Author Guidelines

AIM AND SCOPE OF THE JOURNAL

Chemistry of the Total Environment (COTE) is an open access, international and peer-reviewed journal established by Glintplus. The Journal aims to foster effective communication and promote the understanding of significant chemical interactions in the environment, which includes, but not limited to, the ecosphere and the technosphere. COTE seeks to publish original and novel findings online, with a focus on themes within the following categories:

• the fate and exchange of contaminants;
• mechanisms of exposure to pollutants;
• health and ecological effects of environmental pollutants;
• remediation and management of potentially harmful chemicals in the environment.

These themes can be from any of, or combination of, the environmental disciplines, such as aquatic environment, atmospheric environment, biomonitoring and biomarkers, emerging contaminants, environmental analysis and methods and environmental chemistry. Manuscripts from other areas of environmental studies like environmental catalysis and nanomaterials, environmental health and toxicology, environmental nanotechnology, environmental remediation and management and terrestrial environment are welcomed, also.

We implore authors to read our Editorial and Privacy Policies.

PREPARATION OF YOUR PAPER

Call for Paper

Authors with original research or review articles, which have not been previously published (except for published abstracts, lectures or academic thesis), are invited to submit their manuscripts to COTE for publication. Do not submit manuscripts under consideration elsewhere to the Journal. Likewise, do not submit articles published by COTE elsewhere in any form or any other languages without the written consent of the copyright holder.

Language

This journal publishes articles in English (either American or British English, but not a mixture of both) language, only. Please, avoid any kinds of assumption about readers' professionalism and understanding while preparing your manuscript. Also, avoid any discrimination language and tone. Any forms of writing bias, for example by confusingly using gender pronouns as in 'he or she', 'he/she' instead of 'he' or 'she'; job title as in 'spokesman' instead of 'spokesperson', 'policeman' instead of 'police officer'; unclear referent like 'it', 'us', 'them', and the use of ‘the former’ and ‘the latter’ should be checked appropriately.

Arrangement and Format

We encourage authors to use Times New Roman, 12-point, and double-line spacing throughout the manuscript. Also, use margins of at least 2.5 cm (or 1 inch) for all sides, and importantly, align text to the left, and do not hyphenate words. Use boldface, italics (instead of underline), subscripts and superscripts where necessary. Prepare table using only one grid for tables and not a grid for each row. Save your manuscript in any of the editable (preferably, DOC, DOCX or RTF) formats before submission. Please, add line numbers and set the numbering mode to continuous before submitting. Submit only editable manuscript files.

Article Structure and Presentation

Title page and components

Title: Choose a concise and informative title that is void of abbreviations (if possible), ambiguities and idle words.

Authors’ names and affiliations: Below the title, present the names of the authors, starting with the first name, initials of other names and then the surname. Indicate all affiliations with superscript letters immediately after the author's surname and in front of the corresponding addresses of the affiliated institutions, listed below the names. Provide the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name. Indicate the corresponding author who will handle correspondence at all stage with an asterisk (*).

Precious A. M. Smith^a, Taiwo H. Awolowo^b*, Julio D. Ribeiro^a

^a Institute of Biology, University of the People, California, 91101, United States, ^b Institution of Chemistry, University of Brasília, 70910-000 Brasília - DF, Brazil

Graphical abstract: Authors are encouraged to summarise their main findings in a pictorial diagram that can enhance quick grabbing of the main information of the study by the readers. Graphical abstract can also be a simple, but concise, pictorial representation of the study objectives or any useful concept covered by the research work. In case of using data, present them logically from the top or left to bottom or right, respectively. Set its size to 600 x 1256 pixels (or keep aspect ratio in case of a larger image) and save preferably in TIFF, JPEG, PDF or MS Office file. Resolution of TIFF and JPEG files should not be less than 300 dpi.

Abstract: A concise and factual abstract that briefly states the objectives of the research, the methods used, the main results and the main conclusions in not more than 250 words is required. An abstract is a separate section that can stand alone and represent the article. Hence, do not use references, but, if essential, only cite the author(s) and year. In addition, avoid non-standard or uncommon abbreviations, but if necessary, define them at their first mention in the abstract itself.

