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The following instructions pertain to submissions to the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists’ electronic journals: The AAPS Journal and AAPS PharmSciTech.
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AAPS PharmSciTech
AAPS PharmSciTech (ISSN 1530-9932) is a peer-reviewed online-only journal published and owned by the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists. The journal's mission is to disseminate scientific and technical information on drug product design, development, evaluation and processing to the global pharmaceutical research community. The Journal is indexed by Medline, Index Medicus, and Chem Abstracts.
Editor-in-Chief, Lee E. Kirsch, Ph.D., oversees an international editorial board comprised of leading scientists in the pharmaceutical sciences. Dr. Kirsch is Professor of Pharmacy at the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy.
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AAPS PharmSciTech publishes Original Research Papers containing innovative, hypothesis-driven research that is supported by sound experimental design, methodology, and data interpretation; Brief Technical Notes that are limited in scope which must be of high quality, general interest, and sufficient importance to warrant publication; Expert Reviews, usually by invitation, in all areas of the pharmaceutical sciences on the advances in drug discovery, development, and therapy; Mini-Reviews which discuss a narrowly focused topic of recent experimental research, made accessible to researchers in other areas, and provide a critical yet balanced view of the topic; Rapid Communications for fast-breaking research updates or other news items; Regulatory Notes that provide a summary of regulatory decisions taken regarding a product and the rationale for regulatory decisions regarding that product; Editorial Commentary and Summaries, usually published by invitation only, which contain topical issues of public and scientific interest; and, Meeting Notices providing readers with information on upcoming AAPS or AAPS-affiliated meetings, including the title of the meeting, date and time, location, an outline and description of meeting topics, and a list of invited speakers.
Letters to the Editor is a forum for scientists to exchange views on previously published work in AAPS PharmSciTech.
All articles published in the journal will follow the Springer Online First production workflow, enabling publication on the SpringerLink website after receipt of author corrections to page proofs.
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AAPS uses Editorial Manager™ as its peer review tracking system. Manuscripts must be submitted online by the Corresponding Author to: www.editorialmanager.com/aapspt/. You may be required to register as a new user with Editorial Manager™ upon your first visit. Straightforward login and registration procedures can be found on the website. Editorial Manager™ allows authors to track the progress of manuscript review in real time. Detailed, step-by-step instructions for submitting manuscripts can be found on the website. Manuscripts must be created and saved in Microsoft® Office Word for Windows (Editorial Manager™ and AAPS cannot accommodate files created in the new Microsoft® Office Word .docx file format at this time). All correspondence regarding your manuscript must go through Editorial Manager™.
Can be accommodated and may contain highly interactive features or large databases. All authors are encouraged to take full advantage of the Web-only capabilities of online publishing, including 3-D, video, and interactive graphics. If a desired technical feature is not covered in the Author's Instructions, please contact the AAPS Editorial Office (AAPSPTsubmit@aaps.org) for assistance. All special features must be created by the Author.
Authors who wish to publish electronic supplementary material to their article (Excel files, images, audio/video files) must submit the supplementary files/materials with their manuscript submission via our online peer review tracking system.
Authors may identify uniform resource locators (URLs) for websites that provide the reader with additional information on the topic addressed in the manuscript. Although URLs are an important feature of electronic publishing, authors are encouraged to be selective in their choice of sites to include. Do not include URLs for web pages with newspaper or journal articles that will be removed or archived to another web page. Links to pharmaceutical manufacturers or other sources of product information are acceptable; however, providing a URL to the reader should not be substituted for adequate discussion within the manuscript itself. Do not include links to sites that are not accessible without a password.
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The Editors-in-Chief of the three Journals of AAPS: Pharmaceutical Research, The AAPS Journal, and AAPS PharmSciTech, along with the AAPS Publications Committee developed an integrated ethics policy to guide decision-making across the three Journals. The document is based on the recommendations on publication ethics policies for medical journals published by the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), posted at http://wame.org/resources/ethics-resources, and subscribed to by almost 1,000 journals.
Authors are highly encouraged to review and adhere to the AAPS Journals Ethics Policy (www.aapspharmscitech.org/about/AAPS-ethicspolicy-2007.pdf) in full prior to submitting manuscripts to AAPS PharmSciTech. Excerpts from the Policy are outlined below.
Each manuscript must be accompanied by a cover letter signed by the Corresponding Author on behalf of all the authors. The cover letter should explicitly state that the manuscript has not been previously published in any language anywhere and that it is not under simultaneous consideration by another journal. Moreover, AAPS PharmSciTech will not publish any manuscript unless the chemical structures of all compounds are fully disclosed when they are relevant to the consideration of the science involved, either by reference to prior work providing such data or by enclosure of such data in the manuscript.
