Guide for Authors
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carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere including electronically in the same form, in English or in any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.
When you submit a paper, please select any of the Receiving Editors covering the subject area of your article. The Editors'
subject areas can be found at the site listing the journal's
Editorial
Board Editorial Board.
Please go to the submission page on the journal homepage
http://ees.elsevier.com/newast
to submit your paper.
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. Do not embed "graphically designed" equations or tables, but prepare these using the wordprocessor's facility. 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.
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 or from the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network (CTAN): see below, in the directory
/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/elsarticle. It consists of the files: elsarticle.cls, complete user documentation for the class file,
bibliographic style files in various styles, and template files for a quick start.guidelines for users of elsart, a template file for
quick start.
CTAN is an archive with up-to-date copies of all the public-domain versions of TeX, LaTeX, Metafont and ancillary programs,
which is made available via a mirrored network of FTP servers. You can enter the CTAN archive via a web interface in the UK (
http://www.tex.ac.uk),
in the USA
http://www.ctan.org), or in Germany (
http://www.dante.de/software/ctan) (page in German). You can
search for a package on CTAN via
http://www.ucc.ie/cgi-bin/ctan/. You can also enter the archive via FTP at
ftp://ftp.tex.ac.uk,
at
ftp://ftp.dante.de, at
ftp://ctan.tug.org, or at one of the many mirror servers; see for a list the UK or
USA CTAN web pages. When a CTAN server does not respond, please try another one.
Note that CTAN is not related to Elsevier, and that
Elsevier's Customer support cannot accept complaints or answer questions about the availability of any CTAN server.
Figures may be
inserted in the usual way using an \includegraphics command, at the position in the article where they are cited.
Your LaTeX file
will be most useful as input for the printed article if you obey the following rules of thumb:
1. Be consistent. If you use a macro
for a phrase, use it throughout.
2. Use standard LaTeX mark-up. Do not hardcode your own layout for e.g. section headings, but use
the usual LaTeX macro for this purpose.
3. Keep it simple. Do not define macros that accomplish complicated layout. They will also
make the input process complicated.
Article structure
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.
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.
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.
Keywords
To enable the readers to find your paper by means of a keyword and classifications search, and thus
to increase its visibility and chances of being cited, immediately after the Abstract insert 1-4 Keywords describing the research of
your paper, separated by semicolons, e.g., Gravitation; Relativity;
The Keywords are to be chosen preferably from the ApJ Subject Headings
at
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/ApJ/instruct.key.html .
Astronomical Objects
Elsevier
will provide hypertext links to CDS (Simbad) for every astronomical object mentioned in the text. We would be grateful if you mark the
objects in the Latex file of the final version, by using the LaTeX command \astrobj{...}. For instance, if NGC 255 is mentioned in the
text, replace this by \astrobj{NGC 255}. Insert the following LaTeX definition for the astronomical object command together with the
other LaTeX definitions (at the beginning of the manuscript): \def\astrobj#1{#1}.
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.
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.
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.
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:
All citations in the text should refer to:
1.
Single author: the author's name (without initials, unless there is ambiguity)
and the year of publication;
2.
Two authors: both authors' names and the year of publication;
3.
Three or more authors:
first author's name followed by 'et al.' and the year of publication.
Citations may be made directly (or parenthetically). Groups
of references should be listed first alphabetically, then chronologically.
Examples: 'as demonstrated (Allan, 2000a, 2000b, 1999;
Allan and Jones, 1999). Kramer et al. (2010) have recently shown ....'
List: References should be arranged first alphabetically
and then further sorted chronologically if necessary. More than one reference from the same author(s) in the same year must be identified
by the letters 'a', 'b', 'c', etc., placed after the year of publication.
Examples:
Reference to a journal publication:
Van der Geer, J., Hanraads, J.A.J., Lupton, R.A., 2010. The art of writing a scientific article. J. Sci. Commun. 163, 51–59.
Reference to a book:
Strunk Jr., W., White, E.B., 2000. The Elements of Style, fourth ed. Longman, New York.
Reference to
a chapter in an edited book:
Mettam, G.R., Adams, L.B., 2009. How to prepare an electronic version of your article, in: Jones, B.S.,
Smith , R.Z. (Eds.), Introduction to the Electronic Age. E-Publishing Inc., New York, pp. 281–304.
Journal
Abbreviations Source
Journal names should be abbreviated according to the simplified abbreviations used in astronomy journals
(e.g. ApJ, AJ, MNRAS, A&A, PASP, PASJ). Refer to New Astronomy as NewA.
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.
Author Benefits
No Page Charges
Publishing in New Astronomy is free.
Fast Online Publication
Accepted articles will be published online in their untypeset version within five
days after acceptance. These articles can be cited by doi
Discount
Contributors to Elsevier
journals are entitled to a 30% discount on all Elsevier books. Please find relevant information via this link:
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authorsview.authors/authordiscount.
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.
