Journal editors

Nine years later, the Zeitschrift fur physikalische Chemie was followed by the Journal of Physical Chemistry, founded in the USA by Wilder Bancroft (1867-1953), one of Ostwald s American students. The chequered career of this journal is instructively analysed by both Laidler (1993) and Servos (1990). Bancroft (who spent more than half a century at Cornell University) seems to have been a difficult man, with an eccentric sense of humour thus at a Ph.D. oral examination he asked the candidate What in water puts out fires , and after rejecting some of the answers the student gave with increasing desperation, Bancroft revealed that the right answer was a fireboat . Any scientific author will recognize that this is not the ideal way for a journal editor to behave, let alone an examiner. There is no space here to go into the vagaries of Bancroft s personality (Laidler can be consulted about this), but... 

Medical Journal Editors , New England Journal of Medicine 351, no. 12 (2004) 1250-51... 

Nevertheless, these and other data limitations severely restrict our understanding of the experiences of African Americans in the chemistry community. For example, much of the most insightful and interesting data requested from NORC could not be provided or, if provided was of little or no used because of suppressed counts to protect confidentiality. The survey that was provided was for presentations and articles over the past three years. These results show that the median numbers of papers presented by white respondents was two compared to one for black respondents at professional meetings. Each group published a median of one article. An interview questioned the fairness of the so-called peer review journal process. The Cohort 111 interviewee asserts that Science is political. 1 saw a lot of it at.because some of my colleagues were journal editors. 1 saw firsthand why certain articles got published and certain ones didn t. Some got published with scant reviews, while others were scmtinized reviews. ... 

Historically, the role of statistics in biomedical research has been largely to test hypotheses. More recently, there has been a move to supplant hypothesis tests from their dominant position by confidence intervals. This move has been endorsed by The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors and climaxed with the publication, under the auspices of the British... 

Submitted manuscripts are evaluated by experts (peers) for quality and originality. Based on the reviewers remarks, journal editors decide to accept, accept with revisions, or reject each submission. 

Correctly formatted abbreviations, numbers, and units are an essential part of scientihc writing. Formatting is the author s responsibility it is not the responsibility of a faculty mentor, peer reviewer, or journal editor. If you are not sure how to format a number or word correctly, consult The ACS Style Guide and look for instructions to authors in your journal of interest. 

Pfizer has also had solvent reduction programs for diethyl ether, diisopropyl ether, hexane, and pentane, and these have all undergone either substantial reductions or in some cases total elimination. In the case of diisopropyl ether, which easily forms explosive peroxides, some journal editors will only accept papers using this solvent if a scientific justification for its usage is given, and this approach is to be applauded [7]. 

Suffet coedited with M. J. McGuire ADVANCES IN CHEMISTRY SERIES No. 202, Treatment of Water by Granular Activated Carbon, as well as a two-volume set, Activated Carbon Adsorption of Organics from the Aqueous Phase. He also edited a two-volume treatise, The Fate of Pollutants in the Air and Water Environments he was a journal editor for a special issue of the Journal of Environmental Science and Health, Part A—Environmental Science and Engineering and he served on the editorial board of the companion journal, Journal of Environ-mental Science and Health, Part B—Pesticides, Food Contaminants, and Agricultural Wastes. He serves on the editorial boards of the journals Chemosphere and CHEMTECH. He is now completing a 4-year term as treasurer of the ACS Division of Environmental Chemistry. 

Malaiyandi was a journal editor and served on the editorial board of a special issue of the Journal of Environmental Science and Health, Part B—Pesticides, Food Contaminants, and Agricultural Wastes. Malaiyandi has coauthored more than 50 research papers on environmental and agricultural chemistry. He was an Adjunct Professor of Chemistry at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, and is a member of several professional societies. 

Onsager was also an appalling correspondent, said to take his letters out of the mailbox one by one, glance at them, and tear them up. A bewildered journal editor recalled the frustration of repeatedly prompting Onsager for an overdue referee s report, only to finally receive the one-word reply Somehow. ... 

