Guide for Authors
Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, the Official Journal of the
International
Society for Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, matches reports in toxicology, pharmacology, epidemiology, and allied
sciences, with reports on philosophical, legislative, legal, and public opinion issues that define public health, safety, and environmental
regulations. International in scope, the journal speaks at all levels of science and policy to the community of research and development
scientists, to business and legal decision makers, and to regulatory officials and legislative operators worldwide.
Types of paper
Ethical Treatment of Subjects. Submission of a manuscript implies that the authors
warrant to have complied with institutional policies governing the ethical treatment of human subjects and animals, and that the authors
are ready to share the original approval documents if so requested.
Peer Review. Submitted manuscripts not rejected at first
screen will undergo a peer review process that occasionally could require substantial revision and may last several months, depending
on the timeliness of author response.
Letters. A brief one-printed-page observation may be published under a "Letters" heading
with the understanding that only one reply will be published in a rebuttal. A manuscript intended for publication in Letters or a rebuttal
should be so designated when submitted for publication.
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.
Conflict of Interest Statement. In compliance with the National Library of Medicine policy,
Regulatory
Toxicology and Pharmacology requires full disclosure of all potential conflicts of interest. At the end of the manuscript text (and
in the cover letter of the manuscript), under a subheading "Conflict of Interest statement", all authors must disclose any financial
and personal relationships with other people or organisations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. Affiliation of
authors submitting manuscripts in their role as members of industrial or government organizations may constitute sufficient disclosure.
Academic, nonprofit, consulting, advocacy, and all other authors are asked to disclose all sources of financial and material support
for the studies and manuscripts submitted. If there are no conflicts of interest, the authors should state, "The authors declare that
there are no conflicts of interest." Signed copies of the
Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology Conflict of Interest policy
form are required upon submission. The Conflict of Interest policy form can be downloaded here:
http://www.elsevier.com/framework_products/promis_misc/COI_YRTPH.doc.
In order to minimize delays, we strongly advise that the signed copies of these statements are prepared before you submit your manuscript.
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.
Written
authorization by personal sources may be required at the Editor's discretion. Articles and any other material published in
Regulatory
Toxicology and Pharmacology represent the opinions of the authors, unless directly endorsed or authorized, should not be construed
to reflect the opinions of the International Society of Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, the Editors, or the Publisher. Original
papers only will be considered.
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.
US National Institutes of Health (NIH) voluntary posting (" Public Access") policy. Elsevier facilitates
author response to the NIH voluntary posting request (referred to as the NIH "Public Access Policy"; see
http://www.nih.gov/about/publicaccess/index.htm)
by posting the peer-reviewed author's manuscript directly to PubMed Central on request from the author, 12 months after formal publication.
Upon notification from Elsevier of acceptance, we will ask you to confirm via e-mail (by e-mailing us at
NIHauthorrequest@elsevier.com
) that your work has received NIH funding and that you intend to respond to the NIH policy request, along with your NIH award number
to facilitate processing. Upon such confirmation, Elsevier will submit to PubMed Central on your behalf a version of your manuscript
that will include peer-review comments, for posting 12 months after formal publication. This will ensure that you will have responded
fully to the NIH request policy. There will be no need for you to post your manuscript directly with PubMed Central, and any such posting
is prohibited.
Sponsored Articles
Regulator Toxicology and Pharmacology
offers authors the option to sponsor non-subscriber access to their articles on Elsevier's electronic publishing platforms. For more
information please view our Sponsored Articles page (
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authorsview.authors/sponsoredarticles).
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/languageediting or our customer support site at
http://epsupport.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.
Contact information:
Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology
Editorial Office
525 B Street, Suite 1900
San Diego, CA 92101-4495, USA
Telephone: (619) 699-6275
Fax: (619) 699-6211
E-mail:
rtp@elsevier.com
Referees
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. 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).
Do not import the figures into the text file but, instead, indicate their approximate locations directly in the electronic text and on
the manuscript. 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
Preparation of Manuscript. Authors of scientific reports should make a point to validate whether the data measure what
they claim to have measured or whether they could be distorted by adventitious interferences. Authors should also provide evidence that
test and control conditions differ only on account of the experimental variables tested, or are not affected by spurious confounding
conditions. Conclusions should focus on the most probable explanation of results, but should also endeavor to point out other less apparent
but plausible conclusions. Submissions that are not scientific experimental reports, such as policy positions and reviews, should strive
for range, logical sequence, clarity, and well-articulated conclusions.
The popularity of
Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology makes it necessary to severely limit authors' discussions and data presentations in their manuscripts. Because the scope of environmental
toxicology and pharmacology is so great, it is not possible to devote many pages to a single issue.
Use generic names of chemicals
whenever possible. Proprietary names and trademarks should appear only to identify the source of the chemical, and subsequently only
the generic name should be used. All abbreviations, other than those for standard units, should be defined in text or in a footnote.
Abbreviations should be unpunctuated.
