Special Issue Proposals Guideline.doc



Thematic Issue Proposals

The journal seeks to publish focussed, coherent thematic volumes that will be of lasting use to the community, well cited, and of the highest quality. Your, and any co-guest editors’, role in the proposed issue, and thus in any papers that may enter the literature, is thus critical.

The journal editors will require the following:

1. For thematic volumes linked to meetings, the meeting is to be treated as a basis for a coherent volume, and the issue should not be seen simply as a reporting of proceedings. This means that:

(i) Manuscripts are to be full, regular research papers reporting unpublished scientific data.

(ii) The list of proposed manuscripts should represent a good coverage of the highest quality work at the meeting or should focus on a specific area e.g. a session/workshop of particular interest from a broader conference, The contents list should mirror that you would expect to see in a publication as a worker on the subject. This implies that all contributors be realistic in their commitments to submit but that, once committed, they do actually submit. Statements of intent etc will not be adequate. Please note that a volume that “unravels” as a result of lack of submissions and therefore fails to cover the subject fully, as judged by the journal editor(s), may be cancelled by the journal. In that case, any accepted manuscripts by this route will be published in another issue.

(iii) Once approved, you may announce your issue outside the meeting attendees, in order to attract full and balanced coverage of the subject.

The final compilation is intended as a body of work collected together for the benefit of future workers on the subject.

2. As guest editor, you are welcome to invite review article(s), or yourself contribute review article(s), to form part of the issue. A review could form a nice opener for a thematic issue, and “set the scene” for the papers that are published as part of the collection. Such articles also tend to be well cited, and we at Elsevier are committed to offering review articles good exposure, for instance via the journal homepages, and on our social media (Facebook and Twitter) sites. The one caveat to note is that it is important that the review article(s) adhere to the agreed submission/acceptance deadlines for the issue to ensure publication of the other papers is not delayed.

3. All manuscripts will be fully and independently peer reviewed. After proposal approval by Editor-in-Chief, one Associate Editor or the Editor-in-Chief will be responsible for monitoring the reviews to be handled by guest editors.

Guest Editors will suggest potential reviewers for manuscripts considered for inclusion in the thematic issue. Suggested reviewers will as far as possible be scientists outside the circle of volume contributors. Depending upon the individual set-up of the issue, Guest Editors will either invite reviewers in accordance with suggestions made by Associate Editors (which may or may not include reviewers suggested by the Guest Editors), or the Associate Editors will oversee the peer review process themselves, inviting reviewers that may or may not take into account any suggestions made by the Guest Editors.

4. When Guest Editors invite reviewers and have input into the peer review process, they must ensure that manuscripts fit within the scope of the issue and are peer reviewed to the hightest standards.

a. Guest editors are asked to invite only two reviewers in the first instance, in order to prevent overload of the reviewer pool.

b. In order to assist the journal editors in reaching a decision, Guest Editors are asked to ensure that they provide feedback in the form of a synthesis of comments made during the peer review process. There are three major criteria that should be considered by Guest Editors and reviewers to determine whether or not a paper merits acceptance :

i. The interest (is it of local/narrow or broad interest considering the large multidisciplinary audience of QI?)

ii. The scientific robustness of the paper (do you see any major flaw in the science and/or the methodology?)

iii. The originality (is this contribution truly and substantially new?)

c. Guest Editors are not obliged to accept any submission, even if invited, and should not be afraid to reject any submissions that are substandard, either before or after peer review.

d. Where a reviewer requires “major revision”, the revised paper should also be reviewed. Please note that the journal editor who oversees the project will take the final decision on the manuscripts, and may require additional rounds of peer review and/or overrule the recommendations of the Guest Editor.

e. The review process should proceed promptly. This entails returning the first-round reviews to authors within about 4 to 6 weeks of the ms submittal date. To this end we ask you to process manuscripts as they are submitted; you should not wait for all papers to be received or process in batches. The guest editor(s) should also ensure that authors adhere to submission and revision deadlines. We reserve the right to publish any late papers in a subsequent issue if the late papers have fallen behind agreed deadlines.

5. Once all the papers for the volume have been accepted, Guest Editors should compose a preface explaining the purpose/scope/significance of the meeting or collection of papers. The Preface can also serve as a Dedication, if the volume is honoring an outstanding Quaternary researcher. At the same time, Guest Editors should provide a table of contents outlining the order in which the papers are to appear in the journal, and confirm the title of the volume, and names of guest editors.

Please consult other potential contributors and email the following to Professor Min-Te Chen, mtchen@ntou.edu.tw. To ensure potential contributors are aware of the arrangements and requirements, we recommend you share this document with them. In order to generate momentum, please request a response be received from all parties within ca 1 month of today.

Please use the following as a template for your proposal:

1. Volume title and order of guest editors (normally 1-3, with names, titles, affiliations and contact information).

2. Indicate the INQUA Commission to which the proposal pertains, and suggest an Associate Editor to oversee the thematic issue.

3. List of probable paper titles, with authors and abstracts and if possible the name of the guest editor who will be overseeing its peer review.

4. The names of two potential reviewers for each probable paper, with institutional e-mail addresses; please try avoid using commercial such as yahoo, gmail etc.

5. Written proposal of about 1 page. This is an essential item. This must state the need for the proposed volume by:

(i) stating the advances provided by the papers in relation to existing knowledge,

(ii) any novelty provided by the papers, and

(iii) the common theme(s) that make the papers a coherent set.

6. A proposed time schedule for

(i) when the first submission will come?

(ii) submission deadline for all expected manuscripts,

(iii) completion of the review and revision process (i.e. the date when all papers are accepted for publication).

7. Outline of any review papers.

8. Please confirm that the proposed special issue does not overlap with any other project that is either accepted or proposed with any other journal. If you have any doubts, please provide details.

All proposals will be thoroughly considered, however, please note that the editors may ask for modifications to any proposal or reserve the right to decline a proposal if they see fit.

Thank you for considering this journal for your project; the editors look forward to receiving your proposal.

1. Publication online, please note: In the event that papers for the issue are accepted for publication after peer review, they are published in the online (Science Direct) edition of the journal within approximately 3 weeks of acceptance. At that point they are part of the citable literature. The actual collation of the collection of papers into the hardcopy volume follows later. Manuscripts thus do not wait for the last paper of the volume to be accepted and are thus more-or-less immediately available for use by the community after acceptance.

2. Authors may of course make unlimited use of colour figures in the online (Science Direct) edition of the journal.

3. Please refer to the journal’s Guide for Authors for matters such as manuscript formating and colour figures.

Please ensure that authors select the correct manuscript type when they are uploading their submission, and additionally mention the name of the thematic issue within their covering letter. Authors should be aware that an invitation to contribute a manuscript to a special issue is not a guarantee of acceptance – around 50% of manuscripts submitted to the journal are rejected, with a significant proportion rejected without review.

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