Investigators may be tempted to publish the same material, or material only slightly different, multiple times. This practice is unethical. The manuscript should clearly describe prior work that has been done by the authors. It is the obligation of the corresponding author to inform the journal editor of any related manuscripts that have been submitted and/or published elsewhere, including preliminary communications and symposium volumes. There are no exceptions. Moreover, although the review process can be lengthy, under no circumstances should a manuscript be submitted simultaneously to multiple journals. 

A scientist should not proclaim a discovery to the public unless the experimental, statistical, or theoretical support for it is of strength sufficient to warrant publication in the scientific literature. An account of the experimental work and results that support a public pronouncement should be submitted as quickly as possible for publication in a scientific journal. Scientists should, however, be aware that disclosure of research results in the public press or in an electronic database or bulletin board might be considered by a journal editor as equivalent to a preliminary communication in the scientific literature. 

Although there is no fixed set of writing rules to be followed like a cookbook recipe or an experimental procedure, some guidelines can be helpful. Start by considering the questions in Box 3-1 answering these questions will clarify your goals and make it easier to write the manuscript with the proper amount of detail. It will also make it easier for the book or journal editor to determine the... 

Journal editors and multiauthored book editors send accepted manuscripts directly to the publisher. Authors of monographs interact directly with the publisher, generally through an acquisitions editor. Accepted manuscripts go through three phases before publication technical editing, proofing and review by the author, and correction by the publisher. 

In suggesting potential reviewers, authors should not recommend members of their own institution or current or recent collaborators (including students or postdoctoral associates). Many authors suggest the names of eminent scientists in their fields. These individuals are frequently asked to review a large number of manuscripts and, constrained by time, may not be available to review additional manuscripts. Therefore, it is more helpful to suggest the names of highly qualified, less well known researchers. Many book and journal editors also allow authors to request that certain individuals, such as those in direct competition, not be selected to review. Editors usually comply with these requests. 

The U.S. copyright law also provides remedies for infringement. Authors should contact the appropriate book or journal editor in cases where they believe their work has been infringed upon. If a copyright owner (in the case of an ACS publication, the ACS) believes that his or her work has been infringed upon, it is the responsibility of the copyright owner to bring action. 

The IUCr Web site (http //www.iucr.org/iucr-top/cif/) lists other software that can be used to manipulate or visualize CIF content. Most importantly, they maintain a Web-based service that provides a classihed validation report on any format-compliant CIF. This service can be accessed at http //checkcif.iucr.org/. CheckCIF reports can be lengthy, but it is wise to scan them carefully, particularly the most serious Class A alerts. Journal editors and their referees will often indicate the types of alerts that they would normally expect to be fixed by the authors before publication. 

Confusion can often arise in the units that are used to express compression force or pressure and the strength of the tablet. Table 7 gives examples of units that have been used recently for the axes of tablet strength profiles. Comparison between different tablet formulations would be greatly facilitated if authors used and journal editors insisted on the use of the SI system of units. The SI unit of length is the meter, that of force the Newton and that of pressure the Pascal. The unit for physical strength is the Newton and that of tensile strength calculated from Eq. (1) is the Pascal. 

Stereotypical behaviors resulted. Medical journal editors were prolix. Professional pharmaceutical industry bashers were given yet more cause for their wrath. Congress and the newspapers severely criticized the FDA. Plaintiffs lawyers salivated. 

Sponsoring pharmaceutical companies are harmed if they have paid for fraudulent data that they cannot subsequently use or if a drug is delayed in gaining a licence, and the families of fraudulent doctors who lose their licence to practice when prosecuted and found guilty also suffer financially. Journal editors who unknowingly publish the fraudulent results can be harmed, as happened to Prof Geoffrey Chamberlain in the Pearce case discussed later in this chapter. 

Having reviewed and evaluated the published literature on the economic value of clinical pharmacy services, we make the following recommendations to clinicians, investigators, authors, reviewers, and journal editors ... 

Reproduced (adapted) from Zhurnal Rossiiskogo Khimicheskogo Obshchestva, 46(3), Lygin VI, Models of soft and hard surface of silicas, 12-18, 2002, with permission from the journal Editors. 

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