Author guidelines for Analytical Methods
Early applications of new analytical methods and technology demonstrating potential for societal impact.
Step 1 of 4
Prepare your article
Analytical Methods publishes:
- Communications
- Full papers
- Technical notes
- Critical reviews
- Minireviews
- Tutorial reviews
- Comments
Communications
These must report preliminary research findings that are highly original, of immediate interest and are likely to have a high impact. Communications are given priority treatment, are fast-tracked through the publication process and appear prominently at the front of the journal.
The key aim of Communications is to present innovative concepts with important analytical implications. As such, Communications need only demonstrate 'proof of principle': it is not expected that the analytical figures of merit will necessarily surpass those of existing, highly refined analytical techniques.
At the time of submission, authors should also provide a justification for urgent publication as a Communication. Ideally, a Full paper should follow each Communication in an appropriate primary journal.
There is no page limit for communications in Analytical Methods, however the length should be commensurate with scientific content. Authors are encouraged to make full use of electronic supplementary information (ESI) in order to present more concise articles.
Full papers
These must describe science that will be of benefit to the community in the particular field of analysis and are judged according to originality, quality of scientific content and contribution to existing knowledge.
Although there is no page limit for Full papers, appropriateness of length to content of new science will be taken into consideration.
Technical notes
These should be brief descriptions of developments, techniques or applications that offer definite advantages over those already available. Technical notes should offer practical solutions to problems that are of interest to the readership and merit publication, but where a Full paper is not justified.
Technical notes should be as brief as possible; wherever appropriate authors should use references to the established technique, explaining in full only what is novel about the proposed approach.
Critical reviews
Critical reviews are definitive, comprehensive reviews but must also provide a critical evaluation of the chosen topic area. Authors should try to be selective in the choice of material, whilst still aim to cover all the important work in the field, also indicating possible future developments.
Minireviews
Minireviews are highlights or summaries of research in an emerging area of analytical science covering approximately the last two-three years. Given topics should review work no more than approximately 36 months old, and articles should cover only the most interesting/significant developments in that specific subject area.
The articles should be highly critical and selective in referencing published work. A small amount of speculation (one or two paragraphs) of possible future developments may also be appropriate in the Conclusions section.
Tutorial reviews
Tutorial reviews are concise overviews highlighting specific areas of analytical chemistry that might be of interest to the readers of Analytical Methods, including but not limited to sample preparation, experimental procedures and data analysis. They should include discussion of recent developments in the field as well as potential future directions and are intended to provide an introduction and overview of the chosen topic area for both researchers who are new to the field as well as experts already in the area. The inclusion of worked examples using real or model datasets is encouraged where appropriate.
Tutorial reviews should be written at a level that could be understood by an advanced undergraduate student, allowing a researcher new to a field to understand the broad premise and direction.
Tutorial reviews should not contain unpublished research and potential writers should contact the editorial office before commencing their work.
Comments
Comments and Replies are a medium for the discussion and exchange of scientific opinions between authors and readers concerning material published in Analytical Methods.
For publication, a Comment should present an alternative analysis of and/or new insight into the previously published material. Any Reply should further the discussion presented in the original article and the Comment. Comments and Replies that contain any form of personal attack are not suitable for publication.
Comments that are acceptable for publication will be forwarded to the authors of the work being discussed, and these authors will be given the opportunity to submit a Reply. The Comment and Reply will both be subject to rigorous peer review in consultation with the journal＊s Editorial Board where appropriate. The Comment and Reply will be published together.
The templates will give you an idea of length and layout of the article. All articles are professionally edited and typeset to our house style, so the final article will look different to the template.
Use of the template is optional for our journals. For communications, use the communication template; for all other article types (including reviews), use the article template.
Download Microsoft Word templates
Please consult our user guide for help using our Microsoft Word templates.
LaTeX templates
If using the LaTeX template, please provide us with both the native files and a PDF file of your manuscript including all of your figures (as this format is the most accessible to our reviewers). Please note that articles are converted to a different format for professional typesetting during the publishing process.
Overleaf
We host our with Overleaf, an authoring tool that helps collaborators easily prepare and edit their manuscripts with realtime format previewing, easy document sharing and collaboration, and user support and LaTeX help.
Endnote style files
You can automatically format references from your Endnote citation manager using our style files. Files are compatible with both Windows and Mac.
Chemical structure templates
Use our templates to produce clear chemical structures in ChemDraw. This will allow you to optimise the layout for the page dimensions of our journals. Download the zip files you need for Mac or PC below:
Title
The title should be short and straightforward enough to appeal to a general reader, but detailed enough to properly reflect the contents of the article.
