Editorial Policy Environmental Science & Technology reports on aspects of the environment and its control by scientific, engineering, and political means. Contributed materials may appear as feature articles, critical reviews, current research papers, research notes, and correspondence. Central to the evalu ation of all contributions is a commitment to provide the readers of ES&T with scientific information and critical judgments of the highest quality. For the convenience of authors, the specific nature of each type of contribution is outlined below. Feature articles. A manuscript submitted for publication as a feature article should present useful discussion and opinion on important research directions in environmental science, developing technology, environmental processes, and social, political, or economic aspects of environmental issues. Each manuscript undergoes review by qualified peers as well as by the editors for the purpose of balance and elimination of inappropriate bias. Review criteria include significance of the scientific issue or process described, quality and succinctness of the text, and identification of potential research needs. Strict requirements for docu mentation of results, completeness of data, and originality, such as those applicable to research manuscripts, are not included in the review criteria for feature articles. Critical reviews. Critical reviews are thoroughly docu mented, peer-reviewed assessments of selected areas of the environmental science research literature for the purpose of identifying critical research needs. Criteria for accept ability include current importance of the field under review, thoroughness of the literature coverage, clarity of text, and adequacy of research need identification.
Current research papers. The research pages of ES& Τ are devoted to the publication of critically reviewed papers concerned with the fields of water, air, and waste chemistry, and with other scientific and technical fields which are relevant to the understanding and management of the water, air, and land environments. Contributed research papers will, in general, describe complete and fully inter preted results of original research. All research articles emphasizing analytical methodology for air or water analysis must include substantial application to environmental samples. ES& Τ faces some overlap with other journals in this area, and articles that do not contain, in the editors' judgment, a significant emphasis on envi ronmental analysis will be returned to the authors for sub mission elsewhere. Manuscripts should be prepared with strict attention to brevity. The vast majority of articles are expected to be fewer than four published pages. Processing time will be shortened if the editors do not have to return manuscripts to be condensed. Notes and correspondence, as well as full-length papers, will be published in the research section. Notes are shorter research reports describing preliminary results of unusual significance or studies of small scope. Authors of Notes should be able to justify why it is not desirable to wait for a more complete report to be published as a full-length paper. Correspondence is a significant comment on work published in the research section of ES&T. Comments should be received within six months of date of publication of the original article. The authors of the original article ordinarily will be allowed to reply.
Send manuscripts to Environmental Science & Technology, 1155 16th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036. Address feature manuscripts to Managing Editor; research manuscripts to Manager, Manuscript Reviewing Office; include a signed copyright transfer form, a copy of which appears on the inside back cover of this issue.
Current Research Author's Guide This manuscript preparation guide is published to aid au thors in writing, and editors and reviewers in expediting the review and publication of research manuscripts in Environ mental Science & Technology. For a detailed discussion with examples of the major aspects of manuscript preparation, please refer to "Handbook for Authors of Papers in American Chemical Society Publications" (1978). Title Use specific and informative titles. They should be as brief as possible, consistent with the need for defining the subject of the paper. If trade names are used, give generic names in parentheses. Key words in title assist in effective literature retrieval. Authorship List the first name, middle initial, and last name of each author. Omit professional and official titles. Give the complete mailing address where work was performed. If present address of author is different, include the new information in a foot note. In each paper with more than one author, the name of
the author to whom inquiries should be addressed carries an asterisk. The explanation appears on the Contents page. Abstracts An abstract which will appear at the beginning of each paper must accompany each manuscript. Authors' abstracts frequently are used directly for Chemical Abstracts. Use be tween 100 and 150 words to give purpose, methods or proce dures, significant new results, and conclusions. Write for lit erature searchers as well as journal readers. Text Consult a current issue for general style. Assume your readers to be capable professionals not necessarily expert in your particular field. Historical summaries are seldom war ranted. However, documentation and summary material should be sufficient to establish an adequate background. Divide the article into sections, each with an appropriate heading, but do not oversectionalize. The text should have only enough divisions to make organization effective and comprehensible without destroying the continuity of the text. Keep all information pertinent to a particular section within Environ. Sci. Technol., Vol. 18, No. 2, 1984
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