Questions Archive - Page 73 of 83 - IOPscience

Article structure

You should consider the best way to structure your article before you begin writing. If you wish to use a LaTeX template to format your manuscript (this is optional, you are not obliged to do so) then the files are available in zipped format and Unix tar gzipped format here. Your article should follow the Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion system, and usually consist of the following sections:

Title

The title should be concise, informative and meaningful to the whole readership of the journal. It should include key terms, to help make it more discoverable when people search online. Please avoid the use of long systemic names and non-standard or obscure abbreviations, acronyms or symbols.

Authors

Check the peer review model for the journal you are submitting to when preparing the PDF version of your manuscript. If double-anonymous then you will need to anonymise your manuscript. If single-anonymous then you need to list all authors’ full names and institutions. Authors in all IOP journals have the option to include names in Chinese, Japanese or Korean characters in addition to the English name. The names will be displayed in parentheses after the English name. During the submission process, we recommend you supply ORCID identifiers for all authors to avoid ambiguity. If an author’s current address is different from the address where the work was carried out, this should be explained in a footnote or acknowledgement. We encourage authors to make specific attributions of contribution and responsibility in the acknowledgements of the article, otherwise all co-authors will be taken to share full responsibility for all of the paper. Authors may wish to use a taxonomy such as CRediT to describe the contributions of each author. More guidance on authorship, including the responsibilities of the corresponding author, can be found here.

Keywords

When you submit an article, you will be asked to supply some keywords relevant to your work. If your article is accepted for publication, we will display these keywords on the published article, and they will be used to index your article, helping to make it more discoverable. When choosing keywords, think about the kinds of terms you would use when searching online for related articles.

Abstract

Your abstract should give readers a brief summary of your article. It should concisely describe the contents of your article, and include key terms (especially in the first two sentences, to increase search engine discoverability). It should be informative, accessible and not only indicate the general aims and scope of the article, but also state the methodology used, main results obtained and conclusions drawn. The abstract should be complete in itself; it should not contain undefined acronyms/abbreviations and no table numbers, figure numbers, references or equations should be referred to. Articles relying on clinical trials should quote the trial registration number at the end of the abstract. The abstract should be suitable for direct inclusion in abstracting services and should not normally be more than 300 words. If you submit an article with an abstract longer than 300 words, we may rescind the manuscript and ask you to re-write it. Some journals ask for abstracts to follow a particular structure. Check the instructions for specific journals to see if you need to submit a structured abstract.

Introduction

This should be concise and describe the nature of the problem under investigation and its background. It should also set your work in the context of previous research, citing relevant references. Introductions should expand on highly specialised terms and abbreviations used in the article to make it accessible for readers.

Method

This section should provide sufficient details of the experiment, simulation, statistical test or analysis carried out to generate the results such that the method can be repeated by another researcher and the results reproduced.

Results

The results section should detail the main findings and outcomes of your study. You should use tables only to improve conciseness or where the information cannot be given satisfactorily in other ways such as histograms or graphs. Colour should not be used in tables, if you need to denote different things in a table then you can use bold or italics etc. providing no coloured text or shading is included. Tables should be numbered serially and referred to in the text by number (table 1, etc.). Each table should have an explanatory caption which should be as concise as possible.

Discussion

This should discuss the significance of the results and compare them with previous work using relevant references.

Conclusion

This section should be used to highlight the novelty and significance of the work, and any plans for future relevant work.

Acknowledgements

Check the peer review model for the journal you are submitting to when preparing the PDF version of your manuscript. If double-anonymous then do not include any author names or institution information in the Acknowledgements section of your manuscript. Author names and Funding information should be removed and can be re-added later in the peer review process. For single-anonymous please include an acknowledgements section before the References section in your PDF manuscript.

During the submission process all authors and co-authors are required to disclose any potential conflict(s) of interest when submitting an article (e.g. employment, consulting fees, research contracts, stock ownership, patent licences, honoraria, advisory affiliations, etc). This information should be included in an acknowledgements section at the end of the manuscript (before the references section). All sources of financial support for the project must also be disclosed in the acknowledgements section. The name of the funding agency and the grant number should be given, for example: This work was partially funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) through a National Cancer Institute grant R21CA141833. When completing the online submission form, we also ask you to select funders and provide grant numbers in order to help you meet your funder requirements. We encourage authors to use the acknowledgements section of the article to make specific attributions of author contribution and responsibility, otherwise all co-authors will be taken to share full responsibility for all of the paper.

