Instructions for Authors

Perspective Articles

Perspective articles aim to become landmark references and add scholarly value by exploring a unique viewpoint on a field or by presenting a theme in an innovative and/or alternative way. They express science-based views of experts on key topics that are of broad interest to the scientific community which are within the scope of the Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology.

Examples of relevant themes for Perspective articles are:

• The outline and examination of important unanswered questions and an analysis of how researchers are developing strategies to tackle these problems
• Constructive critical discussions about controversial topics within a discipline or field of research
• Insights regarding the future of a given research area, or the introduction or suggestion of a new field
• Societal, environmental and/or economic impacts of an applied field
• Topics related to education and science culture
• The reporting of significant scientific achievements in the light of historical background

Manuscript Sections for Perspective Articles

Manuscripts for Perspective articles should be divided into the following sections:

• Title
• Authors’ Names and Affiliations
• Abstract
• Keywords
• Introduction (optional)
• Discussion/Perspective/Opinion (please freely choose a main section title)
• Conclusion/Future Directions/Outlook (please freely choose a concluding section title)
• Supporting Information (if any)
• Acknowledgements (optional)
• Funding (optional)
• References

Title

The title of a Perspective article should be clear, concise and comprehensible to all readers, with the purpose of quickly identifying the focus of the reported work. It should be brief and contain the most important keywords to optimize electronic retrieval. The use of capitals should be restricted to the first word and proper nouns. As far as possible, abbreviations should be avoided.

Authors’ Names and Affiliations

For all authors who have made substantial contributions to the work, first name, middle initial(s) and last (family) name must be provided. Below this information the institutional address should be written in a separate line in the following format: department, organization, street/P.O. box, city/town and zip code/postal code, country. If several affiliations need to be mentioned, consecutive Arabic numerals should precede the address and these numerals must also be placed as superscript after the respective author’s name. At least one author must be designated with an asterisk as the person to whom correspondence should be addressed. The full name and the email address of the corresponding author(s) separated by a hyphen should be given in a new paragraph following the affiliation. Finally, the meaning of the asterisk must be explained. We also highly encourage all authors to link their ORCID record to their manuscript. During the submission process, the submitting author will be asked to link their existing ORCID record to their manuscript, or create an ORCID record, if they do not already have one. All co-authors will also be provided a link where they too can amend this information. It is not necessary to include the ORCID iD directly in the manuscript, only in the online submission system.

Abstract

The abstract should briefly summarize the main aspects of the Perspective article and quickly establish the purpose of the article. Abbreviations should be used sparingly in the abstract. If used, then only common ones should be employed. Citations and references should not be given in abstracts. Only standard characters and those that can be included using the font “Symbol” are allowed.

Keywords

Five keywords in alphabetical order describing the main topics of the article should appear below the abstract for indexing purpose. They should be separated by a semicolon.

Introduction

The introduction should clearly state the background of the theme handled in the Perspective article. Relevant previous literature should be cited.

Discussion/Perspective/Opinion (please freely choose a main section title)

This section contains the main body of the article. All aspects that are important for the Perspective article should be presented here. If necessary, this section may be subdivided with short, informative headings.

Conclusion/Future Directions/Outlook (please freely choose a concluding section title)

In this section, the main inferences and prediction as well as ideas and concepts resulting from the Perspective article should be stated. In addition, a clear explanation of the importance of these conclusions should be given.

Supporting Information

If supporting information files are provided, each should be described in this section of the manuscript, providing the following information:

• a consecutive Arabic numeral in the order of the first mention in the manuscript text (e. g. Supporting Information File 1, Supporting Information File 2, etc.)
• the file name
• the file format (including the name and the URL link of an appropriate viewer if the format is unusual)
• a concise title of 15 words maximum
• optional: a detailed description of the dataset.

Additionally, supporting information files may be referenced within the body of the article to allow the creation of a hyperlink in the full text version. For example, "See Supporting Information File 1" could be embedded at an appropriate place in the section “Discussion/Perspective/Opinion”.

Acknowledgements

In this section, the authors can dedicate the article to a scientist of outstanding merit or acknowledge technical assistance and other contributions or advice from persons who are not coauthors.

Funding

In this section, the authors can acknowledge the source(s) of financial support for the research reported in their article by naming the financially supporting body(s) followed by associated grant number(s) (if applicable). It is the responsibility of the corresponding author(s) to provide the relevant funding information from all authors.

References

In general, authors are obliged to perform literature searches and to cite original publications describing closely related work.

A complete list of all references should be provided at the end of the article with an individual reference number for each reference. All references must be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals, in the order in which they are first cited in the text. The references should be inserted at the appropriate location in the text by writing the reference number in square brackets. Multiple citations should be separated by commas within the square brackets. In case of more than two sequential references, ranges should be given. In general, a reference should appear before a punctuation mark and not after. Reference citations should not appear in titles, headings or the abstract. Unnecessarily long lists of references are not desirable. Authors are requested to constrict the reference list to the most important or most recent references relating to a specific topic. However, all previous publications in which portions of the present article have appeared must be referenced. If references refer to a supporting information file, they should be listed at the end of that file.

The references should be presented in a style consistent with the ACS Style Guide and should not contain any form of note or comment. If automatic numbering systems are used, the reference numbers must be finalized and the bibliography must be fully formatted before submission. Web links and URLs should be included in the reference list. They should be provided in full, including both the title of the site and the URL.

Examples of the Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology reference style are shown below. Please take care to follow the reference style precisely; references not in the correct style must be retyped, necessitating tedious proofreading.

Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology Reference Style