Author Guidelines

Submission Types

Articles

Article must not exceed the limit of 7500 words. The word limit does not include the title page, abstract, significance statement, data availability statement, references, captions, tables, and figures. If a submission exceeds the word limit, the author must provide a justification for the length of the manuscript and request the Chief Editor’s approval of the overage. This request may be made in “Cover Letter”.

Reviews

Review articles include survey of previously published literature that may address successes, failures, and limitations. Requires review proposal.

Corrigenda

The corrigendum article type is available for authors to address errors discovered in already published articles.

Formatting and Manuscript Components

Formatting manuscript

Submissions to AASTEMER journals must follow the formatting requirements specified below.

Article Length

Submission must not exceed the limit of 7500 words. The word limit does not include the title page, abstract, significance statement, data availability statement, references, captions, tables, and figures.

Margins

Margins must be approximately one inch (2.5 cm).

Line Spacing

All text contained in the article body must have line spacing of 1.5, including the references. Figure and table captions can use single spacing to set them off from the article body text.

Paragraph Breaks

Indenting should be done to the first line of each new paragraph.

Page and Line Numbering

All submissions must include line numbering. Pages must be numbered sequentially. 

Font

Black text, Sized 12 pt. font.

Tables

All tables should have full captions in bold or italic font styles. 

Order of Manuscript Components

  • Title 
  • Author List (Full author names) 
  • Institution Address (Full institutional mailing addresses) 
  • Email address of corresponding author 
  • Abstract 
  • Keywords 
  • Introduction 
  • Materials and Methods 
  • Results 
  • Discussion 
  • Conclusions 
  • Acknowledgments 
  • References 
  • Supporting Information

Manuscript Components

Title

Author must select a title that grabs attention, accurately describes the contents of your manuscript, and makes people want to read further.

Author List

Institution Address

Abstract

The abstract is a summary of the content of the paper. Most readers only reads the abstract of manuscript, therefore, it has to be able to stand alone. Most of the indexing databases include only abstract of article. Therefore, it will be the most accessed part of any article; making a good impression will encourage researchers to read full article.

The abstract should answer following questions about article:

  • What was done? 
  • Why did you do it? 
  • What did you find? 
  • Why are these findings useful and important?

All AASTEMER journals have set maximum word count for abstracts to be 250 words, and citation-free. So that the full abstract appears in indexing services.

Keywords

Keywords help indexing services, search engines and readers find relevant papers.

To be effective, (between three to six) keywords must be chosen carefully. They should:

  • Represent the content of your article 
  • Be specific to field or sub-field of study under consideration

Introduction

The introduction of manuscript provide readers with the background information needed to understand the study undertaken, and the reasons why the choosen experiments are conducted. The introduction should answer the question: what question/problem was studied?

Citations used in the introduction should be current and relevant to the study undertaken.

Materials and Methods

Materials and methods section provides the reader with all the details of how study is conducted. 

While preparing this section:

  • Subheadings should be used to separate different methodologies 
  • Study should be described in the past tense 
  • New methods should be described in enough detail so that another researcher can reproduce the experiment 
  • Established methods should be described briefly, and references should be cited so that other readers can learn more details. 
  • All statistical tests and parameters should be stated 

Results Discussion

This section, simply state the findings of study, but do not interpret the results or discuss their implications.

Tables

The tables should be embedded in the body of the manuscript as close as possible to its first citation following a paragraph. The caption must be visually distinguished from the body text with single-spaced caption text, with 10.5 pt. font size captions. Each table must be cited specifically in the text and in numerical order, and have a caption directly above the table (without justification).

Figures

Figures should be embedded in the body of the manuscript as close as possible to its first citation following a paragraph. Each figure must include a full caption directly beneath the figure. The caption must be visually distinguished from the body text, with single-spaced caption text, with 10.5 pt. font size captions. Each figure must be cited specifically in the text and in numerical order.

Multiple-panel figures that will appear on a single page should be combined into a single file whenever possible. 

Conclusions

The conclusion of a article restates the main conclusions of the article, highlights its importance, summarizes authors arguments or findings, and discusses the implications.

Acknowledgments

Any financial or professional assistance to conduct the undertaken study should be briefly stated at the end of the manuscript before the references. Those who have made contribution to the research or manuscript, but not listed as an author, should be acknowledged (with their permission).

References

All the references must be placed together in a list at the end of the manuscript text. Unnecessarily long lists of references should be avoided, and excessive self-citation is not permitted.

References should be cited in numerical order (i.e. 1,2,3) in the text and be listed numerically in the reference list at the end of the article in references section.

References cited in the text should be presented in superscript

Multiple reference citations should be separated by commas 3, 5, 9 or by hyphens if numbers are sequential 7-11

Reference citations within figures and tables (or their legends) should be listed in the reference list

References in the reference list should include: 1. author names 2. article title 3. year of publication 4. volume and issue 5. page numbers 6. DOI

Example references

Journals

Wurthner, F. Perylene Bisimide Dyes as Versatile Building Blocks for Functional Supramolecular Architectures. Chem Commun 2004, 1564–1579.

Huang, C.; Barlow, S.; Marder, S. R. Perylene-3,4,9,10-Tetracarboxylic Acid Diimides: Synthesis, Physical Properties, and Use in Organic Electronics. J. Org. Chem. 2011, 76 (8), 2386–2407.

Yan, W.; Wang, D.; Feng, J.; Li, P.; Zhao, D.; Wang, R. Org. Lett. 2012,14, 2512−2515.

Books

Author’s Last Name, First Initial. Middle Initial. (Publication Year). Title of book (Volume Number/Edition). Publisher (pp. xxx).

Example

Joslyn, M. A. (1970). Methods in food analysis: physical, chemistry and instrumental methods of analysis (2nd ed.). New York: Academic Press 845.

Chapter in a book

Example

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Copyright year). Title of chapter. In A. A. Editor & B. B. Editor (Eds.), Title of book (Edition., pp. xxx–xxx). Publisher.

Conference proceedings

Example

Foidl, N., Makkar, H., & Becker, K. (2001). The Potential of Moringa oleifera for agricultural and industrial uses. In Procedings of the 1st Workshop what development potential for moringa products. Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Supporting Information

Supporting information (If any) must be submitted at the time of manuscript submission.

Supporting information such as figures, tables, raw data and methodology statements, may be submitted.

Content of the Supporting information should be used to support and enhance the content of article.

Supporting information will only be published on an ‘as supplied’ basis and author will be responsible for proofing the content and for ensuring that the style and formatting of your content is consistent with the corresponding manuscript. 

Supporting information may be submitted in PDF file format. The file should be designated “Supplemental Information [Description]”. 

Examples of properly designated file: “Supporting Information: 1H NMR spectra for all compounds”

Examples of improperly designated file: “Supporting Information: “Additional figures and tables as mentioned in the text”.

Data availability

Authors are required to include a “Data Availability Statement” in a separate section to inform the reader where the data associated with a paper are available, and how and under what conditions (if any) the data can be accessed. Include a list of the repositories along with associated persistent digital object identifiers (DOIs), if applicable. If the data can not be released, it should clearly outline the reasons why unavailable data cannot be made available.