Ethical statement

Some articles will require an ethical statement, particularly those that are reporting research involving humans or animals. This should state if the research was approved by any ethical committee, and which national or international standards were complied with.

References

This section should be used to list all relevant work. More information on referencing. However, check the peer review model for the journal you are submitting to. If double-anonymous then when referring to thesis/unpublished work, please avoid identifying information. You should include non-identifiable information e.g. journal name, year etc...

If you need more information or guidance about any of the above then please contact the journal to which you are submitting.

Measurement Science and Technology: 2016 Reviewer Awards

Reviewer of the Year: Dr Jože Kutin, University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Slovenia

Working in fluid flow and pressure metrology—subjects that are also a feature of Measurement Science and Technology—Dr Jože Kutin will accept an invitation to referee if the paper corresponds to his field of expertise, interest and ability to meet the review schedule.

When reviewing, Dr Kutin looks for the paper’s central idea and whether it takes into account already-available findings in the scientific literature. He lays stress upon the correctness of the research methodology and the results, as well as clarity in the presentation.

According to Dr Kutin, refereeing is a form of cooperation between researchers; and, as a reviewer, he feels he is contributing to the quality of presented scientific papers and, consequently, to a positive development of his research field.

Overall, Dr Kutin believes that the current peer-review process is good in journals with editorial advisory boards and structured reviewer databases comprising highly qualified professionals. It is important that papers are reviewed by experts, he says, who are able to provide a critical judgement about the authors’ research contribution.

His advice to first-time reviewers is to bear in mind that remarks should be clearly argued and supported by objective evidence. In this way, authors will be more amenable to making corrections, increasing the likelihood of valuable discussions.

Outstanding Reviewers:

Professor Massimiliano Avalle, Politecnico di Torino, Italy
Dr M Bakker, Technische Universiteit Delft, Netherlands
Mr Qingzhong Cai, Beihang University, China
Dr Ayan Chakrabarty, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, United States
Dr Valeri Chikovani, Natsional’nij aviatsiynyi universitet, Ukraine
Dr Sejong Chun, Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science, Republic of Korea
Dr Mark Clarkson, Callaghan Innovation, New Zealand
Dr Moises Cywiak, Centro de Investigaciones Opticas, Mexico
Professor Paulo de Brito Andre, Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal
Professor Richard Dewhurst, The University of Manchester, UK
Dr G Dimitrakis, University of Nottingham, UK
Dr Gerrit Elsinga, Technische Universiteit Delft, Netherlands
Dr Ruimin Feng, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, United States
Dr Noriyuki Furuichi, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, National Metrology Institute of Japan, Japan
Professor Patrick Gane, Omya AG, Switzerland
Professor John Girkin, Durham University, UK
Dr Adam Glowacz, Akademia Gorniczo-Hutnicza im Stanislawa Staszica w Krakowie, Poland
Dr Gregor Goett, Leibniz Institut fuer Plasmaforschung und Technologie, Germany
Dr Rainer Hain, Universitat der Bundeswehr Munchen, Germany
Dr Han Haitjema, Mitutoyo Research Centre Europe, Netherlands
Dr Peter Harris, National Physical Laboratory, UK
Dr Kenichi Hibino, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology Ibaraki, Japan
Dr Udo Kaatze, Universitaet Goettingen, Germany
Mr Hyoungsoo Kim, Princeton University, United States
Dr Ludger Koenders, Physikalisch – Technische Bundesanstalt, Germany
Professor D Koon, St Lawrence University, United States
Dr R Koops, VSL Dutch Metrology Institute, Netherlands
Dr Christine Kranz, Universitaet Ulm, Germany
Dr Nicolas Lammens, UGent, Belgium
Professor Sang Joon Lee, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Republic of Korea
Dr Xiang Li, Xidian University, China
Dr Xianming Liu, Chongqing University, China
Dr Guigen Liu, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, United States
Dr Jiazhen Lu, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China
Dr Andrew Malcolm, Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology, Singapore
Dr A Martinez Olmos, Universidad de Granada, Spain
Dr Jimmie Miller, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, United States
Dr M Mohd Noor, The University of New South Wales, Australia
Dr Arden Moore, Louisiana Tech University, United States
Dr Jody Muelaner, University of Bath, UK
Professor Dr Yuichi Murai, Hokkaido University, Japan
Dr Tuck Ng, Monash University, Australia
Dr Roberto Olmi, CNR – Istituto di Fisica Applicata ‘Nello Carrara’, Italy
Professor Chansik Park, Chungbuk National University, Republic of Korea
Professor Lihui Peng, Tsinghua University, China
Dr Stefan Persijn, VSL, Netherlands
Dr Steven Phillips, National Institute of Standards and Technology, United States
Dr Primoz Podrzaj, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Dr Igor Prikhodko, Analog Device Inc., United States
Professor Agustin Salazar, Universidad del Pais Vasco – Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea, Spain
Dr Silvia María Satorres Martínez, University of Jaen, Spain
Dr Frank Scholze, Physikalisch – Technische Bundesanstalt, Germany
Dr Liang Shu, Wenzhou University, China
Dr Joel Silver, Southwest Sciences Inc., United States
Professor Allan Spence, McMaster University, Canada
Professor Jo Spronck, Technische Universiteit Delft, Netherlands
Dr Alexandr Stupakov, Institute of Physics ASCR, Czech Republic
Dr Yang Su, PLA University of Science and Technology, China
Dr Osamu Terashima, Toyama Prefectural University, Japan
Dr M van Veghel, VSL, Netherlands
Dr Dong Wang, City University of Hong Kong, China
Dr Peng Wang, Tianjin University, China
Professor Fei Wang, Southern University of Science and Technology, China
Mr Xiaoyi Wang, Beijing University of Technology, China
Professor Mi Wang, University of Leeds, UK
Dr William Wang, University of Sussex, UK
Dr Xin Wang, Northwestern University, United States
Dr Richard Whalley, Newcastle University, UK
Professor Michal Wieczorowski, Poznan University of Technology, Poland
Mr B Wieneke, LaVision GmbH, Germany
Dr Cheng Xie, Schlumberger Cambridge Research Centre, UK
Professor Dr Guan Xu, Jilin University, China
Dr Hua Yan, Shenyang University of Technology, China
Dr Wang yanqing, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Academy of Opto-electronics, China
Dr Wuliang Yin, The University of Manchester, UK
Professor Bernhard Zagar, Johannes-Kepler-Universitat Linz, Austria
Dr Yinan Zhang, Lumentum, United States

Language

All papers should be written in English.

Writing

Articles should be clearly and concisely written, and be accessible to an international audience. It is important to avoid colloquial terms and sayings that may not be widely understood. Short sentences and paragraphs make for easier reading. You should aim for consistency within your article in matters such as hyphenation and spelling. All acronyms and abbreviations should be clearly explained when they first appear in the text. Introduce any ideas that may be unfamiliar to readers early in the paper so that your results can be easily understood. IOP Publishing follows Guidelines on Inclusive Language and Images in Scholarly Communication to ensure that journal articles use bias-free and culturally sensitive communication. We ask authors to please follow these guidelines in their manuscript submissions.

Editing

On completion of the first draft, carefully re-read your paper and make any amendments that will improve the content. When complete, send the paper to colleagues and co-authors, and use their feedback to improve the clarity of the text. When all co-authors are satisfied that the draft is ready to be submitted to a journal, carry out one final spelling and grammar check before submission.

IOP Editing Services, in partnership with Editage, provides editorial support if you need it. We also have support for authors based in China with our China IOP Editing Services.

You can choose from a range of options, including:

English-language editing
Translation services
Plagiarism checking
Technical review.

Visit our language editing service to find out more.

Can I submit an article that has been posted as a Preprint?

IOP’s Preprint pre-publication policy allows authors to share a Preprint of their article anywhere at any time, subject to two restrictions.

This means that IOP will consider articles which have already been posted as a Preprint anywhere online, provided that (i) you did not and do not transfer (assign) ownership of its copyright, and (ii) you did not and do not grant an exclusive licence to it.