- Keep it as short as possible
- Use easily recognisable words and phrases that can be read quickly
- Use keywords and familiar, searchable terms 每 these can increase the chances of your article appearing in search results. Around 70% of our readers find articles through search engines
- Use general terms for compounds and procedures rather than specific nomenclature or very specialised terms
- Avoid using non-standard abbreviations and symbols
An example of an effective title:
＆Alkylation of active methylene compounds with alcohols catalysed by an iridium complex＊.
An example of an ineffective title:
＆Active methylene compounds are alkylated with ROH under catalysis of [IrCl(cod)]2＊.
Authorship
Include full names and affiliations for all authors. Everyone who made a significant contribution to the conception, design or implementation of the work should be listed as co-authors. The corresponding author has the responsibility to include all (and only) co-authors. The corresponding author also signs a copyright licence on behalf of all the authors.
If there are more than 10 co-authors on the manuscript, the corresponding author should provide a statement to specify the contribution of each co-author. It is possible to have two corresponding authors. Please identify co-corresponding authors on your manuscript's first page and also mention this in your comments to the editor and/or cover letter.
The author affiliation(s) listed should be the institution(s) where the majority of the research was conducted. If an author has multiple affiliations all the relevant institutions should be listed. If the present address of an author is different from that at which the work was conducted, that address should be stated in a footnote and not as an affiliation.
Abstract
The abstract is the first part of your manuscript that editors, reviewers and potential readers will see. It will help readers to decide whether your article is of interest to them.
Therefore, it＊s important that it clearly and concisely summarises the main findings of your research and why they are important.
The abstract is a single paragraph which should:
- be around 50 to 250 words
- be concise and easy to read with recognisable words and phrases
- use familiar, searchable terms and keywords
- set out the main objectives and results of the work; it should give the reader a clear idea of what has been achieved
- emphasise (but not overstate) the potential impact of the research and why it is important (compared to other research in its field)
- avoid including detailed information on how the research was carried out 每 this should be described in the main part of the manuscript
Introduction
An introduction should 'set the scene' of the work. It should clearly explain both the nature of the problem under investigation and its background. It should start off general and then focus in to the specific research question you are investigating.
Ensure you include all relevant references.
Experimental
Provide descriptions of the experiments in enough detail so that a skilled researcher is able to repeat them. Standard techniques and methods used throughout the work should just be stated at the beginning of the section; descriptions of these are not needed. Any unusual hazards about the chemicals, procedures or equipment should be clearly identified.
Authors are encouraged to make use of Supplementary Information for lengthy synthetic sections. In general, there is no need to report unsuccessful experiments.
Only non-standard apparatus should be described. Commercially available instruments are referred to by their stock numbers (for example, Perkin-Elmer 457 or Varian HA-100 spectrometers). The accuracy of primary measurements should be stated.
Suitable characterisations of compounds must be included 每 read see the experimental reporting section of these guidelines.
For studies that involve the use of live animals or human subjects an ethical statement may be required. For full details, please refer to our Human & Animal Welfare policy.
Results and discussion
This is arguably the most important section of your article.
Your results should be organised into an orderly and logical sequence. Only the most relevant results should be described in the text, to highlight the most important points. Figures, tables, and equations should be used for purposes of clarity and brevity. Data should not be reproduced in more than one form, for example in both figures and tables, without good reason.
The purpose of the discussion is to explain the meaning of your results and why they are important. You should state the impact of your results compared with recent work and relate it back to the problem or question you posed in your introduction. Ensure claims are backed up by evidence and explain any complex arguments.
Conclusions
This is for interpretation of the key results and to highlight the novelty and significance of the work. The conclusions should not summarise information already present in the article or abstract. You can also include any plans for relevant future work here.
Author contributions
In the interests of transparency, we strongly encourage authors of research articles to include an "Author contributions" section in their manuscript, for publication in the final article. Contributions should be explained concisely. We strongly recommend you use CRediT (the Contributor Roles Taxonomy from CASRAI) for standardised contribution descriptions.
All authors should have agreed to their individual contributions ahead of submission and these should accurately reflect contributions to the work. Please note that for any manuscript with more than ten co-authors the corresponding author must provide the editor with a statement to specify the contribution of each author.
Conflicts of interest
In accordance with our policy on Conflicts of interest please ensure that a conflicts of interest statement is included in your manuscript. This statement is required for all submitted manuscripts. If no conflicts exist, please state that ＆There are no conflicts to declare＊.
