Environmental Science & Technology
 Most trusted, most cited and most read environmental journal
 Authoritative source of information for professionals in a wide
range of environmental disciplines. ES&T combines magazine and
research sections and is published both in print and online.
 Manuscript Categories: Articles, Policy Analysis, Critical Reviews,
Features, and Viewpoints. (1,400 articles published in 2010)
 2010 Impact Factor: 4.825, 2010 Total Citations: 72,575
www.acs.org
ACS Proprietary & Confidential
Environmental Science & Technology
Focus & Special Issues
ES&T has published focus and special issues dedicated to specific
topics of key interest to professionals in the various environmental
disciplines. Visit the ES&T website at pubs.acs.org/est.
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Environmental Policy – Jan 1, 2011
William H. Glaze Tribute - Oct 1, 2010
PCB Sources, Exposures, Toxicities – Apr 15, 2010
Biogeochemical Redox Processes – Jan 1, 2010
Nanoscale Metal-OM Interactions – Apr 15, 2011
www.acs.org
ACS Proprietary & Confidential
ACS Author Benefits
 No Publication Charges
 Rapid Publication - timesaving online manuscript submission with
the ACS Paragon Plus Environment
 Broad Dissemination – a worldwide audience of hundreds of
thousands of researchers at institutions around the world
 Award-Winning Website – enhances the discoverability of your
content and your user experience
 ACS Articles on Request – free e-prints of your published article
 ACS AuthorChoice – allows authors to make their research
immediately open access
www.acs.org
ACS Proprietary & Confidential
Increasing Visibility – TOC Art
March 15, 2011
Proprietary and Confidential
American Chemical Society
Increasing Visibility – ES&T Video
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American Chemical Society
Virtual Issues
• Initially explored in JACS Beta environment as “JACS Select”
• Chosen Editor gathers high quality content from recent timeframe
on the same topic
– Serves as a journal-chosen “special issue”
– Features ALREADY PUBLISHED content
– Showcases journal as venue for hot topic
• Collate in online platform, add editorial, synopses, glossary
• Promote via website, email, etc.
• Can be single journal or multiple
– ES&T was first journal to join in a JACS Select
Proprietary and Confidential
American Chemical Society
Virtual Issues
Harnessing Energy for a Sustainable World
March 2010
Proprietary and Confidential
American Chemical Society
Virtual Issues
Biofuels
November 2010
Proprietary and Confidential
American Chemical Society
Citations for ES&T and Selected
Journals in Comparison Group
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Environmental
Science &
Technology
Thousands of Citations
60
50
40
Water Research
Chemosphere
Environ. Pollution
30
J. Haz. Mater.
Sci. Total Env.
Atmos. Env.
20
10
0
2005
Proprietary and Confidential
American Chemical Society
2006
2007
2008
2009
The better the topic of your
research, the easier it is to publish
• When planning an avenue of research, realize that some
topics are “hotter” (more important?) than others.
• “Hot” topics sell better
– Nano/bio/info topics
– New materials, energy sources, etc.
– Revolutionary better than evolutionary
• If you work on traditional areas, such as wastewater
treatment, it will be very difficult to get many citations
– (There are just not that many people in the field, and it is not well
funded).
Important vs Incremental
• Hunting expeditions
– Sometimes you should go after the bear and ignore the squirrels
– When you land the “big game”, you get a big reward
– New discoveries are more important than building on existing
information, but it is much riskier (you may not succeed)
• Mapping expeditions
– When you map/survey an area, you will come back with data.
– Such studies are useful!... But they rarely are big discoveries or
have a big impact.
– ES&T is not interested in treatability studies that are descriptive
and do don’t significantly advance theoretical base
Good topics and titles
• Bad title example and reasons
– “Effects of materials on solar panel efficiency”
– The “Effects of…”, “Analysis of…”, “Comparison of…” papers are
usually low impact
• Better title example
– “Solar panels that achieve 50% conversion efficiency using low
cost, non-precious metal materials”
– Make the title reflect the topic
• Conduct hypothesis-driven research
• Avoid descriptive “look-see” research where you
just vary a bunch of variables.
Writing the paper
• Keep it simple
– Introduction: 3 paragraphs
– Methods: short as possible, but can be reproduced
– Results:
* Tell a story (not a mystery or historical drama)
* Put your most important figure(s) first.
* Limit figures to ≤9.
– Discussion:
* Don’t speculate too much
* Start out by emphasizing most important finding
* So What? (discern significance of contribution)
Message Box: Translation Tool
Scientific Title
Abstract
Background
Methods
Results
Discussion
Conclusion
Problems?
Audience
Benefits?
Issue
Solutions?
So
What?
Scientists Vs. Everyone Else
Bottom-line
Background
Supporting
Details
So What?