Additionally, IOP will also consider articles that have been included as a preprint in a thesis or dissertation, provided (i) you did not and do not transfer (assign) ownership of its copyright, and (ii) you did not and do not grant an exclusive licence to it.

Materials Research Express: 2016 Reviewer Awards

Reviewer of the Year: Dr Christopher Jeynes, University of Surrey, UK

Professor Chris Jeynes believes there is no perfect peer review method, but that however it comes we need it to discourage ‘bad’ papers and to improve ‘good’ ones.

He has some candid advice for reviewers (first-time and experienced), authors and editors alike. He says:

‘Reviewers: you are the gate-keepers! You must insist on sound arguments and data, informative titles, accurate abstracts, and fluent and masterly introductions. It is up to the author to persuade you that their research is both valid and valuable.

Authors: remember that reviewers are not God: it is good practice to argue your point! But also remember, it is your job to persuade reviewers—who are hard pressed for time—that your paper is worthy. You should conduct your own internal review before submitting it, and then welcome tough reviews since it is a paper’s legacy that is guaranteed by careful reviewers.

Editors: remember that your reviewers are not God, no one has a monopoly on truth just as no one is free from error! It is your job to oversee the peer review process so that better papers result. You should encourage creative argument between reviewers and authors!

In all this, of course sound science is essential, as is a good command of the literature. Reviewing papers that offer a coherent, timely, interesting and important story make it all worthwhile!’

Outstanding Reviewers:

Dr Mohd Yusri Abd Rahman, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Malaysia
Dr Rachid Baghdad, Universite Ibn Khaldoun de Tiaret, Algeria
Dr Debashis Bandyopadhyay, Birla Institute of Technology and Science Pilani, India
Dr Rajasekhar Bhimireddi, Indian Institute of Science, India
Dr R Bolmaro, Instituto de Física Rosario, CONICET, Argentina
Dr Gunther Brunklaus, Westfalische Wilhelms Universitat Munster, Germany
Dr Abhijeet Budruk, Intel Corp Hillsboro, United States
Professor Gloria Buendia, Universidad Simon Bolivar, Venezuela
Dr Yanping Cao, Tsinghua University, China
Professor Dr Jian Chen, Southeast University, China
Dr Houyang Chen, University at Buffalo – SUNY, United States
Dr B H Y Corcoran, University of Sydney, Australia
Dr Rodolfo Cruz-Silva, Shinshu University, Japan
Dr Albert Dato, University of California – Berkeley, United States
Professor Kentaro Doi, Osaka University, Japan
Dr Yong-Hua Duan, Kunming University of Science and Technology, China
Professor Jiyang Fan, Southeast University, China
Dr Martin Friak, Institute of Physics of Materials, Germany
Dr Fethullah Gunes, Izmir Katip Celebi University, Turkey
Professor Masataka Hakamada, Kyoto University, Japan
Dr Baoshan Hu, Chongqing University, China
Dr Chuan-Lei Jia, China University of Mining and Technology, China
Dr Shaohua Jiang, Bayreuth University, Germany
Dr Itaru Kamiya, Toyota Technological Institute, Japan
Professor Dong-Hau Kuo, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taiwan
Dr Jianmin Li, Zhejiang University, China
Dr Lingyan Liang, Chinese Academy of Sciences – Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, China
Dr Jinyun Liu, Chinese Academy of Sciences – Intelligent Machines Institute, China
Professor Chee Liu, National Taiwan University, Taiwan
Dr Enzhou Liu, Northwest University, United States
Dr Roberto López, UAEM, Mexico
Dr Magdalena-Valentina Lungu, National Institute for Research and Development in Electrical Engineering ICPE-CA, Romania
Dr Jie Ma, Tongji University, China
Dr M Mahdi, University Sains Malaysia, Malaysia
Mrs Sarita Mann, Panjab University, India
Dr Ambrose Melvin, NCL, India
Professor Dionysios Mouzakis, University of Athens, Greece
Dr Shaibal Mukherjee, Indian Institute of Technology – Indore, India
Dr Ghulam Murtaza, Government College University Lahore, Pakistan
Professor Li Nu, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China
Professor Alessio Perrone, Universita del Salento, Italy
Professor Kandasamy Prabakar, PUnited Statesn National University, Republic of Korea
Dr Kakarla Raghava Reddy, The University of Sydney, Australia
Professor Dr Erwan Rauwel, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia
Professor Guenter Reiss, Universitat Bielefeld, Germany
Professor Georgeta Salvan, Technische Universitat Chemnitz, Germany
Dr S M Sapuan, University Putra Malaysia, Malaysia
Dr Maheshwar Shrestha, Michigan State University, United States
Dr Piyush Solanki, Saurashtra University, India
Dr Marin Tadic, Institut za nuklearne nauke Vinca, Serbia
Dr L Tang, Academia Sinica, Taiwan
Dr Joseph P Thomas, Univ. of Waterloo, Canada
Dr M V Ulybyshev, University of Regensburg, Germany
Dr Guanglei Wang, Arizona State University, United States
Dr Hua Wei, Radiation Monitoring Devices, Inc, United States
Dr Humphrey Yiu, Heriot-Watt University, UK
Dr Nadia Zurba, Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal

Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter: 2016 Reviewer Awards

Reviewer of the Year: Dr Daniel Errandonea, Universidad de Valencia, Spain

Considering peer review a vital element of scientific professionalism, Dr Daniel Errandonea feels it his duty to contribute his time to refereeing and sees it as a means of maintaining high standards across journals such as Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter. In his opinion, peer review not only improves the quality of ‘good science’ but stops ‘bad science’ from being published.

Dr Errandonea gains much satisfaction from knowing that his scientific expertise is valued, and is pleased to have his efforts recognized by the Reviewer of the Year award. He takes the view that he is also an author, and understands that peer review is not a perfect process. He is wary of the possibility that original, pertinent research can be unnecessarily blocked or delayed, and advocates removing authors’ names from manuscripts in the interests of impartiality.

His advice to first-time reviewers is to ask for guidance from more experienced scientists and to follow journal guidelines—and not to take too long to respond.

When refereeing, Dr Errandonea looks for originality, high quality and reliable data, and rigorous science. He also considers the importance of the questions addressed and evaluates the implications of the conclusions. An article on iron oxides at high pressures—Computational searches for iron oxides at high pressures—springs to his mind, due to the authors’ interesting theoretical predictions.

Outstanding Reviewers:

Dr Joel Ager, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, United States
Dr Andres Aguado, Universidad de Valladolid, Spain
Professor Vladimir Ajaev, Southern Methodist University, United States
Dr Remi Arras, CEMES, France
Dr Elias Assmann, Technische Universitat Graz, Austria
Dr Remi Avriller, Universite de Bordeaux I, France
Professor Petre Badica, Institutul National de Cercetare – Desvoltare pentru Fizica Materialelor, Romania
Dr Yaroslaw Bazaliy, University of South Carolina – Columbia, United States
Professor Bogdan Bulka, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
Dr Giovanni Cantele, CNR, Italy
Professor Robert Cava, Princeton University, United States
Dr Wei Chen, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
Dr Yaomin Dai, Los Alamos National Laboratory, United States
Dr Pierre Dalmas de Reotier, SPSMS, France
Dr Fabrizio Dolcini, Politecnico di Torino, Italy
Professor Shuai Dong, Southeast University, China
Dr Manuel dos Santos Dias, Forschungszentrum Julich Peter Grunberg Institut, Germany
Dr Charles Downing, Universite de Strasbourg, France
Dr James Drewitt, University of Bristol, UK
Dr Chunhui Du, Harvard University, United States
Professor Morten Eskildsen, University of Notre Dame, United States
Dr Lucia Galisova, Technical University, Slovakia
Dr S Gallego, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Spain
Dr D Giuliano, Universita della Calabria, Italy
Dr Moshe Goldstein, Tel Aviv University, Israel
Dr Igor Golosovsky, Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute, NRC “Kurchatov institute”, Russia
Dr Quanmin Guo, University of Birmingham, UK
Dr Joel Helton, National Institute of Standards and Technology, United States
Professor Dr Joachim Hemberger, Universitat zu Koeln, Germany
Professor Shinya Hosokawa, Kumamoto University, Japan
Professor Qing-Miao Hu, Chinese Academy of Sciences – Institute of Metal Research, China
Professor Zi-Xiang Hu, ChongQing University, China
Dr Chen Huang, Florida State University, United States
Dr Ethirajulu Kannan, Birla Institute of Technology and Science – Goa Campus, India
Dr Pranchanan Khuntia, University of Paris-Sud 11, France
Mr Joon-Seok Kim, University of Texas at Austin, United States
Professor Tsuyoshi Kimura, Osaka University, Japan
Dr Tomasz Kostyrko, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland
Professor Peter Kratzer, Universitaet Duisburg-Essen, Germany
Dr Tom Lancaster, Durham University, UK
Dr Jing Li, Penn State Univeristy, United States
Dr Xiao Li, University of Texas at Austin, United States
Dr Zi Li, California State University Northridge, United States
Dr Jianmin Li, Zhejiang University, China
Professor Yang Li, Universidad de Puerto Rico – Recinto Universitario de Mayaguez, Puerto Rico
Dr Yong Liu, Ames Laboratory, United States
Dr Zhe Luo, Purdue University System, United States
Mr Eric Yue Ma, Stanford University, United States
Dr Roland Mathieu, Uppsala University, Sweden
Professor Yoshiaki Nakamura, Osaka University, Japan
Dr T Odagaki, Tokyo Denki University, Japan
Dr Lin Peng, Shanghai University of Electrical Power, China
Professor Julian Poulter, Srinakharinwirot University, Thailand
Professor Vlad Pribiag, University of Minnesota, United States
Dr Matt Probert, University of York, UK
Professor Dr Rui Qiao, Virginia Tech, United States
Dr Richard Qiu, The Ohio State University, United States
Professor Luciano Reatto, Universita degli Studi di Milano, Italy
Dr Clemens Ritter, Institut Laue-Langevin, France
Dr Kostas Sarakinos, Linkoping University, Sweden
Dr David Scanlon, University College London, UK
Dr Matthias Schmidt, University of Bayreuth, Germany
Professor Walter Selke, Rheinisch – Westfalische Technische Hochschule Aachen, Germany
Dr Igor Solovyev, National Institute for Materials Science, Japan
Dr Cheng Song, Tsinghua University, China
Professor Yan Song, Harbin Institute of Technology, China
Dr Pawel Strak, Institute of High Pressure Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
Dr Gloria Subias, CSIC-Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain
Dr Mengtao Sun, Chinese Academy of Sciences – Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, China
Dr Y Takagaki, Paul-Drude-Institut fuer Festkoerperelektronik, Germany
Dr Keisuke Takahashi, Hokkaido University, Japan
Dr Naoyuki Tateiwa, Japan Atomic Energy Agency, Japan
Dr Trevor Tyson, New Jersey Institute of Technology, United States
Professor Shin-ichi Uchida, The University of Tokyo, Japan
Mr Bernard van Heck, Universiteit Leiden, Netherlands
Dr Taras Verkholyak, Ukraine National Academy of Sciences – Institute for Condensed Matter Physics, Ukraine
Dr Andrew Walter, Brookhaven National Laboratory, United States
Dr Haijing Wang, Chevron Energy Technology Company, USA
Dr Yun-Peng Wang, University of Florida, United States
Dr Qun Wei, Arizona State University, United States
Dr D Wolverson, University of Bath, UK
Professor Toshishige Yamada, Santa Clara University, United States
Dr Li-Chang Yin, Tohoku University, Japan
Dr Kai Zhang, Yale University, United States
Professor Xiaoguang Zhang, University of Florida, United States
Professor Han Zhang, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Dr Taishan Zhu, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, United States
Dr Zhen Zhu, Michigan State University, United States
Dr Rok Zitko, Jozef Stefan Institute, Slovenia
Dr Elena Zvereva, M V Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia

What we look for in your article

If you are an early career researcher you may find our PDF guides (available in both English and Chinese) helpful.

You can also watch our guide on How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper

IOP Publishing (IOP) considers for publication in our journals articles that:

Report original science and add significantly to research already published

Are of interest to the community

Are scientifically rigorous

Have sound motivation and purpose

Have not been published previously in the peer reviewed literature

Are not under consideration for publication in any other peer reviewed journal or book available through a library or by purchase

Comply with our preprint pre-publication policy (see below), and

Comply with our ethical policy.

