Earth and Planetary Science

For Authors

Submission Process                           Submission Preparation Checklist
Required Documents                          Types of Publications
Structure of Main Manuscript             Copyright Notice 
Article Processing Charges (APC)

Submission Process

Manuscripts for Earth and Planetary Science should be submitted online after logging in with your username or by email to eps@nassg.org.

If this is your first time submitting to this journal, please select the Register option. If you already have an account with this journal, kindly utilize your registered username and password to login for submission of a new manuscript or tracking of your manuscript.

The submitting author, who is generally the corresponding author, is responsible for the manuscript during the submission and peer-review process. The submitting author must ensure that all eligible co-authors have been included in the author list and that they have all read and approved the submitted version of the manuscript. 

Don't forget to add your ORCiD ID during the submission process. It will be embedded in your published article.

Don't have one yet? It only takes a few moments to register for a free ORCiD identifier.

Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

• The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
• The topic of your manuscript is consistent with the Aims and Scope of the journal.
• Manuscript has been 'spell checked' and 'grammar checked'.
• All authors have read and understood the Copyright Notice section and other policies of the journal.
• Conflict of interest statement has been declared in the manuscript or cover letter.
• Provide 3-5 highlights of your manuscript to the editor.
• The submission format should be Microsoft Word or Latex. Click to download Microsoft Word template, click to download Latex template.
• Where available, DOIs or URLs for the references have been provided.
• The text is a single column instead of the double column; and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.

Preprint Policy

Preprints are manuscripts that have not yet undergone peer review and have been posted on a public preprint server. Preprints provide an opportunity for authors to receive feedback on their work before submission to a journal, help disseminate research findings quickly, and increase transparency in the scientific process.

The journal accepts submissions that have previously been posted as preprints. However, we require that authors disclose the preprint server where the manuscript was originally posted during the submission process. We encourage authors to update their preprints with a link to the final published article once it is available. This helps ensure that readers can access the most up-to-date and accurate version of the article.

Required Documents 

1. Cover Letter
2. Main Manuscript
3. Reference List
4. Supplementary Data/Information (if necessary)
   Supplementary figures, small tables, text, etc.

As supplementary data/information is not copyedited/proofread, kindly ensure that the section is free from errors, and is presented clearly.

Cover Letter

All articles should include a cover letter as a separate document. The cover letter should include:

• All authors' names and affiliations.
  * Meet the authorship criteria.
  * The corresponding author should be identified.
  * Provide the ORCID id of the authors.
  * Format: Department, University, Province/City/State, Postal Code, Country.   
                  ORCID:  https://orcid.org/0000-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx
• A brief description of the novelty and importance of the findings detailed in the paper.
• Statement that all authors have agreed to submit this manuscript to the journal, etc.

Highlights

Authors are requested to provide 3-5 highlights of their paper. The purpose of providing highlights of an article is to enable readers and reviewers to quickly and succinctly understand the main ideas and contributions of the paper, as well as to prepare for promotional use after publication. These highlights should highlight the novelty and importance of the article, while providing useful information so that potential readers can decide whether to further read the article.

Figures, Tables, and Equations

All figures and tables should be mentioned in the text and placed in their corresponding places instead of at the end of the text.

All figures and tables must have a brief title (also known as caption) that describes the entire figure without citing specific panels, followed by a legend, defined as a description of each panel. 

e.g.:

Figure 1. xxx

Figure 2. xxx

Table 1. xxx

Table 2. xxx

Figures and tables should be labeled closely below them and aligned to the center. Each data presentation type should be labeled as a Figure or Table, and its sequence should be in running order, separate from each other.

Equations should be aligned to the left and numbered in running order with their number in parenthesis (lower right corner), and please use the MathType add-on. Equations should be editable by the editorial office and not appear in a picture format.

Types of Publications

Earth and Planetary Science accepts a variety of article types and the main article types are listed below. If you have research that fits within our scope but does not fall into one of these categories, please contact us to discuss its suitability for publication.

• Research Article: These articles present original research findings and contribute significantly to the field's knowledge. They should include an abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, and conclusion. Research Articles are typically longer, providing detailed background information, thorough methodology, extensive results, and in-depth discussion.
• Review: Reviews offer a critical and comprehensive analysis of the current state of research on a specific topic. They summarize and synthesize existing research, identify trends and gaps, and provide recommendations for future research. Reviews are valuable for researchers seeking a thorough understanding of a particular field.
• Short Communication: Short Communications present brief and concise reports on novel and significant findings. They are suitable for reporting preliminary results, innovative methods, or interesting case studies that do not warrant a full-length article. Short Communications are typically shorter than Research Articles and include figures, tables, and references, following the same structure as a research article.
• Editorial: Editorials are non-peer-reviewed texts used to announce new journals, new editors-in-chief, special issues, or invited editorials. They are concise articles written by the journal's editors or invited experts, providing commentary or opinion on current issues, trends, or policies related to the journal's scope. Editorials aim to stimulate discussion and provide insights or perspectives on the field. These articles are generally short and do not include original research data.

