COMMENT ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
wants to hear f r o m you! Revisiting our editorial policy Our new Internet address for letters to the editor is
[email protected] If you have any questions or comments about recent articles, new developments in the field, or subscriptions, send us a note.
Of course, you can still reach us by mail at Environmental Science & Technology 1155 16th Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20036
Internet Information Service Authors, reviewers, and potential contributors to Environmental Sciences Technology can receive editorial guidelines via the Internet in a matter of minutes. These guidelines supply information on the different types of papers accepted by ES&T and the instructions on preparing and submitting manuscripts. To receive these guidelines, send a message to envi
[email protected] and type the code words in the "Subject" line: Editorial Policy (Type: Author policy) Peer Review (Type: Author review) Current Research Author's Guide (Type: Author research) Manuscript Preparation: Text and Figures (Type: Author prep) Feature Articles (Type: Author feature) Quick Help (Type; Author help)
T
he editorial policy of ES&T is printed each year in our January issue and can be found at any time on our Web site at http://pubs.acs.org/ instruct/esthag.pd.. Two particularly important sentences are contained within the policy statement ("Research Section: Current Research Papers"): The research pages of ES&T are devoted to the publication of critically reviewed papers concerned with the scientific understanding of natural and engineered environments.... ES&T seeks to publish papers that are particularly significant and original.
Traditionally, we have left it to our reviewers and editors to make the decision whether a paper meets these criteria, a policy that has served us well for more than 30 years. Although we will continue to follow this policy, and the final decision will always be in the hands of the editor, we feel that an additional element is needed even before a paper is sent out for review. We ask that from now on, all corresponding authors, including those submitting Policy Analysis papers, follow this new, added guideline: Upon submission of a research or policy analysis article, or research communication, the corresponding author must indicate in a cover letter why the article or communication is deemed to be particularly significant and original, and the topic suitable for publication in this journal. Special attention will be given to research communications in this regard. The editors will consider this text in the process of deciding if the paper should be published in ES&T. Our decision to establish this new requirement was made after lengthy discussions among the editors with input from the Editorial Advisory Board. Several factors were considered. First, we feel that die new policy will give authors of innovative papers, perhaps diose that are at the edge of our traditional coverage, special opportunity to justify why their paper should appear in this journal. Second, it will inform editors about the author's insights relative to the stated criteria—this wisdom is not always obvious from reading the manuscript. Third, it will remind authors that ES&T is not the place for publication of papers that are routine or not "concerned with the scientific understanding of natural and engineered environments." Too often, we receive papers where it is not clear that important new environmental science or engineering knowledge has been revealed in the work: Many reports seem to be repetitions or incremental extensions of previous work, or we receive papers mat are more appropriate for pure science or applied technology journals. Circumstances such as these compel ES&T's editors to reject submitted manuscripts and remind authors, for example, that a paper dealing with the infrared spectrum of a chlorinated compound is not necessarily environmentally relevant just because the compound is known to be an environmental hazard; or that a report of a slightly different way to destroy chemicals with no underlying understanding of mechanisms is inappropriate for publication in ES&T. Perhaps the new criteria will encourage authors to read all of the Current Research Papers section of our editorial policy statement where the details of our criteria and the unique role of ES&T vis a vis other types of journals are laid out.
William H. Glaze, Editor (bill_glaze@unc. edu)
0013-936X/98/0932-525AS15.00/0 © 1998 American Chemical Society
DEC. 1, 1998/ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / NEWS • 5 2 5 A