Data availability
A data availability statement (DAS) is required to be submitted alongside all articles. Please see the submit section of these guidelines for more details and examples of suitable statements you can use.
Acknowledgements
Contributors (those not already included as co-authors) may be acknowledged. Keep this section as brief as possible. You should also declare all sources of funding at this point.
Keep your writing clear and concise, avoiding repetition or embellishment. All submissions must be in English. We permit standard English and American spelling in our journals, but please use one or the other consistently within the article itself. You are welcome to use common or standard abbreviations. If your abbreviations are non-standard, please include a definition the first time you use them.
All articles accepted for publication in our journals are edited and typeset to our house style by professional editors: the manuscript will be formatted for you.
If you would like professional guidance on improving the standard and style of your writing, before submitting your article, we offer a specialist language editing service.
Language editing service
If you would like professional guidance before you start the submission process, our native English speaking subject experts can work with you to improve the clarity of the research described in your manuscript by correcting grammatical errors, improving scientific expression, and addressing any other problems with the language.
Referencing your work clearly and accurately is incredibly important. Referencing acknowledges the work of others, and highlights the range and types of your cited material. Good referencing is an important part of a work＊s presentation, and can affect how others view it. Failing to reference clearly could have a negative impact on your work if people can＊t find the original material, or even be seen as plagiarism.
It＊s important you use Vancouver style (not Harvard style). However, we will format your content according to our house style before publication.
We encourage the citation of primary research over review articles, where appropriate, in order to give credit to those who first reported a finding. This is part of our commitment to the principles of (DORA).
Referencing in the text
Use superscript numbers to show the reference source of statements in the text 每 for example, reactive small molecule species.3 Usually these should appear at the end of the sentence (after the punctuation), but can be after the relevant word or compound. The reference numbers should be cited in the correct sequence through the text (including those in tables and figure captions, numbered according to where the table or figure is designated to appear).
If a statement has multiple references you should reference all of the citations in the text. If you have two citations, or if you have more than two and the numbers are not consecutive, use commas (with no spaces) between numbers, examples: 12,13 or 12,14,15. If there are more than two numbers and they are consecutive, use an en-dash to separate the first and last citation 每 for example, 14每20.
The author(s) can be mentioned at their first citation in the text, but initials are not necessary. For papers with one or two authors simply state the surname(s), and for papers with three or more authors you should use the first author＊s surname followed by et al.
Listing your references
The references themselves are listed in numerical order at the end of the main article. The names and initials of all authors should be given in the reference. Please note, references cited in the Supplementary Information should be included in a separate references list within the Supplementary Information document.
Journal articles
The journal abbreviations to be used in 郗鞦优 publications are defined in . If you cannot find a recognised abbreviation for a journal and it is not obvious how the title should be abbreviated, please cite the full journal title.
Journal articles should be cited in the form:
A. Name, B. Name and C. Name, Journal Title, year, volume, page.
Inclusion of article title is optional for most journals, but required for Food & Function, Inorganic Chemistry Frontiers, Materials Chemistry Frontiers, Organic Chemistry Frontiers and Industrial Chemistry & Materials.
When page numbers are not yet known, articles should be cited by DOI (Digital Object Identifier) 每 for example, T. J. Hebden, R. R. Schrock, M. K. Takase and P. M邦ller, Chem. Commun., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/C2CC17634C.
Books
A. Name, B. Name and C. Name, Book Title, Publisher, Publisher Location, year. For example, S T Beckett, Science of Chocolate, 郗鞦优, Cambridge, 2000. If you are referencing published conference proceedings, these should be cited like a book.
Book chapters
A. Name, in Book Title, ed. Editor Name(s), Publisher, Publisher Location, edition, year, chapter, pages. The ＆ed.＊ in the example above stands for ＆edited by＊, that is, the editor(s) of the book; if the book has no editors this can be left out.
Theses
A. Name, PhD thesis, University Name, year.
Lectures, meetings and conferences
A. Name, presented in part at Conference Title, Place, Month, year.
Unpublished material
If you reference unpublished material in your article you must provide the editor with copies of the manuscripts with your submission. You should not reference unpublished work without the permission of those who completed the work.
For material accepted for publication, but not yet published: A. Name, Journal Title, in press. For material submitted for publication, but not yet accepted: A. Name, Journal Title, submitted. For material that has yet to be submitted for publication: A. Name, unpublished work.
