Prepare and submit your manuscript
Guidelines for book editors, book authors and chapter authors.
The following information gives advice and instructions on preparing a chapter or book and submitting it to us.
It is important that you adhere to the information on this page to ensure your manuscript is prepared and submitted to us correctly so that we are able to process and publish the book efficiently and on time.
On this page
Templates and sample documents
EndNote style file (Issues in Toxicology)
Format and layout
- The manuscript should be prepared in Microsoft Word. If you want to use a different application, please contact us to discuss this first.
- Text should use 2.0pt line-spacing.
- Punctuation and spelling must follow standard English practice. The use of either British or American English is acceptable, but must be used consistently.
- Standard IUPAC nomenclature should be used.
- SI units and symbols should be used.
- Abbreviations should be defined at first mention in the chapter and abbreviated thereafter. A list of abbreviations may be provided at the end of the chapter if necessary.
- Numbers with five or more digits should have spaces every three digits (eg 10 000, 2 000 000 – commas, eg 10,000, should not be used). Numbers with five or more decimal places should have spaces every three decimal places (eg 3.141 592 62).
- Units should be presented in inverse style (eg m s-1 and not m/s).
Chapter abstract
Each chapter will need a chapter abstract. The abstract is very important in promoting the book content. The abstract:
- should be a single paragraph of 50–200 words, briefly summarising the chapter
- will be present only in the HTML eBook version of the book, and not the print book (with the exception of the Issues in Environment Science and Technology series and some specialist periodical reports)
- must not contain any reference citations, figures or footnotes.
Headings
- The chapter text should be divided into sections with headings, as appropriate.
- For most of our books all main words within a heading should be capitalised.*
- No full point is needed at the end of a heading.
- Acknowledgement and reference sections should be at the end of the chapter, and these headings are not numbered.
- Headings should be numbered as follows (where X is the chapter number).**
- X Chapter Title
- X.1 Main Section Heading
- X.1.1 Sub Section Heading
- X.1.1.1 Lower Sub Section Heading
* Specialist Periodical Reports headings take sentence case.
** Specialist Periodical Reports and books in the Issues in Environmental Science and Technology series do not have chapter numbers. Section headings should follow the numbering: 1 Main Section Heading; 1.1 Sub Section Heading; 1.1.1 Lower Sub Section Heading.
Images
- Figures should be supplied at a resolution of 600 dpi or greater and at a final size of 20 x 12 cm. All common image file types are accepted, eg TIFF, JPEG, PNG, EPS, PDF.
- Photographs should be provided at the best resolution available (minimum 600 dpi) as TIFF, PDF or JPEG files.
- Figures should be supplied ready for printing, without further retouching or redrawing.
- Figures should be adequately labelled, and this must remain legible after reduction.
- Information not necessary to the discussion – for example, solvents or temperatures – should be omitted from legends.
- Avoid using long, complicated schemes or large figures as these may end up some distance from the textual discussion.
- Over-large schemes or blocks of structures will be reduced to fit the page so you will need to ensure that detail is not lost in reduction – for example, make sure that lines are thick enough to be visible after reduction, and only label significant atoms in ORTEP-style diagrams. Composite images should be limited to four individual parts.
- Figures must be cited in the text. The recommended location of a figure to appear should be indicated as follows: [Figure X.1 near here]
- Figures taken from internet sites are not usually of reproducible quality, and may also be copyright protected; the original authors should be contacted for a suitable file and permission.
- Figures should all be submitted as separate files and not embedded in the typescript (with the exception of ChemDraw files).
Image descriptions
Alternative text descriptions (usually short and long) are required for all non-text content (this does not include maths equations provided as editable text). Further information will be provided when the contract is issued.
Colour figures
Your contract will state whether the use of colour is allowed in the printed book or not. The use of colour figures will be considered only where scientifically necessary.
In the eBook version, any figures supplied in colour will appear in colour, regardless of whether the printed book is in colour or black and white. However, the same figure captions will be used in both the print and electronic version so refrain from mentioning colour in the caption.
Chemical structures and schemes
- Structures should be supplied as ChemDraw files.