Authors must declare all conflicts of interest (or their absence) in their cover letter upon submission of a manuscript. This conflict declaration includes conflicts or potential conflicts of all listed authors. If any conflicts are declared, AAPS will publish them with the paper. In cases of doubt, the circumstance should be disclosed so that the editors may assess its significance.
Conflicts may be financial, academic, commercial, political or personal. Financial interests may include employment, research funding (received or pending), stock or share ownership, patents, payment for lectures or travel, consultancies, nonfinancial support, or any fiduciary interest in a company.
The Copyright Revision Act of 1976 (Public Law 94-533) requires that Authors transfer their copyrights to the Publisher, American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists, in order to provide for the widest possible dissemination of professional and scientific literature. The hardcopy of the original signed Transfer of Copyright form must be mailed to the AAPS Editorial Office at the time of submission; facsimile and scanned email copies will not be accepted. The hardcopy of the original signed Transfer of Copyright form for an accepted manuscript must be received by the AAPS Editorial Office prior to production for publication. Corresponding Authors may print and sign the form on behalf of all authors The Transfer of Copyright form can be found at www.aapspharmscitech.org/copyright/copyright.pdf.
AAPS Journals require author(s) at the time of manuscript submission to include a statement in the cover letter, indicating documented review and approval from a formally constituted review board (Institutional Review Board or Ethics committee) for all studies involving people, medical records, and human tissues, per the uniform guidelines from the World Medical Association (www.wma.net/e/policy/b3.htm).
The AAPS Journals also require that controlled clinical trials must be registered in a publicly available database or the Journals will not publish the results of these trials. Manuscripts submitted to the Journals must include trial registration information in the cover letter. To register a clinical trial, authors should go to the NIH registry (www.clinicaltrials.gov) or the International Standard Randomized Controlled Trials database (http://isrctn.org). Further information can be obtained from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) at http://www.icmje.org/faq.pdf.
AAPS Journals require author(s) at the time of manuscript submission to include a statement in the cover letter indicating that animal experiments are conducted in full compliance with local, national, ethical, and regulatory principles and local licensing regulations, per the spirit of Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC) International’s expectations for animal care and use/ethics committees ( http://www.aaalac.org/education/module_1.cfm ). Investigations using experimental animals (including educational research) must also state this compliance within the Methods Section.
Authors of manuscripts submitted to the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists are obliged to present accurate representation of the research performed along with an objective discussion of the significance of their findings. The author’s submission should be original work that reflects research undertaken with integrity and honesty, and that conforms to ethical practices. Authors should be willing to reply to any reasonable request from editors, referees, and scientist for materials, methods, or data necessary for verification of the conclusions reported in the paper.
All submissions will be reviewed anonymously by at least two independent Reviewers. Authors are encouraged to submit names and email addresses of expert reviewers, but selection remains a prerogative of the Editors. Authors may include supplementary notes to facilitate the review process. If an accepted paper is cited that has not yet appeared in print and is required for evaluation of the submitted manuscript, authors should provide an electronic version for use by the Reviewers. Authors are responsible for all statements in their work, including changes made by the copyeditor after a manuscript is accepted.
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For Original Research Papers and Rapid Communications, order the sections comprising the manuscript as follows: title page, abstract, key words, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, conclusions, acknowledgments, notations, (abbreviations) references, appendix, tables, figure-caption list, and figures. There is no limit on the number of words, references, tables or figures. Nevertheless, the manuscript presentation must be concise.
The Cover Letter must include the following: a) a statement regarding financial conflict of interest if any, and, a statement of originality of work, b) a statement pertaining to the compliance with Ethics in Animal and Clinical Investigations, and c) a statement of confidentiality compliance. Authors who wish to submit names and emails for the peer review process must also indicate those in the Cover Letter.
The Statement of Originality must verify that the manuscript is not published elsewhere, in any language, and is not under simultaneous consideration by any other journal. The Assurances clause must indicate that the research has been reviewed and approved by an appropriate human or animal research or ethics review committee, or that it has been determined exempt from such review, and the Confidentiality Statement must state: All Authors agree that the contents of the manuscript are confidential and will not be copyrighted, submitted, or published elsewhere (including the Internet), in any language, while acceptance by the Journal is under consideration.
The Title Page must include a clear concise title of the article, authors’ first and surname (no degrees). Each author’s affiliations (at the time the work was completed) should be numerically footnoted and include department, institution or company, city, and state (or nation). The Corresponding Author must indicate his or her complete mailing address, office/cellular phone number, fax number, and email address at the lower left of the Title Page. The Corresponding Author will serve as the point of contact among the editorial office, editors, and other authors.