Online resources (including databases, websites and wikis)
Name of resource, URL, (accessed date). Please note the most important information to include is the URL and the date accessed. For example, The Merck Index Online, http://www.rsc.org/Merck-Index/monograph/mono1500000841, (accessed October 2013).
Preprint servers (for example, ChemRxiv, arXiv)
ChemRxiv & bioRxiv: The citation should include the author(s), the name of the preprint server, the year, the word ※preprint§ and the DOI (including version number).
S. Bhattacharjee, S. P. Chaudhary and S. Bhattacharyya, ChemRxiv, 2019, preprint, DOI: 10.26434/chemrxiv.9794270.v1
arXiv: The citation should include the author(s), the name of the preprint server, the year, the article number and the url (including version number).
D. Carrascal, L. Fernandez and J. Ferrer, arXiv, 2009, preprint, arXiv:0904.1138, https://arxiv.org/abs/0904.1138v1
Patents
You should provide the name of the patentee(s), patent issuer, patent number and year. For example: J. C. Chung, US Pat., 20100105549A1, 2010; Nippon Telegraph & Telephone, Jpn. Pat., 2013034915A, 2013.
Software
T. Bellander, M. Lewne and B. Brunekreef, GAUSSIAN 3 (Revision B.05), Gaussian Inc., Pittsburgh, PA, 2003.
Notes and footnotes
Notes are used to provide information that is not suitable for inclusion in the main body of the text. The information is still important in qualifying or amplifying the argument in the text, but is not normally included because it would disrupt the flow of the text 每 for example, additional experimental details.
Information included as Notes (end-notes) relating to the main text should appear at the end of the article, just above the references. Notes should be numbered using the same numbering system as the references. These might include:
- comments relevant to but not central to the matter under discussion
- limited experimental and spectral data
- crystallographic data
Footnotes are referred to with the following symbols: ?, ?, ∫, ?, 沃 etc. They refer to information such as authors＊ contributions, acknowledgements or references to the Electronic Supplementary Information (ESI). It＊s always worth checking if your university department allows footnotes or notes.
Footnotes relating to the title and/or authors, including affiliations, should appear at the very bottom of the first page of the article. If Supplementary Information is available this is also stated here.
Please also include any dedications in the footnotes. At the editor's discretion, dedications of a personal nature may be more appropriate in the Acknowledgements section of the article.
Using images and copyright
Any images that are used should be numerically referenced in the figure caption. If your work is solely for your course, and will not be published publicly, you don＊t need to obtain copyright permission.
If you are preparing an article to be published you will have to obtain copyright permission. The publisher/copyright owner of the image will need to be contacted and asked for their process for receiving permission requests. Permission is acknowledged in the figure caption and some organisations will require the permission statement to be given exactly as they specify. An example permission statement would be: Reproduced with permission from ref. reference number. Copyright year, Publisher. Find more information on our copyright and permissions processes.
Reference management
You can automatically format references from your Endnote citation manager using our style files.
Free reference management programmes are available. Check with your university what reference management software they recommend or have available for you to use.
- Colour images may be used free of charge both online and in print
- Figures, Schemes and Charts should be supplied as TIFF files, with a resolution of 600 dpi or greater. You can supply EPS or PDF files instead, but we will need to convert these to TIFF files in the final article
- Images should fit within either single column (8.3 cm) or double column (17.1 cm) width, and must be no longer than 23.3 cm. They should be prepared to make best use of the space available and must not be larger than a single page
- Any text, numerical data or scale bars should be clearly legible and sized appropriately so that any data may be accurately interpreted
- Figures including logos, trademarks or brands names (for example Lego? or Rubik＊s Cube?) should not be used. You must obtain permission to use any figure or graphic belonging to someone else; see our guidance on using third party material in 郗鞦优 publications.
Table of contents entry
A table of contents entry (graphical abstract) is required, which should be submitted at the revision stage. This should include an eye-catching graphic and 1-2 sentence(s) of text to summarise the key findings of the article to the reader. It will appear in the table of contents and feeds 每 for example, RSS feeds.
The graphic should:
- Be simple, but informative.
- Capture the reader＊s attention (the use of colour is encouraged).
- Include a structure, scheme, graph, drawing, photograph or combination that conveys the message of the article. Please note, complex schematics or spectra should be avoided.
- Be original, unpublished artwork created by one of the co-authors. Preferably, the graphic should not be reused and appear again within the article. If using AI tools to help create the graphic, authors must confirm that the AI tool has been trained using fully licensed datasets and the terms of the licence to use the AI output allow commercial reuse.