It is particularly important for you to consider whether you have enough new results before starting to plan and write a paper for submission to an IOP journal. Reporting incremental steps forward from previous work is usually not sufficient.

Articles based on theses for higher degrees may be submitted. You should take care to ensure that such articles are prepared in the format of a research paper, which is more concise than is appropriate for a thesis.

Articles reporting work that was originally presented at a conference may be submitted, provided these articles do not appear in substantially the same form in a conference proceeding and provided that the journal paper would add some new contribution. Again, you should ensure the format of a research paper is used. The article length should also be appropriate to the content. In case of doubt, please enquire with the relevant journal.

Reports that are not available to the general public are not regarded by IOP as prior publications. Many journals published by IOP consider a range of different article types in addition to regular research papers, including special issue articles, topical reviews, comments and replies. However, please check via the journal homepage that your article is of an acceptable article type and suitable scope before submission.

All articles are judged solely on their scientific merits. Unbiased consideration is given to all manuscripts offered for publication, regardless of whether or not the authors request publication on a gold open access basis and regardless of the race, gender, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, political philosophy, sexual orientation, age or reputation of the authors.

IOP Publishing reserves the right to refuse to publish any content that, in its opinion, could be deemed distasteful or illegal including, but not limited to, libellous, defamatory, offensive or hate speech.

We treat all submitted articles as confidential until they are published and they will only be shared with those reviewers, board members, editors and IOP staff who are directly involved in the peer review of the article. (An exception to this would be if it is felt necessary to share the article with additional external parties in order to investigate a possible breach of the ethical policy.)

Post-publication corrections to journal articles

If you notice an error in your published article, several courses of action are available:

A corrigendum

should be published when you (the author) have made an error in your article.

An erratum

should be published when we (IOP Publishing) have made an error in your article.

A post-publication change to the original article

can only be made where the error affects the discoverability, visibility and citability of the article. For example, corrections can be made to author names, titles and abstracts. We only allow changes to affiliations, footnotes and/or acknowledgments in order to meet the requirements of a funding body, or those related to legal issues. Please contact the journal email address to request changes in these categories.

If you have changed your name and would like to update previously published articles, please refer to our specific policy relating to name changes in the related links below, which includes instructions on how to make a request.

In the case of a corrigendum or erratum, the PDF of the correction article will be attached to the online version of the original article, and a link created between the corrigendum/erratum article and the original article to make readers and other users/systems aware of the correction.

When submitting a corrigendum, the article title should be in the following format: “Corrigendum: “original article title” (“original article reference”)”

If a post-publication change is made, the online version of the article will be replaced and a dated note added to highlight the amendment that was made. Please note that in some cases it will not be possible to also correct any print versions.

Please contact us in the first instance and we can provide guidance on the most suitable course of action. Please note you may be required to provide reasonable proof that you are the author of the article. The majority of post publication changes require agreement from all co-authors to proceed.

In cases where serious errors are identified, we may publish a retraction or expression of concern:

A retraction: should be published as a way to correct the scientific record by bringing fundamental flaws/errors in a paper to the attention of the readership. They are usually reserved for cases where there is clear evidence the findings are unreliable due to misconduct or honest error. When articles are retracted they are not removed from IOPScience, instead they are retained with a clear notice of retraction and bibliographic databases are notified, as per COPE guidelines.
An expression of concern: should be issued when concerns about publications have not been conclusively proven but are sufficiently serious to warrant warning potential readers.

My order is ‘Pending’. What does this mean?

Some orders require review and approval by IOP’s rights and permissions team, and you will be quoted a ‘TBD’ (to be determined) price. Please note that you will be provided with a full quote before being asked to pay, and you may accept or decline the order at this stage. The rights and permissions team aims to provide an initial response to all pending orders within two working days.

What if I am the author of the original article from which I wish to reuse content?

Importantly, if you are the original author of the content you wish to reuse, please ensure you select ‘Author of requested content’ from the drop-down list ‘Describe who will reproduce the content (person or entity)…’.