- Structural formulae and reaction schemes should be named Scheme X.1, X.2, etc, and must be cited in the text.*
- The approximate positions in the text should be clearly indicated as follows: [Scheme X.2 near here]
- Recommended guidelines for drawing structures as as follows.
- Chain bond angle = 120°
- Fixed bond angle = 15°
- Bond length = 0.43 cm or 12.2 pt
- Bond width = 0.016 cm or 0.5 pt
- Bold bond width = 0.056 cm or 1.6 pt
- Double bond space = 20% of bond length
- Stereo bond width = 0.056 cm or 1.6 pt
- Hash spacing = 0.062 cm or 1.8 pt
- Captions/atom labels = Arial, 7 pt
* Specialist Periodical Reports and books in the Issues in Environmental Science and Technology series do not have chapter numbers, so schemes should be numbered 1, 2, 3 etc. (not X.1, X.2…).
Tables
- Tables should be supplied in Word format.
- Do not supply tables as image files or in Excel or PowerPoint.
- Tables should be single-line spaced.
- Footnotes in tables should be self-contained, labelled with superior lower-case letters, and listed as a block of text beneath the table.
- The table must be cited in the text.
- The approximate location of a table to appear should be indicated as follows: [Table X.5 near here]
Captions
- All figures and tables should have a caption.
- Items should be numbered as X.1, X.2, etc consecutively throughout the chapter.*
- Items should be referred to by their number in the text. Do not use phrases such as 'in the figure above' as the final placement of items may change during typesetting.
- If a figure has been previously published, the correct copyright information must be included in the caption as stipulated by the copyright holder.
- When writing the caption for a figure, please bear in mind that a figure may be black and white in the print book but appear in the electronic book in colour, so the caption must make sense for both situations. Your contract will state if the use of colour is allowed in the printed book or not.
- A list of all figure and table captions should appear at the end of the main text document only (the captions should not be provided elsewhere as well).
* Books in the Issues in Environmental Science and Technology series do not have chapter numbers, so items should be numbered 1, 2, 3 etc. (not X.1, X.2…).
Equations
- These should be set in Mathtype (or Word Equation Editor, where Mathtype is unavailable).
- They should be displayed on a separate line in the main text.
- They should be numbered consecutively throughout each chapter ((X.1), (X.2) etc) in parentheses at the right-hand side of the page.*
- Symbols for variables and physical constants should be italicised.
- Matrices and vectors should appear in bold.
* Specialist Periodical Reports and books in the Issues in Environmental Science and Technology series do not have chapter numbers, so equations should be numbered 1, 2, 3 etc. (not X.1, X.2…).
References
- References should generally be superscripted in the text (for example, one day.36 The next…). However, they should be baseline when cited in the following way: “this was reported in ref. 27”).
- CASSI Journal abbreviations should be used.
- For authors using EndNote, an EndNote style file is available above.
- A list of references in numerical order (following the Vancouver system) should appear at the end of the chapter. References should only appear once in the list. If the same source is cited more than once the reference number should be repeated.
- Books in the Issues in Toxicology series must also include the full article title and the full page range in the reference lists.
- References supplied in the Harvard (author/date) system will not be accepted. Please note that the Advances in Chemistry Education series is an exception to this rule.
Journal articles
A. Name, B. Name and C. Name, Journal Title, year, volume, first page.
When page numbers are not yet known, articles should be cited by DOI (Digital Object Identifier).
Example: T. J. Hebden, R. R. Schrock, M. K. Takase and P. Müller, Chem. Commun., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/C2CC17634C.
For books in the Issues in Toxicology series, you must also include the full article title and the complete page range.
Books
A. Name, B. Name and C. Name, Book Title, Publisher, Publisher's Location, edition, year.
Example: S. T. Beckett, Science of Chocolate, Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, 2000.
If you are referencing published conference proceedings, these should be cited as for a book.
Book chapters
A. Name, in Book Title, ed. Editor Name(s), Publisher, Publisher Location, edition, year, chapter, pages.
The ‘ed.’ in the example above stands for ‘edited by’. If the book has no editors this should be left out.
Theses
A. Name, PhD thesis, University Name, year.
Lectures, meetings and conferences
A. Name, presented in part at Conference Title, Place, Month, year.
Reference to unpublished material
You should not reference unpublished work without the permission of those who completed the work.