Highlights: Highlights enhance discoverability of papers in search engines; hence, three to four bullet points of the findings of your research and/or methods are required. They should be brief (not more than 85 characters including spaces each) and include searchable terms experts.

Keywords: Give keywords between four and five words and/or phrases that have a link with the study described in the manuscript. 

Abbreviations: Define all non-standard abbreviations, in the field of environmental science and technology, used in the paper, including abstract section, in the first page's footer.

Nomenclature and units

All terminologies and units should follow internationally accepted rules and conventions and conform to the international system of units (SI).

Section and Outlining

Divide your work into sections and subsections and number them coherently, 1.0, 2.0 and so on, excluding the abstract. Subsections should be numbered 1.1 (then 1.1.1, 1.1.2, ...), 1.2, etc. Each section and subsection must be given a brief heading and should appear on a separate line.

1.0 Introduction

Provide an adequate background (avoiding a detailed literature review or a summary of the results) and state the objectives of the research.

2.0 Material and Methods

Provide sufficient details so that other researchers can repeat the study independently. Methods that are already published should be summarized and indicated by a reference. While quoting method directly from a published paper, use quotation marks and cite the source. Endeavour to describe any modifications to existing methods in detail.

3.0 Results and Discussion

Clearly and concisely present the results of the study. Do exhaustively discuss the results and avoid repetitions.

Figures

To ensure uniqueness of figures, use a uniform font (any of Arial, Courier, Tahoma and Times New Roman) and font size in your artwork. Produce images of large-size, and convert it to, or save as, JPEG, TIFF or EPS formats, with a minimum resolution of 300 dpi. Submit figures Microsoft Office files (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) without conversion. Insert your images and number their captions sequentially immediately after the paragraph of its first mention in the text. Submit original size of all figures in a separate file. Caption all figures consecutively. Besides, do separate captions from the images. A caption should be a brief title and a description of the picture. Keep the illustrations concise but should explain all symbols and abbreviations used.

Tables

Tables should be numbered consecutively, with concise captions, immediately after the paragraph of its first mention. Place footnotes to tables below them and use a superscript of lowercase letters where necessary. Avoid vertical rules and duplication of results described in figures within the manuscript.

4.0 Conclusions

Conclude your study based on the data presented and give critical opinions with possible openings on further research. Do not introduce new data or exaggerate them in this section.

Acknowledgements

Authors may briefly acknowledge people or organizations who assisted in the manuscript preparation, funding for research, among others.

Funding

Briefly describe and acknowledge all financial supports for conducting the research and/or preparation of the manuscripts. In the declaration, state the funding identification details.

References

Use American Psychological Association (APA) reference style, 7^th edition, for both content citation and references listing.  In the content citation, use author's surname and year of publication; surnames of both authors and year where there are two authors, and in the case of three or more authors, only use the first author's last name plus "et al." and year. Use 'Unpublished results' or 'Personal communication' in place of the publication date for unpublished results and personal communications. Adopt examples given below for published articles and textbooks. Including 'in press' in references means that the source has been accepted for publication. Please list every reference cited in the text in the reference list and vice versa. Any references cited in the abstract must also be listed.

Published articles

Ahile, U. J., Wuana, R. A., Itodo, A. U., Sha'Ato, R., & Dantas, R. F. (2020, 2020/03/25/). A review on the use of chelating agents as an alternative to promote photo-Fenton at neutral pH: Current trends, knowledge gap and future studies. Sci. Total Environ., 710, 134872. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.134872

El-Aneed, A., Cohen, A., & Banoub, J. (2009). Mass spectrometry, review of the basics: electrospray, MALDI, and commonly used mass analyzers. Applied Spectroscopy Reviews, 44(3), 210-230. https://doi.org/10.1080/05704920902717872

Note: If DOI is not available and you can access the resources online, use the URL of the website.

