Guide for Authors
Types
of paper
Papers in all areas of chemical physics are welcomed, but referees will be asked to judge whether experimental
papers have been brought into sufficient relation with theory, and whether theoretical papers bear on experimental verification or exhibit
progress in experimental developments to this Submission.
In addition to regular articles, the journal publishes
ChemPhys Perspectives.
ChemPhys Perspectives are invited papers written by leading experts. However, interested authors can approach the Editors and
request to submit a
ChemPhys Perspective. A
ChemPhys Perspective deals with topics of high current interest related
to physical phenomena in chemistry, biology and materials science.
Authors are not required to provide a detailed review of the
literature but should highlight the state of the art and the current pending scientific questions in a specific field of research. It
is important to stress the potential for growth in the area as well as the horizons that open up. As a guideline, a
ChemPhys Perspective
article may be up to three times the length of a regular article, which corresponds to about 25000 words.
Page
charges
There are no page charges for this journal.
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 and verification
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carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, including
electronically without the written consent of the copyright-holder. To verify originality, your article may be checked by the originality
detection software iThenticate. See also
http://www.elsevier.com/editors/plagdetect.
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.
For submission for all types of manuscripts to Chemical Physics please go to our our Elsevier Editorial System (EES) Website at:
http://ees.elsevier.com/chemphys/ .
Refereeing
All contributions submitted
will be refereed at the discretion of the editors. The editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts and to edit contributions when
necessary. Submitted manuscripts will be evaluated for completeness, English language quality and bibliographic content and may be returned
to the authors immediately for deficiencies in any of these areas.
Please submit, with the manuscript, the names, addresses and e-mail
addresses of 3 potential referees. Note that the editor retains the sole right to decide whether or not the suggested reviewers are used.
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.
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. Contact details must be kept up to date by the corresponding
author.
•
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
A Graphical abstract is mandatory for this journal.
It should summarize the contents of the article in a concise, pictorial form designed to capture the attention of a wide readership online.
Authors must provide images that clearly represent the work described in the article. Graphical abstracts should be submitted as a separate
file in the online submission system. Image size: please provide an image with a minimum of 531 × 1328 pixels (h × w) or
proportionally more. The image should be readable at a size of 5 × 13 cm using a regular screen resolution of 96 dpi. Preferred
file types: TIFF, EPS, PDF or MS Office files. See
http://www.elsevier.com/graphicalabstracts for examples.
Authors
can make use of Elsevier's Illustration and Enhancement service to ensure the best presentation of their images also in accordance with
all technical requirements:
Illustration
Service.
Highlights
Highlights are mandatory for this journal. They consist
of a short collection of bullet points that convey the core findings of the article and should be submitted in a separate file in the
online submission system. Please use 'Highlights' in the file name and include 3 to 5 bullet points (maximum 85 characters, including
spaces, per bullet point). See
http://www.elsevier.com/highlights for examples.
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.).
Nomenclature and units
Follow
internationally accepted rules and conventions: use the international system of units (SI). If other quantities are mentioned, give their
equivalent in SI. You are urged to consult IUPAP: Symbols, Units, Nomenclature and Fundamental Constants in Physics:
http://www.iupap.org/
for further information.
Math Formulae
Displayed formulae should be numbered. Symbols requiring
different type, like vectors, tensors, etc., should be identified properly. Special attention should be paid to characters that can easily
be misread, such as i (lower case), I (cap), l (el), 1 (one), ' (prime), o (lower case), O (cap.), 0 (zero), degree, u, v, (vee), Greek
nu, V (cap), x, multiplication sign, X, z, Z, p, P, Greek rho, 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.
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.
Text graphics
Text
graphics may be embedded in the text at the appropriate position. Further, high-resolution graphics files must be provided separately
whether or not the graphics are embedded. See further under Electronic artwork.
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
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, J. Sci. Commun. 163 (2000) 51.
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, in: B.S. Jones, R.Z. Smith (Eds.), Introduction to the Electronic Age, E-Publishing,
Inc. New York, 1994, p. 281.
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.