Manuscripts should be double-spaced throughout. Pages should be numbered consecutively and
organized as follows:
The title page (p. 1) should contain the article title, authors' names and complete affiliations, footnotes
to the title, and the address for manuscript correspondence (including e-mail address and telephone and fax numbers). Separate word counts
should be provided for abstract, text, and references. A second page containing only the title of the paper should be submitted if the
authors wish to obtain a blind peer review.
The abstract (p. 2) must be a single paragraph that summarizes the main findings of the
paper in less than 200 words. After the abstract a list of up to 10 keywords that will be useful for indexing or searching should be
included.
Format. Flexibility of format is allowed, given the mix of multidisciplinary scientific reports and of policy and review
articles of interest to the journal. Clarity and brevity will be preferred.
Subdivision
- numbered sections
Divide your article into clearly defined and numbered sections. Subsections should be numbered 1.1 (then
1.1.1, 1.1.2, ...), 1.2, etc. (the abstract is not included in section numbering). Use this numbering also for internal cross-referencing:
do not just refer to "the text". Any subsection may be given a brief heading. Each heading should appear on its own separate line.
Introduction
State the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed
literature survey or a summary of the results.
Material and methods
Provide
sufficient detail to allow the work to be reproduced. Methods already published should be indicated by a reference: only relevant modifications
should be described.
Theory/calculation
A Theory section should extend,
not repeat, the background to the article already dealt with in the Introduction and lay the foundation for further work. In contrast,
a Calculation section represents a practical development from a theoretical basis.
Results
Results should be clear and concise.
Discussion
This should explore
the significance of the results of the work, not repeat them. A combined Results and Discussion section is often appropriate. Avoid extensive
citations and discussion of published literature.
Conclusions
The
main conclusions of the study may be presented in a short Conclusions section, which may stand alone or form a subsection of a Discussion
or Results and Discussion section.
Appendices
If there is more than
one appendix, they should be identified as A, B, etc. Formulae and equations in appendices should be given separate numbering: Eq. (A.1),
Eq. (A.2), etc.; in a subsequent appendix, Eq. (B.1) and so on.
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.
The abstract should be fewer than 200 words.
Keywords
Provide
up to 10 keywords.
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.).
Footnotes
Footnotes should be used sparingly. Number them consecutively throughout the article, using superscript
Arabic numbers. Many wordprocessors build footnotes into the text, and this feature may be used. Should this not be the case, indicate
the position of footnotes in the text and present the footnotes themselves separately at the end of the article. Do not include footnotes
in the Reference list.
Table footnotes
Indicate each footnote in a table with a superscript lowercase letter.
Artwork
Electronic artwork
General points
• Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of your original artwork.
• Save text in illustrations as "graphics"
or enclose the font.
• Only use the following fonts in your illustrations: Arial, Courier, Times, Symbol.
• Number
the illustrations according to their sequence in the text.
• Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files.
•
Provide captions to illustrations separately.
• Produce images near to the desired size of the printed version.
• Submit
each figure as a separate file.
A detailed guide on electronic artwork is available on our website:
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions
You are urged to visit this site; some excerpts from the detailed information are given here.
Formats
Regardless
of the application used, when your electronic artwork is finalised, please "save as" or convert the images to one of the following formats
(note the resolution requirements for line drawings, halftones, and line/halftone combinations given below):
EPS: Vector drawings.
Embed the font or save the text as "graphics".
TIFF: color or grayscale photographs (halftones): always use a minimum of 300 dpi.
TIFF: Bitmapped line drawings: use a minimum of 1000 dpi.
TIFF: Combinations bitmapped line/half-tone (color or grayscale): a
minimum of 500 dpi is required.
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 embedded graphics in your wordprocessor (spreadsheet, presentation)
document;
• 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
References should be cited in the text by the first author's surname followed by et al. If only two authors
are listed, both names should be cited. References should be listed alphabetically by name. Journal names should follow the style of
the latest edition of the Chemical Abstracts Service Source Index. Only articles that have been published or are in press should be included
in the references. Unpublished results or personal communications should be cited as such in the text.
Gerrity, T.R., Henry, C.J.,
1990. Principles of Route-to-Route Extrapolation for Risk Assessment. Elsevier, New York.
LaPuma, P.T., Brain S. Rhodes, B.S., 2002.
Chromate content versus particle size for aircraft paints. Regul. Toxicol. Pharmacol. 36, 318-324.
Mettam, O.R., Adams, L.B., 1999.
How to prepare an electronic version of your article, in: Jones, B.B., Smith, R.Z. (Eds.), Introduction to the Electronic Age. E-Publishing
Inc., New York, pp. 281-304.
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) and Reference Manager (
http://www.refman.com). 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, 1996a, 1996b, 1999; Allan and Jones, 1995). Kramer et al. (2000) 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., 2000. The art of writing a scientific article.
J. Sci. Commun. 163, 51-59.
Reference to a book:
Strunk Jr., W., White, E.B., 1979. The Elements of Style, third ed. Macmillan,
New York.
Reference to a chapter in an edited book:
Mettam, G.R., Adams, L.B., 1999. 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
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
and multimedia data
Elsevier accepts electronic supplementary and multimedia data 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. 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
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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