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Guide for Authors

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Guide for Authors

Manuscripts must be written in English (both British and American spellings are acceptable).
Contents of manuscripts, either wholly or partially, should not have been previously published in print, electronically, or in any other format, or be under consideration for publication elsewhere. Manuscripts should be submitted electronically through the Chemistry & Biology Interface online system. All papers are subject to peer review. After acceptance of a manuscript, a copyright transfer agreement with CBI must be signed before the publications. Papers accepted for publication will be available online, free of cost.
To expedite the review process, please format the manuscript as indicated below.

Preparing the manuscript for submission.

  • The manuscript should be prepared as a single editable Microsoft Word document.
  • For space and environmental considerations, the entire document should be prepared single-spaced.
  • The single manuscript document should include the complete text, schemes, tables, figures and references.
  • All characters in the text, tables, figure legends, footnotes and references should be in a single typeface and point size – such as 12 point Times New Roman (once a manuscript is accepted, a copy editor will decide the typeface and size of the different elements of the article).
  • All figures or photographs should be submitted either as jpg or tif files, with distinct characters and symbols, and at minimally 500 dpi (dots per inch)
  • Citations in the text should be sequentially numbered and indicated within square brackets. These should be listed in the REFERENCES section in the order in which they appear in the text. Please see below for formatting references

Revised manuscripts:

As with the initial submission, the revised manuscript should be sent as a single editable Microsoft Word document. Please do not embed images. All information, such as tables and equations, within the manuscript should be editable. Tables must be created in Microsoft Word. Equations must be generated with Equation Editor.


Reviewer suggestions:

The corresponding author should provide names, titles, institutional affiliations and email contact information for 3–5 scientists knowledgeable in the area described in the submitted manuscript. The Editor may or many not choose to select the suggested individuals as referees. The decision of the Editor-in-Chief will be final.


MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION

The length and effectiveness of the peer review process as well as the publication process will largely depend upon the care exercised by authors in preparing their manuscripts. Therefore, authors are strongly encouraged to carefully read the following instructions prior to preparing/submitting a manuscript and to follow these instructions carefully for preparing a manuscript.
Please contact the Editor-in-Chief in case of questions that may arise.


Page format

Manuscripts should be prepared as a single Microsoft Word document using the A4 or Letter size paper setting. All four margins should minimally be 2 cm in width. The manuscript should be typed single-spaced throughout, including references and tables. All figures and tables should be in the text and one additional copy given on a separate page.


Text font
Times New Roman font and font size of 12 should be used.


Tables

Tables should be numbered consecutively using Arabic numerals (e.g. Table 1, Table 2, etc.), should be part of the manuscript itself and should be referred to appropriately in the text itself.Tables should have an explanatory title that should be as concise as possible.


Schemes, Figures (and Images)

Schemes and Figures (images in general) should be clear, easy to read and of good quality. All figures/images should be embedded within the text consecutively numbered with Arabic numerals (e.g. Scheme 1, Figure, 1, etc.).

For facilitating formatting of images (including tables and figures) or multimedia files, additional separate attachments, apart from the text, should be submitted.

The contents of manuscript should be in the following order:
  • Cover letter
  • Graphical Abstract
  • Title page
  • Abstract
  • Keywords (please supply up to 5 keywords)
  • Introduction
  • Materials and Methods
  • Results and Discussion
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements (if any)
  • References


Title page and its contents

(a) Title (short title)

The title should be relatively short but informative. If a long title is necessary, please prepare an optional short title.

(b) Name(s) of author(s)

A list of all contributing authors should be supplied in the order of contribution. It should contain full names and any middle initials

(c) Affiliations of all contributing authors

Authors’ affiliations should be indicated in this section. Either end note or footnote (end note recommended) can be used to present additional information (for example: an adequate, permanent, postal addresses).

(d) E-mail address(es) of corresponding author(s)

At least one e-mail address of the corresponding author should be provided. This will be used to contact the corresponding author who will be expected to communicate with all coauthors.



Graphical Abstract:

A Graphical Abstract is a single, concise, pictorial and visual summary of the main findings of the article. This could either be the concluding figure from the article or a figure that is specially designed for the purpose, which captures the content of the article for readers at a single glance.



Instructions for preparing a Graphical Abstract:

A Graphical Abstract should allow readers to quickly gain an understanding of the main take-home message of the article. Authors must provide an image or a key figure that clearly represents the work described in the paper.

Graphical Abstracts should be submitted as a separate file.



Abstract:

A concise abstract must accompany every article. It should briefly summarize the significant aspects of the article. It should be informative, not just present the general scope of the paper, but also summarize the main results and conclusions. An abstract should not normally exceed 250 words.

Graphical Abstracts should be submitted as a separate file.



Keywords

A list of up to 5 key words, separated by commas, should be provided.



Introduction

It should clearly present the subject of manuscript, indicate the scope of the subject, present the goals of manuscript, novelty of research work and finally the organization of paper. Appropriate, but not excessive or superfluous, citations of prior work should be presented in order to provide a contextual basis for the presented work.



Materials and Methods

Details of materials (commercial or otherwise) needed and methods utilized should be discussed clearly and concisely. These descriptions should enable any adequately skilled professional to understand and utilize them. Animals, their use and permission from animal ethical committee should be mentioned in the opening paragraphs. Newly introduced techniques should be described in detail to allow easy repetition. Any modification of known methods should be mentioned briefly, with proper citations. Techniques that have been previously described should be mentioned in brief only, with proper citations, unless they were published in sources that are not readily accessible. The experimental part should be written in sufficient detail to enable others to repeat the described work. Chemical compounds should be named according to IUPAC-accepted systems or as acceptable to Chemical Abstracts. Units and dimensions should be expressed in the metric system and SI units.



Results and Discussion

These could either be combined or kept separate and, if needed, may be further divided into subsections. These sections should deal with the major findings and their explanations and/or interpretations.



Conclusion

This section should present a summary of the important findings that stem from the Results and Discussion, or summarize how a hypothesis was proven or disproved.



Acknowledgements

This section should appear at the end of the manuscript. Information about grant support for the research described, assistance of colleagues or similar notes of appreciation should appear in this section



Submission Checklist:

The following items should be supplied for a submission to be complete:

  • Cover letter, summarizing the contents of the manuscript and a justification for publication
  • Graphical Abstract
  • Manuscript (single document)
  • Names, titles, affiliations, and email addresses of 3–5 potential referees