Published books

Droste, R. L., & Gehr, R. L. (2018). Theory and practice of water and wastewater treatment. John Wiley & Sons. DOI (if available)

Work in an edited collection

Ekpete, O. A. (2013). Kinetic Methods of Analysis. In: Horsfall, M (Ed), Fundamental Principles of Analytical Chemistry (pp. 110-117). Soteria Publishing.

Supporting materials

Separately number supplementary materials, like formulae, equations, tables and figures, in appendices following the format: Eq. (s1), Eq. (S2), Table S1; Figure S1.

SUBMISSION

Submit your manuscript online. If you encounter any submission related issues, please contact the editorial office at help@glintplus.com.

Suggestion of Reviewers

Authors should download, fill and upload the suggest reviewers form to suggest at least three reviewers during online submission, providing their personal and contact information, including names, affiliations and e-mail addresses. The suggested reviewers must be from the same field of study, not from the same institution or department and not present or previous research guide of any of the authors, not collaborated with any of the authors in the recent time. The editorial team will decide the suitability of the suggested reviewers.

Declaration of Interests

Competing interest should be declared by downloading, filling and uploading the declaration of interest form. Disclose any relationship (financial or personal) with other authors or organizations that could inappropriately influence the work. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include employment, consultancies, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent-licensing arrangements, grants or other funds accessed, stock ownership, or other equity interest.

Checklist

Double-check your manuscript and ensure the following before submission:

1. authors’ details, including names and affiliations, are stated on the cover page. Indicate the corresponding author with an asterisk (*);
2. we have an unstructured abstract of not more than 250 words;
3. we already provided between 4 and 5 keywords;
4. we captioned all figures;
5. we have formatted all tables (including title, description, footnotes) properly;
6. the manuscript is already "spellchecked" and "grammar-checked";
7. we have provided funding details;
8. references are correctly formatted using APA style,
9. we have added line numbers, and used 'continuous' as the numbering mode;
10. we have listed all content cited references under "References" and vice versa;
11. we already obtained necessary permissions to use copyrighted material from other sources (including web contents);
12. names and affiliations of the authors, including the ‘document properties and personal information’, have been removed from the manuscript saved with “Manuscript without Author Details".

PEER REVIEW

This journal operates a double-blind review process; hence, submit TWO copies of the manuscript. In one of the manuscript documents, remove names and affiliations of the authors, as well as the document properties and personal information, and upload as "Manuscript without Author Details". An editor will first assess the submission for suitability. Manuscript potentially suitable will be sent to independent reviewers to check its scientific and language quality. The Editor makes the final decision regarding the acceptance or rejection of articles, based on the recommendations by reviewers, and promptly notify the corresponding author.

POST ACCEPTANCE

Galley Proofs

The corresponding author will receive a copy of the accepted manuscript (as PDF files) by e-mail or a link in the e-mail to allow the authors to download the galley proof. Authors are to check the arrangement and completeness of the contents’ text, tables and figures and notify the handling Editor in an e-mail, indicating the page and line number(s) of any corrections. In case of significant changes to the contents, the Editorial Board may recommend a reassessment of the manuscript before publication. Proofreading of an accepted paper is the sole responsibility of the authors; therefore, authors should carefully crosscheck ALL documents before sending them in a single communication.

Article Processing Fee (APF)

As an Open Access Journal, authors of an accepted paper are to make a one-time payment (OTP) of article processing fee of 100 USD. This fee covers all the processing costs including, but not limited to, peer review, copyediting, production of publishable files, online publishing and archiving of the articles. APF does not cover submission charges as submission to COTE is free of cost.

Discount and Waiver Policy

Discounts on APF are available for articles whose corresponding authors are based in countries classified by the World Bank as low-income and lower-middle-income economies as of July 2020. A partial or total waiver may be granted to an article singly authored by a PhD student. Please apply for a discount or waiver during the submission process, and a decision on the waiver will be made, under normal situation, within two working days. Discount or waiver requests made during the review process or after acceptance may not be considered.