Guide for Authors

Guide for Authors PDF


All manuscripts must be submitted using the Online Manuscript Submission System for Atmospheric Pollution Research.

1. Submission checklist

This list should be used 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. Please make sure that the following items are present:

  • One author designated as corresponding author and e-mail address, full postal address, telephone and fax numbers of the corresponding author have been provided.
  • All necessary files (i.e., manuscript, cover letter, tables, figures, and supporting material) have been uploaded.
  • Keywords
  • Figures with care taken over minimum shading
  • Figure captions
  • All tables (including title, description, footnotes)

Further considerations:

  • Manuscript has been "spellchecked".
  • Manuscript is less than 8000 words unless length extension has been granted by the editor. Diagrams should be kept to a minimum.
  • 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. If printed in black and white, these figures must be intelligible in the printed version, adjustments may need to be made to the color figures to make them understandable in black and white.

For any further information please contact atmospolres@atmospolres.com.

 

2. Types of contributions

Atmospheric Pollution Research is an international journal designed for the publication of articles on air pollution. Papers should present novel experimental results, theory and modeling of air pollution on local, regional, or global scales. Areas covered are research on inorganic, organic, and persistent organic air pollutants, air quality monitoring, air quality management, atmospheric dispersion and transport, air-surface (soil, water, and vegetation) exchange of pollutants, dry and wet deposition, indoor air quality, exposure assessment, health effects, satellite measurements, natural emissions, atmospheric chemistry, greenhouse gases, and effects on climate change. Atmospheric Pollution Research publishes Research Papers, Short Communications, Technical Notes, and Critical Literature Reviews. In addition, special issues are published.

Research Papers
Word count of the manuscripts must be less than 8000 words. Word counts include abstract, text, references, figures, and tables. To estimate, consider each figure and each table equal to 300 words. Large multipart figures or extensive tables should be counted as 600 words. Editors may allow longer papers on the basis of extraordinary significance and originality of content. Authors must provide a convincing explanation in the cover letter. Related manuscripts must be submitted at the same time.

Technical Notes, and Short Communications
These papers cover topics which may be simpler in structure or of more limited interest. They also include instrumental methods. At times they might report unusual or unexplained observations or short sets of measurements made in rather unique situations. The general style of these papers is similar to that of full papers although they may appear in smaller print. Word count for these papers must not exceed 4000 words. Any length extensions must be requested from the Editors prior to submission.

Critical Literature Reviews
Critical reviews are thoroughly documented assessments of selected areas of the atmospheric science research literature. Critical reviews can be longer than the typical research articles but should generally be limited to 10000 words, including references, graphs, and figures. Critical reviews should increase readers’ knowledge through discriminating comparisons and insightful organization of the material. Criteria for acceptability include current importance of the field under review, thoroughness of the literature coverage, clarity of text, and clear identification of research needs on new emerging areas of atmospheric science.

The Editors reserve the right to reject, edit, or reword submitted articles. Authors will have the opportunity to inspect galley proofs of their columns before final printing. The decision of the Editors is final.

Special Issues
Requests to publish Special Issues based on field campaigns, specialty conferences, and thematic research subjects should be addressed to the Editors (modabasi@atmospolres.com or telbir@atmospolres.com). Proposals are evaluated by the Editors and a response is provided within two weeks. The Editors reserve the right to adjust style to certain standards of uniformity.

 

3. Submission of articles

Articles must be written in English and where possible checked by a native speaker. 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 clearly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written approval of the Publisher.

A cover letter should accompany every submission (Research Articles, Technical Notes, Short Communications, and Critical Reviews). It should state why the submission is particularly significant and original, and why the topic is suitable for publication in this journal. The cover letter must indicate that the manuscript has not been previously published, in whole or in part, and that it is not under consideration by any other journal.  Additionally, it must affirm that all authors are aware of, and accept responsibility for, the manuscript.

Authors must submit names (e-mail and institutional address) of five potential reviewers. The suggested reviewers must not have any conflict of interest. They must not be from your own institution and no more than one, from your country.

A letter will be sent to the corresponding Author confirming receipt of the manuscript. If quotations 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.

If Authors are requested by the Editor to revise the text, the revised version should be submitted within 21 days.

License and Copyright Agreement
The following License and Copyright Agreement is valid for any article published by Atmospheric Pollution Research:

Author’s Certification
In submitting the manuscript, the authors certify that:

They are authorized by their co-authors to enter into these arrangements. The work described has not been published before (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture, review or thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication has been approved by all the author(s) and by the responsible authorities–tacitly or explicitly–of the institutes where the work has been carried out. They secure the right to reproduce any material that has already been published or copyrighted elsewhere.

