they contain some important new information for the readers.
Rapid Communications should describe
work of significant interest, whose impact would suffer if publication were not expedited. They should not be longer than 5 printed journal
pages (about 10 submitted pages). Authors may suggest that their work is treated as a Rapid Communication, but the final decision on
whether it is suitable as such will be taken by the handling Associate Editor. Rapid Communications requiring rev
Revisions deadline
Please note that articles that are sent to the author for revision need to be returned
within four months. A reminder will be sent in the third month. Any articles that are sent after the fourth month period of revision
will be considered a re-submission.
Contact details for submission
Papers
for consideration should be submitted by topic. Editors and their topic specialty are listed below.
P. Saukko (Editor-in-Chief):
Experimental Forensic Pathology, Traffic Medicine, and subjects not listed elsewhere
Tel: +358 2 3337543
Fax: +358 2 3337600
E-mail:
psaukko@utu.fi
A. Carracedo: Forensic Genetics. Please note only review articles on this topic
should be submitted to FSI. All non-review papers should be submitted to the FSI daughter journal devoted to this subject Forensic Science
International: Genetics, via
http://ees.elsevier.com/fsigen/
Fax:+34 981 580336
E-mail:
carrafsi@usc.es
C. Cattaneo: Osteology and Anthropology
Tel: +39 2 5031 5678
Fax: +39 2 5031 5724
E-mail:
cristina.cattaneo@unimi.it
P. Margot: Questioned Documents and Physical Science: ballistics, tool marks, contact traces, drugs analysis, fingerprints and
identification, etc.
Tel: +41 21 692 4605
Fax: +41 21 692 4605
E-mail:
pierre.margot@unil.ch
O.H. Drummer:
Toxicology
Tel: +61 3 9684 4334
Fax: +61 3 9682 7353
E-mail:
olaf@vifm.org
G. Willems: Odontology
Tel: +32 16 33 24 59
Fax: +32 16 33 24 35
E-Mail:
guy.willems@med.kuleuven.ac.be
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.
Additional information
Multiple
submissions is not acceptable to the Editor, and any such papers, together with future submissions from the authors, will be rejected
outright. Submission also implies that all authors have approved the paper for release and are in agreement with its content.
Contributors
Each author is required to declare his or her individual contribution to the article: all authors
must have materially participated in the research and/or article preparation, so roles for all authors should be described. The statement
that all authors have approved the final article should be true and included in the disclosure.
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.
Submit your article
Please submit your article via
http://ees.elsevier.com/fsi.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 or, alternatively, 25 free paper offprints. 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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