Structure of Main Manuscript 

This document provides some guidelines to authors for submission to work towards a seamless submission process. While complete adherence to the following guidelines is not enforced, authors should note that following through with the guidelines will be helpful in expediting the copyediting and proofreading processes, and allow for improved readability during the review process.

The section titles given are for Research articles. Review articles and other article types have a more flexible structure. 

Title

The title should not exceed 50 words. Authors are encouraged to keep their titles succinct and relevant. Titles should avoid using uncommon jargons, abbreviations and punctuation.

Abstract

The abstract should be kept to a maximum of 300 words. It reports concisely on the main findings of the research. To this end, the abstract is structured in Background, Methods, Results and Conclusions, and Significance. Kindly ensure the abstract is self-contained and remains readable to a wider audience. For this reason, references are not allowed.

Keywords

Authors should also include 3-8 keywords after the abstract, separated by a semi-colon, avoiding the words already used in the title of the article.

Search for keywords in different academic journals and databases, and check if the search results include articles similar to the research topic. If not, the keywords are not commonly used in that field, and should be changed until search results encompass articles similar to the research topic.

Title, abstract, and keywords are very important for an article, which will be used for indexing purposes, so please be concise, clear, and attractive.

Section Headings

Section headings, sub-headings, and sub-subheadings should be differentiated by number. Please number the section headings (e.g., 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.) in boldface. Likewise, use boldface to identify subheadings too but please distinguish them from major headings using numbers (e.g., 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 2.2, etc.).

Introduction

This section usually uses the method of literature review to outline the background, current status, and unresolved problems of the field, thus highlighting the reasons and significance of the research, etc.

Materials and Methods

In this section, the methods used to obtain the results in the paper should be clearly elucidated. This allows readers to be able to replicate the study in the future. Authors should ensure that any references made to other research or experiments should be clearly cited.

Results

In this section, the results of the experiments conducted should be detailed. The results should not be discussed at length in this section.

Discussion

In this section, the results of the experiments conducted can be discussed in detail. Authors should discuss the direct and indirect implications of their findings, and also discuss if the results obtained reflect the current state of research in the field. Applications for the research should be discussed in this section. Suggestions for future research can also be discussed in this section. It should not be redundant or similar to the content of the results section. A combined Results and Discussion section is often appropriate. 

Conclusions

This section offers closure for the paper. An effective conclusion will need to sum up the principal findings of the papers, highlighting its importance and relevance, and its implications for further research.

Author Contributions

If there is more than one author for a paper, it is required to reflect the role(s) that each author played in the writing process. To do so, authors should prepare a brief paragraph that specifies their individual contributions. This section aims to confirm that each author has made a significant contribution to the article. In the case of a single author, there is no need to add author contributions.

Funding

Please add: "This research received no external funding" or "This research was funded by NAME OF FUNDER, grant number XXX". Check carefully that the details given are accurate and use the standard spelling of funding agency names at https://search.crossref.org/funding. Any errors may affect your future funding.

Acknowledgments

In this section, you can acknowledge any support given which is not covered by the author contribution or funding sections. This may include administrative and technical support, or donations in kind (e.g., materials used for experiments).

Data Availability Statement

Authors should state where data supporting the results reported in a published article can be found, and under what conditions the data can be accessed. They also include links (where applicable) to the data set. 

Conflict of Interest

Declaration of conflict of interest. All conflict of interest needs to be disclosed. If authors have nothing to declare are encouraged to add "The authors disclosed no conflict of interest." in this section.

References

In-text citations

For parts of the manuscript that have referenced a particular source, a superscript (i.e., [x]) should be included next to the referenced text and should be in the Vancouver style [numeric], not Harvard style [name and year]. Kindly note that all references should be numbered consecutively in the order of their first citation, and the serial number is not to be used instead of the content of the sentence.

e.g.:

Wavelet analysis has long been successfully used in the study of climate series ^[1].
Fabio ^[2] studied both technical and scale...

Reference list, placed at the end of the main manuscript.
[x] refers to the allocated number of the source under the Reference List (e.g., [1], [2], [3])

e.g.:
Journals:
[1] Singh, S., Nayak, S., 2020. Development of sustainable livelihood security index for different agro-climatic zones of Uttar Pradesh, India. Journal Of Rural Development. 39(1), 110–129. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25175/jrd/2020/v39/i1/125991
[2] Mondal, B., Singh, A., Singh, S.D., et al., 2017. Augmentation of water resources potential and cropping intensification through watershed programs. Water Environment Research. 90(2), 101–109. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2175/106143017X1490296 8254700

Books:
[3] Zotz, G., 2016. Plants on plants: the biology of vascular epiphytes, 1st ed.; Springer International Publishing: Switzerland. pp. 1–282.

Online publishing:
[4] Lewis, D., Mertens, K., Stock, J., 2020. Weekly Economic Index. Retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WEI. (Accessed 26 May 2020).