Supportin
Results/
Conclusions
g
Info.
Writing the paper, cont’d
• Make it shorter
– “I apologize for the length of this letter, but I did not have the
time to make it shorter” (B. Pascal, from ES&T website)
– ES&T: Has a 7000 word limit
• 10 small figures = 3000 words
• Use supplemental information online
– Avoid useless phrases
• “It should be noted that…”
• On the other hand, it can be seen that..”
– Check for run-on sentences
– Don’t write a conclusions section unless journal requires it (ES&T
prohibits it)
• When you are done, make it shorter…
– I go through a dozen drafts or more for a paper.
Environmental Science &
Technology journal
• Science papers >> technology papers in
number and impact
• Very few “engineering” papers in ES&T
• Very difficult to get water treatment or
wastewater oriented publications in ES&T
• Novelty of the work is very important
What you need for different journals
Science
Nature
Fundamental
breakthrough or discovery
PNAS
Environ Sci. Technol
App. Environ. Micro.
App. Micro. Biotechnol.
J. Env. Eng.
IJHE
New finding that is
important, clear high impact
Work that improves our
understanding of a process
Major revisions needed…
• Sometimes a reviewer makes a comment
because they were confused by the way you
presented it… change it to make it clearer.
• Make changes!
– Don’t just argue with the reviewer.
– Try to make a change for each comment (if possible)
• Make it easy for the editor and reviewers to
evaluate your changes.
• For each comment:
– Restate the comment,
– Provide a reply to the reviewer
– Show what changes were made as a result of the review
Example of a reply to comments
Restate the comment,
and put in italics
Indent ½ inch, then put in
your reply, normal font (11
or 12 pt)
Put in a copy of your new text, in
blue, in a smaller font (say 10 pt)
If rejected, don’t be dejected
• Just because a paper is rejected, doesn’t mean you
should give up on it.
• Not all reviewers are created equal…
– Talk the paper over with a colleague… were the reviewers fair?
• Reviewers often help to improve the process.
– They can find flaws in your logic you didn’t notice
– They may make helpful suggestions for future work
• Rejected manuscripts can be resubmitted to the same
journal, but they are often not successful in changing the
reviewer’s minds
• You should consider resubmitting to the same journal if:
– The points can be addressed
– You can answer the questions raised during the review
Rejected manuscripts
• Choose another journal. Did you “aim too high”?
• Consider your reviewers.
– When suggesting reviewers, suggest people that you know are
likely to give good and fair reviews… some people are just never
satisfied.
• If you feel you got a bad review and you think you know
who the person is, then just request they be excluded
from further submissions.
• Always make some changes to a paper before
resubmitting elsewhere
– Likely there is a slightly different audience
– One of the reasons for rejection may be you were not convincing
in your presentation of your hypothesis or findings.
The paper is published!
• Congratulations!
• Consider whether your work was read by others.
• Are you writing enough “breakthrough” papers
(based on “hunting expeditions”)?
– Or, are you publishing too many “mapping expedition”
type results?
• If nobody reads or cites your papers…
– Are you okay with this?
– Is your work like a “critically acclaimed film that
nobody went to see”? If so, maybe time to produce
the “action film with special effects”?
– Should you move into new areas of greater interest?
Long term considerations
• Your papers should be a way to teach
people new things.
• Take steps to continue to write better
papers.
• You can always write a better paper– so
continue to improve your writing style.
– Look at how others write, examine their style
– Form a journal club/ literature review class
Enjoy writing
• Engineers often hate to write, but this will
change with more experience and confidence.
• Learn to write well, and enjoy the fun that comes
from people having read your papers.
• Good papers lead to:
– Rapidly advancing the field
– Interest in the field
– And if you’re lucky… speaking invitations and
opportunities to discuss your work with others
interested in your field.
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How to Use the Message Box
• Limit to three or four messages
• Simple, not necessarily simplistic
• Avoid jargon
• Messages are reinforced by sound bites,
phrases, statistics, anecdotes
Jonathan Patz
University of Wisconsin-Madison
2005 Aldo Leopold Fellow
Problems?
There is a large regional difference
in disease burdens due to global
warming.
Benefits?
-Reduce the adverse
health effects of global
warming (w/ cobenefits of cleaning up
air quality)
-Take care of current
populations without
compromising health for
future generations
(“sustainable health”)
Regional health
effects of
global warming
So What?
Those most at risk
from global
warming, are also
the least responsible
for causing the
problem. Herein lies
an enormous global
ethical challenge.
Solutions?
The US should sign the Kyoto protocol and
join the rest of the world in confronting
climate change.
Personally, I’ve made easy choices as a first
step (e.g. hybrid car, mini-fluorescents, etc.)
Audience: U.S. National Media