Dalton Transactions

Communications

Target audience and purpose:
Preliminary accounts of original and significant work of such importance or novelty that rapid publication is justified may be published in Communication form.

Authors should provide in a covering letter a justification as to why they feel that publication of their work as a Communication is warranted.

Length:
Communications should be between 1,500 and 2,500 words (about four typeset pages), excluding references, and may include one table and up to four figures. Additional tables and figures may be included in the article’s Supplementary Information (SI). The use of the RSC Communications template for preparing your article is encouraged.

Full papers

Target audience and purpose:
Full papers contain original and significant work that has not been published previously.

Full papers based upon Communications are welcome, provided that they represent a substantial amplification and extension of the original material.

Length:
There are no restrictions on the length of a Full Paper.

Perspectives

Target audience and purpose:
Perspectives are short, readable review articles covering current areas of interest for an inorganic chemistry audience; they may take the form of a critical analysis of activity in a specialist area.

Since the readership of Dalton Transactions is wide-ranging the article should be easily comprehensible to a non-specialist in the field, whilst at the same time providing an authoritative discussion of the area concerned.

Authorship:
Perspectives are normally invited by the Editorial Board, however suggestions are welcome and enquiries, along with a brief synopsis and author credentials, should be directed to the Editorial Board at Dalton-rsc@rsc.org. Readers may nominate themselves, or others, to write a Perspective.

Unpublished data:
Perspectives should not include new or unpublished original research or data but may summarise previously-published studies and draw some conclusions, but should not present new information on the subject. Figures included in a Perspective should either be original or reproduced from other sources with the necessary approvals granted prior to publication.

Length:
By their nature Perspectives are not comprehensive reviews of a field of chemistry and are typically no more than 10,000 words in length (about 18 typeset pages), excluding references.

Tutorial Reviews

Target audience and purpose:
Tutorial Reviews introduce readers to a concept or methodology at the forefront of inorganic chemistry research. These articles should have particular appeal to early career researchers as well as established researchers seeking new fields to explore.

Concept-focused Tutorial Reviews should provide a solid introduction to the development of a subject, the latest breakthrough results and their implications for the wider scientific community. Methodology-focused Tutorial Reviews should seek to provide guidance on performing techniques valuable in contemporary inorganic chemistry, as well as establishing a consistent set of best practices.

Tutorial Reviews should be written using jargon-free language and avoiding highly-specialised terms, enabling readers to understand specialised techniques for future application.

Tutorial reviews should include a 'key learning points' box, containing up to five points that a reader should expect to gain from reading the review. These should be provided on submission, either at the beginning of the review or as a separate document.

Tutorial Reviews undergo the same rigorous initial assessment and peer review process as primary research articles.

Authorship:
Tutorial Reviews are normally invited by the Editorial Board, however suggestions are welcome and enquiries, along with a brief synopsis and authors credentials, should be directed to the Editorial Board at Dalton-rsc@rsc.org. Readers may nominate themselves, or others, to write a Tutorial Review.

Authors are asked to provide a short (100 word) biography and a photo to accompany the Tutorial Review. In the case of multiple authorship, the biography should not exceed 200 words in length.

Unpublished data:
Tutorial Reviews should not include new or unpublished original research or data but may summarise previously-published studies and draw some conclusions but should not present new information on the subject. Figures included in the Tutorial Review should either be original or reproduced from other sources with the necessary approvals granted prior to publication.

Length:
Tutorial Reviews should be no more than 15,000 words in length (about 25 typeset pages), excluding references, but may be longer if the depth or complexity of the technique or method necessitates.

Frontiers

Target audience and purpose:
Frontiers are short review articles that highlight recent important new developments in all areas of inorganic and organometallic chemistry, including biological inorganic chemistry and solid-state inorganic chemistry. They should explain the significance of these developments and identify where further work is urgently required or where challenges are still faced.

Frontiers articles can be short, personal accounts of a new area of research and can be speculative in nature, putting a new area in perspective.

Authorship:
Frontiers are normally invited by the Editorial Board, however suggestions are welcome and enquiries, along with a brief synopsis and author credentials, should be directed to the Editorial Board at Dalton-rsc@rsc.org. Readers may nominate themselves, or others, to write a Frontiers article.

Unpublished data:
Perspectives should not include new or unpublished original research or data but may summarise previously-published studies and draw some conclusions, but should not present new information on the subject. Figures included in a Frontier should either be original or reproduced from other sources with the necessary approvals granted prior to publication.

Length:
Frontiers should be approximately 3,000-4,000 words in length (about seven typeset pages), excluding references, although this may vary slightly depending on the nature of the article. Dalton Transactions Perspective articles are a more appropriate format for longer review articles. Please see the Perspective article guidelines for more information.

Comments

Target audience and purpose:
Dalton Transactions offers Comments and Replies as a medium for the discussion and exchange of scientific opinions between authors and readers concerning material published in the journal.

Comments should present an alternative analysis of and/or new insight into the previously published material. Any Reply should further the discussion presented in the original article and the Comment. Comments and Replies that contain any form of personal attack are not suitable for publication.

Comments that are acceptable for publication will be forwarded to the authors of the work being discussed, and these authors will be given the opportunity to submit a Reply. The Comment and Reply will both be subject to rigorous peer review in consultation with the journal’s Editorial Board where appropriate. The Comment and Reply will be published together.

Length:
There are no restrictions on the length of a Comment, but they should be kept as concise as possible.

Inorganic and organometallic compounds

A new chemical substance (molecule or extended solid) should have a homogeneous composition and structure. Where the compound is molecular, authors must provide data to unequivocally establish its homogeneity, purity and identification. In general, this should include elemental analyses that agree to within ±0.4% of the calculated values.

Elemental analyses

In cases where elemental analyses cannot be obtained (for example, for thermally unstable compounds), justification for the omission of this data should be provided. Note that an X-ray crystal structure is not sufficient for the characterisation of a new material, since the crystal used in this analysis does not necessarily represent the bulk sample. In rare cases, it may be possible to substitute elemental analyses with high-resolution mass spectrometric molecular weights. This is appropriate, for example, with trivial derivatives of thoroughly characterised substances or routine synthetic intermediates.

Relevant spectroscopic data

In all cases, relevant spectroscopic data (NMR, IR, UV-vis, etc.) should be provided in tabulated form or as reproduced spectra. These may be relegated to the electronic supplementary information (ESI) to conserve journal space. However, it should be noted that, in general, mass spectrometric and spectroscopic data do not constitute proof of purity, and, in the absence of elemental analyses, additional evidence of purity should be provided (melting points, PXRD data, etc).

Evidence of bulk homogeneity

Where the compound is an extended solid, it is important to unequivocally establish the chemical structure and bulk composition. Single crystal diffraction does not determine the bulk structure. Referees will normally look to see evidence of bulk homogeneity.

A fully indexed powder diffraction pattern that agrees with single crystal data may be used as evidence of a bulk homogeneous structure and chemical analysis may be used to establish purity and homogeneous composition.

Material performance comparisons

Where a manuscript is reporting inorganic materials for electrochemical or photocatalytic applications (e.g. batteries, supercapacitors, dye degradation, etc), we strongly encourage and may require authors to include material performance comparisons against state-of the-art literature in the field. Comparison data which showcases the novelty and impact of the study over existing literature is considered particularly relevant.