They agree to the following license and copyright agreement:

Copyright

  • Copyright on any article is retained by the author(s).
  • Authors grant Atmospheric Pollution Research a license to publish the article and identify itself as the original publisher.
  • Authors grant Atmospheric Pollution Research commercial rights to produce hardcopy volumes of the journal for sale to libraries and individuals.
  • Authors grant any third party the right to use the article freely as long as its original authors and citation details are identified.
  • The article and any associated published material are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode).

 Anyone is free:

  • to Share-to copy, distribute and transmit the work
  • to Remix-to adapt the work

Under the following conditions:

Attribution. The original authors must be given credit.

  • For any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are.
  • Any of these conditions can be waived if the copyright holders give permission.
  • Nothing in this license impairs or restricts the author's moral rights.

Online submission to the journal prior to acceptance
Submission to this journal proceeds totally online. Use the following guidelines to prepare your article. Via the Online Manuscript Submission System for Atmospheric Pollution Research at http://www.atmospolres.com you will be guided stepwise through the creation and uploading of the various files. The system automatically converts source files to a single Adobe Acrobat PDF version of the article, which is used in the peer-review process. Please note that even though manuscript source files are converted to PDF 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 and via the Author's homepage, removing the need for a hard-copy paper path.

Electronic format requirements for accepted articles

General points
The journal accepts Microsoft Word processing format. Microsoft Office Word 2007 version is also acceptable. Latex is not an acceptable format. Always keep a backup copy of the electronic file for reference and safety. Save your files using the default extension of the program used.

Word processor documents
It is important that the file be saved in the native format of the word processor 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 word processor's options to justify text or to hyphenate words. However, do use bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts etc. Line spacing should be double-spaced form with wide margins. Line numbers should be inserted to the manuscript. Do not embed "graphically designed" equations or tables, but prepare these using the word processor's facility. 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 Preparation of electronic illustrations.

To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the "spellchecker" function of your word processor.

 

4. Preparation of text

General
Please write your text in English (American or British English is accepted, but not a mixture of these). Italics are not to be used for expressions of Latin origin, for example, in vivo, et al., per se. Use decimal points (not commas); use a space for thousands (10 000 and above).

Language Editing: The Editor may insist on professional copy editing of a paper with poor English, before it can be accepted for publication.

Follow this order when preparing texts: Title; Authors; Affiliations; Abstract: Keywords; Main Text; Acknowledgements; References; Appendix; Figure Captions and then Tables. Sections in text should be numbered.

Title. Long enough to be informative. Titles are often used in information-retrieval systems. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible. If the paper is geographically specific, this may be mentioned in the title.

Author names and affiliations. Please indicate the family name clearly when the author(s) have double names. 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 is willing to handle correspondence at all stages of reviewing 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.

Abstract. A concise and accurate abstract is required (maximum length 300 words). The abstract should state briefly the objective of the research, the primary results and major conclusions. An abstract is often presented separate from the article, so it must be able to stand-alone.

Keywords. Immediately after the abstract, provide maximum 5 keywords, and avoiding general and plural terms and multiple concepts (avoid, for example, "and", "of"). Be sparing with abbreviations: only abbreviations firmly established in the field may be eligible. These keywords will be used for indexing purposes.

Abbreviations. Define abbreviations that are not standard in this field at their first occurrence in the article: in the abstract but also in the main text after it. Make sure that abbreviations throughout the article are consistent.

Acknowledgements. Present acknowledgements in a separate section at the end of the article and do not include them on the title page, as a footnote to the title or otherwise.

Specific remarks
Mathematical formulae. Present simple formulae in the line of normal text where possible. In principle, variables are to be presented in italics. Use either the solidus (/) or a horizontal line, e.g., X/Y or 

Number consecutively any equations that have to be displayed separate from the text (if referred to explicitly in the text).

Footnotes. Footnotes should be used in moderation. Number them consecutively throughout the article, using superscript Arabic numbers. Many word processors build footnotes into the text, and this feature may be used. Do not include footnotes in the Reference list.

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. Omit the definite article ('the') from captions. Total number of figures and tables should not exceed eight in the manuscript.

Nomenclature and units. Follow internationally accepted rules and conventions: use the international system of units (SI). If other quantities are mentioned, give their equivalent in SI. Use negative indices rather than / and leave space between symbols, i.e., m s-1

 

5. Preparation of Supporting Material (SM)

Atmospheric Pollution Research accepts supplementary material to support and enhance your scientific research. Supplementary files offer the Author additional possibilities to publish supporting tables, figures and images. Supplementary files supplied will be published online along with your article in http://www.atmospolres.com. In order to ensure that your submitted material is directly usable, data should be 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.

If your revised manuscript includes SM, a paragraph titled “Supporting Material Available” should be included after the acknowledgment paragraph. The last line of the paragraph should read as follows: This information is available free of charge via the Internet at http://www.atmospolres.com. Provide a cover sheet for your SM file(s) that includes the authors, manuscript title, and a summary of the number of pages, figures, and tables. Number SM pages consecutively starting with page S1. Supportin material should also be referred in the text.