Each manuscript must include an abstract of 250 words or less. For Research Articles, the abstract should include a brief (2 to 3 sentences) statement for each of the following sections: Introduction, Methods and Materials, Results and Discussion, and Conclusion written in paragraph form. Abstracts also must be in one paragraph, with no subheadings, equations, or graphics.
Brief Technical Notes, Editorial Commentaries/Summaries, and Meeting Notices do not require abstracts.
Provide a list of no more than 5 key words.
The Introduction should state the objective of the Article and clearly state the hypothesis or purpose statement, how and why the purpose or hypothesis was developed and why the author deems it important.
Organize the main text as follows: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion. Combining Results and Discussion is discouraged. The use of subheadings to divide the text is encouraged. Primary, Secondary, Third level, or subheadings, should be clearly defined.
The main body of text for an Original Research Paper should have 5 primary headings: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusions. Authors may use secondary and third level headings to create separate sections for the primary headings. Again, subheadings in these sections are encouraged.
Use abbreviations sparingly. Provide a notation section, a list of all nonstandard abbreviations before the references section. Use the metric system for all measurements. Express metric abbreviations in lowercase letters without periods (cm, mL, sec). Define all symbols used in equations and formulas. When symbols are used extensively, include a list of all symbols in the notation section.
The conclusion should be a brief paragraph, containing 3 to 4 sentences, that summarizes the findings presented.
All acknowledgments (including those for financial support) should be listed. Authors of manuscripts submitted to AAPS PharmSciTech are requested to state the source of all funding that enabled the research described to be undertaken.
References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are cited in the text. Cite in the text by the appropriate Arabic numeral enclosed in parentheses, e.g., (1), (2-5), etc.
References to unpublished peer-reviewed, personal communications, including conference abstracts, and papers in preparation or in review, cannot be listed, but can be notated parenthetically in the text.
Abbreviations for journal names should conform to those in the Bibliographic Guide for Editors and Authors (American Chemical Society, Washington, D.C.). The style and punctuation of the references should conform to the following examples:
- Journal Articles
D.S. Kohane, D.G. Anderson, C. Yu, and R. Langer. pH Triggered release of macromolecules from spraydried polymethacrylate microparticles. Pharm Res. 20:1533-1538 (2003).
- Book
J. Swarbrick and J. C. Boylan. Encyclopedia of Pharmaceutical Technology, Marcel Dekker, New York, 2001.
- Contribution to a Book
V.H.L. Lee. Ocular epithelial models. In R. T. Borchardt, P. L. Smith, and G. Wilson (eds.), Models for Assessing Drug Absorption and Metabolism, Plenum, New York, 1996, pp. 425-436.
- Web Site
Weisstein, E. W. Molecular Orbital Theory. http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/chemistry/MolecularOrbital-Theory.html (accessed 12/15/03), part of Eric Weisstein's World of Science. http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/ (accessed 12/15/03).
Tables must be created in Microsoft® Word table format. Tables should be numbered (with Roman numerals) and referred to by number in the text. Center the title above the table, and type explanatory footnotes (indicated by superscript lowercase letters) below the table. Data must be placed in separate cells of the table to prevent text and numbers from shifting when the table is converted for publication on the Internet. Empty cells may be inserted to create spacing. Tables should not duplicate information provided in the text. Instead, tables should be used to provide additional information that illustrates or expands on a specific point the author wishes to make. Each table should be self-explanatory. Figures and Tables combined file count should not exceed 10.
Figures (as well as photographs, drawings, diagrams, and charts) are to be numbered in one consecutive series of Arabic numerals in the order in which they are cited in the text. The captions for illustrations should be separated from the text, and collated in a separate Microsoft® Word file called ’’Legend to Figures’’. All Electronic artwork must be submitted online via our online peer review tracking system, Editorial Manager. Figure files should be submitted in TIFF or EPS format (1200 dpi for line and 300 dpi for half-tones and gray-scale art), however, .jpeg files may also be submitted as long as the dpi specifications (1200 dpi for line and 300 dpi for half-tones and gray-scale art) are met. Use of a professional graphics program such as Adobe® PhotoShop to edit and/or save photographs and graphics is highly recommended. Because of difficulties with exporting graphics from Microsoft® PowerPoint, original graphics (those imported into PowerPoint) must be saved in an acceptable file format (above). Microsoft® PowerPoint and Microsoft® Word files will not be accepted. While there is no set limit on the number of tables or figures, it is recommended that the combined file count for figures and tables be limited to 10.
AAPS PharmSciTech offers authors, the use of color figures in manuscripts published online, free of charge.
Footnotes should be avoided. When their use is absolutely necessary, footnotes should be numbered consecutively using Arabic numerals and should be typed at the bottom of the page to which they refer. Place a line above the footnote, so that it is set off from the text. Use the appropriate superscript numeral for citation in the text.
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