- Be suitable for, and uphold the standards of, a scholarly publication that has a global reach.
- Not contain any elements that are offensive or inappropriate, in particular words or images that are discriminatory.
- Not contain large amounts of text. Text should be limited to the labelling of compounds, reaction arrows and diagrams, with long phrases or sentences being avoided. Any text should be clearly legible to a reader.
- Not contain logos, trademarks or brands names.
The text should:
- Be concise and focus only on the key findings of the manuscript and their importance.
- Avoid repeating or paraphrasing the title or abstract.
- Be provided in an editable format, eg, .docx file.
Table of contents specifications:
- The figure should be a maximum size of 8 cm wide x 4 cm high. It is recommended that authors make use of the full space available.
- Figures should be supplied as TIFF files, with a resolution of 600 dpi or greater.
- The text supplied should be 1-2 sentences long, using a maximum of 250 characters.
Photographs
Photographs should be provided at the best resolution available (minimum 600 dpi) as TIFF, PDF or JPEG files.
Biography photographs should be 4 cm wide x 5 cm high (individual photograph) or 8.3 cm wide x 5 cm high (group photograph).
Chemical structures
Structures should ideally be prepared with chemistry drawing software and saved as images in TIFF, EPS or PDF format. You may also embed the graphics in your manuscript if you prefer, but these should be saved in image format first.
You should use the settings below or you can use our chemical structure templates to format these for you.
- Chain bond angle = 120∼
- Fixed bond angle = 15∼
- Bond length = 0.43 cm or 12.2 pt
- Bond width = 0.016 cm or 0.5 pt
- Bold bond width = 0.056 cm or 1.6 pt
- Double bond space = 20% of bond length
- Stereo bond width = 0.056 cm or 1.6 pt
- Hash spacing = 0.062 cm or 1.8 pt
- Captions/atom labels = Arial/Helvetica, 7 pt
To save ChemDraw diagrams in TIFF format, select File, Save As. In the ※Save as type§ menu select ※TIFF image (*.tif, *.tiff§)§, then click ※Options§ and change the resolution to 600.
Crystal structure images
A conventional line drawing of the structure should normally be included and one perspective diagram (or stereo pair) if appropriate. Packing diagrams should not be included unless required to illustrate a specific chemical point. The atom numbering scheme should be clearly shown in one of the diagrams.
Journal cover artwork
Appearing on the cover of the journal in which your work is published is an excellent way to promote your work and attract readers.
If you would like us to consider your artwork for the cover of a journal, please get in touch with that journal＊s editorial team once your article has been accepted for publication. Use of artwork is at the editor's discretion and authors are required to pay a fee for this service. The submitted artwork should be the author＊s own original creation. If third-party material is used as part of the artwork, or if it has been created with the help of an illustrator or designer, please ensure that all necessary permissions have been obtained. If using AI tools to help create the cover artwork, authors must confirm that the AI tool has been trained using fully licensed datasets and the terms of the licence to use the AI output allow commercial reuse.
If chosen for a cover, we will promote your article and increase its visibility in a number of ways:
- Your article will be made free to access to all for six weeks.
- Your cover will be highlighted in the contents pages of the journal online.
- Your cover will be attached to the PDF of your article, making it highly visible to readers.
- Your article will be placed towards the front of the issue, where it will be more readily accessible to readers.
We will also send you a digital version of the cover for you to use in presentations and your own promotion.
You can include supplementary information with your article to enhance and increase the impact of your work, for example by including 3D molecular models and movies. Authors can also improve the readability of their articles by placing appropriate material in the supplementary information, such as repetitive experimental details. All information published as supplementary information is fully archived and permanently linked to the article using CrossMark.
When preparing your supplementary information data files, you should keep in mind the following points:
- Supplementary data is peer-reviewed and should therefore be included with the original submission
- Supplementary Information files are published 'as is' which means editorial staff will not edit the data for style or content
- Data files are useful only if readers can access them. Use common, widely known and machine-readable file formats where possible
- Large files may prove difficult for users to download and access
- References cited in the supplementary information should be included in a separate references list within the Supplementary Information document
Where deposition in a subject-specific, institutional or general repository is not possible, we encourage the submission of supporting information for compounds and spectra. For compounds, please supply mol files (exported from your chemical drawing package) as unique compounds, without R-groups or variable attachments. Spectral data such as NMR, IR, Raman, ESR should be supplied in the stand