6. References
Responsibility for the accuracy of bibliographic citations belongs entirely to the Authors. All publications cited in the text should be presented in a list of references following the text of the manuscript. The list of references should be arranged first alphabetically and then further sorted chronologically if necessary.

In the text refer to the author's name (without initials) and year of publication (e.g. "Harrison et al. (1996) have indicated that..." or "The results of the present study are in agreement with those reported previously (Schauer et. al., 2002)". For three or more authors use the first author followed by "et al.", in the text.

Periodicals title should be written out in full, volume number and inclusive page numbers:

Nriagu, J.O., Pacyna, J.M., 1988. Quantitative assessment of worldwide contamination of air, water and soils by trace-metals. Nature 333, 134-139.

Books references, title pages, publisher's name and location:

Finlayson-Pitts, B.J., Pitts, J.N., Jr., 2000. Chemistry of the Upper and Lower Atmosphere:Theory, Experiments, and Applications, Academic Press, San Diego, pp. 40-45.

Citing and listing of web references: As a minimum, the full URL should be given. Any further information, if known (author names, dates, reference to a source publication etc.), should also be given.

Turkish State Meteorological Service, 2009. http://www.adana.dmi.gov.tr/merkezler-tanitim.aspx?m=9, access: 2 July 2010.

U.S. EPA., 1995. Compilation of air pollutant emission factors, Volume 1: Stationary point and area sources. AP 42, Fifth Edition, http://www.epa.gov/ttn/chief/ap42/index.html.

Citing Theses:

Reynolds, R.D., 1974. Mathematical Modeling of Photochemical Air Pollution. Ph.D. Thesis, California Institute of Technology, California, United States, 491 pp.

Conference Proceedings:

Clarenburg, L.A., 1997. Ethical aspects of a law of the atmosphere. Proceedings of 10th Regional IUAPPA Conference, September 23-26, 1997, Istanbul, Turkey, 12-21.

Reports:

EEA, 2009. EMEP/EEA Air Pollutant Emission Inventory Guidebook 2009 - Technical Guidance to Prepare National Emission Inventories, EEA Technical Report No. 9/2009, Copenhagen, 21 pp.

All cited material should be accessible to the public. Internal publications, conference proceedings, etc.; avoid if possible. If essential, include sufficient information for the reader to locate the reference. In particular references to conferences should contain the address of the organization responsible.

The digital object identifier (DOI) may be used to cite and link to electronic documents published online, but have not yet received their full bibliographic information. The correct format for citing a DOI is shown as follows:

doi:10.1021/es900863s

Acknowledgements: A brief as possible, in a separate section before the references, not in the text or as footnotes.

Sub-Divisions: The text should be divided into sections, each with a separate heading and numbered consecutively. The section/subsection headings should be typed on a separate line [e.g., 2. Materials and Methods, 2.1. Data collection). Secondary subsection headings should not be numbered (i.e., 2.1.1. Statistical procedures), instead they should be written in bold and placed at the beginning of the subsection (Statistical procedures. Text…).

 

7. Preparation of illustrations
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, Calibri, Tahoma, Symbol.
• Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text.
• Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files.
• Provide all illustrations as separate files.
• Produce images near to the desired size of the printed version.

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. Omit the definite article ('the') from captions.

Formats
Regardless of the application used, when your electronic artwork is finalized, 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.):

BMP, JPEG, TIFF, GIF: Color or grey-scale, always use a minimum of 300 dpi.

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 word processor (spreadsheet, presentation) document;
• Supply files that are optimized for screen use; the resolution is too low;
• Supply files that are too low in resolution;
• Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.

Please make sure that artwork files are in an acceptable format (TIFF, GIF or MS Office files) and with the correct resolution.

 

8. Further information
Proofs. When your manuscript is received by the Publisher it is considered to be in its final form. Proofs are not to be regarded as "drafts". One set of page proofs in PDF format will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding Author, to be checked for typesetting/editing. No changes in, or additions to, the accepted (and subsequently edited) manuscript will be allowed at this stage. Proofreading is solely your responsibility.

The Publisher reserves the right to proceed with publication if corrections are not communicated Return corrections within 3 days of receipt of the proofs. Should there be no corrections, please confirm this.

Atmospheric Pollution Research will do everything possible to get your article corrected and published as quickly and accurately as possible. In order to do this we need your collaboration. When you receive the (PDF) proof of your article for correction, it is important to ensure that all of your corrections are sent back to us in one communication. Subsequent corrections will not be possible, so please ensure your first sending is complete. Note that this does not mean you have any less time to make your corrections, just that only one set of corrections will be accepted.

Conflict of Interest:
Maintaining the highest quality in a scientific journal requires that authors should declare any conflict of interest, such as funding sources and other significant financial or corporate relations, recent legal involvement or other matters that might affect the way the article was viewed.