For material accepted for publication, but not yet published: A. Name, Journal Title, in press.
For material submitted for publication, but not yet accepted: A. Name, Journal Title, submitted.
For material that has yet to be submitted for publication: A. Name, unpublished work.
Online resources
This includes databases, websites and wikis.
Name of resource, URL, (accessed date).
Please note the most important information to include is the URL and the date accessed.
Example: The Merck Index Online, http://www.rsc.org/Merck-Index/monograph/mono1500000841, (accessed January 2016).
Preprint servers
Example: V. Krstic and M. Glerup, 2006, arXiv:cond-mat/0601513.
Patents
The name of the patentee must be given.
Example: A. Name, Br. Pat., 123 456, 2016. B. Name, US Pat., 1 234 567, 2015.
Software
Example: T. Bellander, M. Lewne and B. Brunekreef, GAUSSIAN 3 (Revision B.05), Gaussian Inc., Pittsburgh, PA, 2003.
Supplementary information (SI)
If you wish to provide additional content to accompany your chapter, for example extra figures, data tables or a video, we may be able to host this alongside the chapter files online. Please discuss this with your editorial contact prior to submission.
Please submit any SI files along with your manuscript, ensuring that they are clearly marked as SI. SI will be made available online at the same time as the ebook is published, or when the print book is published for print-only titles.
Submitting a manuscript
We use a cloud-based file transfer system that provides a secure means to upload large files.
As soon as you are ready to submit the final and complete manuscript, we'll send you a link to it. This link will have an expiry date so please let us know if you're not ready to send the typescript in.
All the folders for the book should be zipped into one single zip file before uploading.
How to create a zip file
In Windows Explorer, navigate to where the folders are that you want to zip; select all the folders. Right-click on the highlighted files, and select 'Send to' followed by 'Compressed (zipped) folder'.
In OSX, navigate to where the folders are that you want to zip; select all the folders. Right-click on the highlighted files, and select 'Compress Items'.
FAQs
The submission date we agree with you is used by our sales and marketing teams to help them plan their promotional strategies, and by our production team to help them plan their resources. It's therefore important that you adhere to your originally agreed deadline where possible.
If you encounter any difficulties, please get in touch with us as soon as possible so we can discuss a new schedule for the book.
You will need to submit the manuscript to us using our drop box system. If you have not yet received a submission link, please contact the editorial assistant responsible for your book or the books team.
We have a Manuscript submission checklist that you should complete and supply with your completed manuscript.
This depends on the type of book and your contribution to it. Conference proceedings are submitted to us as camera-ready copy, so proofs are not necessary. For further information please see how to prepare and submit your manuscript.
Please note that the proofing stage is to correct typographical errors, and we may not accept changes that are unnecessary and costly.
Chapter authors typically have one week to check their proofs before returning the corrections. Books authors will have two weeks to check their proofs.
Your book will be marketed globally to an appropriate audience through catalogues, emailing campaigns and conference attendances. We ask you to provide information on potential promotional opportunities – such as relevant societies and forthcoming conferences – to help us maximise the marketing of your book.
Most of our books are made available as eBooks (digial versions of books), via our own publishing platform or through one of our partners.
If you wish to cite your book we would advise including the DOI for the book from our eBook Collection, which can be found at the top of the webpage for your book. Each individual chapter also has a DOI, which can be found at the top of the webpage for that chapter.
If your book is not included in the eBook Collection, please reference it in the usual way, for example:
Kristopher A. Kilian in Mimicking the Extracellular Matrix, ed. Gregory A. Hudalla, William L. Murphy, Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, 2015, p. 161.
Royalty payments are made annually at the end of March for sales for the previous year.
Any payment that is due will be made by bank transfer directly into your bank account.
If you are unsure what royalties you are due, the percentage royalty rate is given in your Memorandum of agreement or your Letter of agreement.
Authors, editors and referees are entitled to a 25% discount on book orders and a 35% discount on books to which they have contributed. You can enter a discount or promotion code in 'My basket' when you confirm your order.
If you do not have a promotion code please contact us using the contact us form on this page.
