Submissions

Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, PDF, or RTF document file format.
Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
The text is single-spaced; uses a 10-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.

Author Guidelines

1. Parts of a Manuscript

Submitted manuscripts should be less than or equal to 32 pages of text (title page, abstract, body of text, and acknowledgements). If an author wishes to submit a manuscript longer than this, a letter to the Chief Editor must be submitted at the time of the manuscript submission explaining why a longer manuscript should be considered. EJSSM strongly encourages authors to submit shorter, rather than longer, manuscripts.

All submissions to EJSSM must contain the following parts in the following order. Download and refer to the Microsoft Word Author Template for the proper formatting.

Header containing the title of the article, authors, their affiliations, type of submission (e.g., Article, Note, Correspondence), name of journal (i.e., Electronic Journal of Severe Storms Meteorology), date of submission, corresponding author name, mailing address, and email address.
Abstract summarizing the paper in 250 words or less.
Text, with figure and table embedded at the paragraph break nearest to the location of first citation. For figures, standard web images and animations in .gif, .swf or .mpeg formats are acceptable. (Please write the editor regarding other formats.) Stand-alone copies of images, animations and animation poster (static) images should be available if needed.
Appendices, if any.
References follow the format specified in this EJSSM Reference Guide.

2. Style

Refer to the American Meteorological Society’s Author’s Guide online for specifics about the required style of submitted manuscripts not specifically addressed by this document.
One difference between the American Meteorological Society’s Author’s Guide and the style adopted by EJSSM is the hyphenation of “sea-level pressure” in EJSSM.

We strongly encourage authors to consult the guidelines for reviewers, especially Review Guildlines Part A. Scientific Content. This will help them to understand the content standards to which manuscripts will be held.

3. Metadata

Metadata is ‘data about data.’ In this case, the original ‘data’ is your submitted manuscript. So, the metadata here would be ‘data about your manuscript.’ This would include any of the title, keywords, abstract, author name(s), author affiliations, ORCID information, and so on. Metadata is meant to help search engines find your article more easily, that is, make it more ‘discoverable.’ Therefore, you should make your prepared metadata as comprehensive as possible.

Keywords: Keywords are typically one- to three-word phrases that are used to indicate the main topics of a submission.

Subjects: Subjects will be keywords, key phrases or classification codes that describe a topic of the submission.

Disciplines: Disciplines are types of study or branches of knowledge as described by university faculties and learned societies.

Supporting Agencies: Supporting agencies may indicate the source of research funding or other institutional support that facilitated the research.

Coverage: Coverage will typically indicate a work's spatial location (a place name or geographic coordinates), temporal period (a period label, date, or date range) or jurisdiction (such as a named administrative entity).

Type: The nature or genre of the main content of the submission. The type is usually "Text", but may also be "Dataset", "Image" or any of the Dublin Core types.

4. Responding to Reviewer Comments

When responding to reviewer comments, the author will divide the responses into two sections: substantive and technical. Substantive comments refer to a manuscript's scientific content, including the overall quality of the presentation. Technical comments refer to minor issues, such as suggested rewording of sentences or phrases, identifying spelling errors, typographical errors, punctuation, grammar, and so on. In responding, the authors should provide a point-by-point response to each separate critical comment. The reason for the distinction between substantive and technical is that substantive comments and the author's responses will be appended to the article at the time of publication. Technical comments will not be appended.

5. Cost to Author

Cost to the author for an accepted manuscript is $100 for up to 50MB. Cost for larger files is determined on a case-by-case basis. These charges serve as the EJSSM's primary means of support. However, inability to pay should not preclude the opportunity to publish. Grants or exemptions may apply to hardship cases.

Checks should be made payable to E-Journals of Meteorology and sent to:
E-Journals of Meteorology
P.O. Box 5043,
Norman, OK 73070-5043.

Online payment is also available via PayPal using billing@ejssm.org as the recipient.

Article

Articles discuss either original applied, observational and/or theoretical research, reproducibility of another work, case studies, or forensic studies of meteorological events. Articles always are fully peer-reviewed (by 2–4 reviewers, one of whom may be an Editor). Articles may contain up to 7500 words of text, when including the main body, acknowledgments and appendices. This word count excludes title, abstract, references, captions, figures, tables, and any supplemental data, software, multimedia or presentation files intended for publication with the article. EJSSM encourages the use of multimedia supplements to convey concepts more effectively, using hyperlinks from still figures in the manuscript. The count of figures and tables combined in the manuscript should not exceed 25. For text or figures above those limits, the author(s) must justify, in a separate note to the Chief Editor; this note may be made available to reviewers. Supplemental files must be approved by the Editor before review, and always are made available to reviewers. During review, supplemental files will be hosted on a site of the author’s choosing, but must be cross-server adaptable (i.e., once accepted for publication, fully hostable on EJSSM’s website, whereupon they will be hyperlinked from the article).

Editorial

Editorials typically are scientifically based opinion pieces written by any author(s), or major formal announcements related to the journal from one or more of the EJSSM editors or Board members. These will be note length or shorter. [Routine or brief announcements of a technical nature, web upgrades, or manuscript announcements, will be posted to the journal’s website and social media.] Internal editorials will be reviewed by other EJSSM editor(s) and/or the EJSSM Board, and copyedited, before posting. Externally submitted editorials will be subject to review and approval by the Chief Editor, and perhaps the Board (subject-matter dependent), as well as post-approval copyediting and technical editing. Editorials are more free-form and opinion-driven than scientific submissions, but must be professional in tone, and based on scientific issues that are within the scope of the journal. Such submissions should be no more than three pages in two-sided EJSSM format, including references and graphics, with no more than three figures and/or tables total.

Note

Notes are similar to articles, but generally ¼ to ⅓ the size (up to 2000 words and eight total of tables and figures). These submissions will be relatively brief and narrowly focused on a specific research finding: either original, or a new result stemming from (and acting as an effective addendum to) prior published work. Notes also are peer-reviewed, but may use fewer reviewers and a more compressed process (subject-matter dependent) to expedite publication. The word count likewise excludes title, abstract, references, captions, figures, and tables.

Imagery of Note

This category features meteorological imagery of scientific and/or historical significance, or images that are unusual, compelling, or extreme enough to justify brief, formal scientific scrutiny. The imagery may be photographs, video, remotely sensed (e.g., satellite, radar, other observational), analytical, or historical artifacts, within the journal’s scope. Multimedia supplemental files may be included to augment still media shown in the manuscript, and must be accessible to reviewer(s).

Review

Review articles summarize, synthesize and meaningfully engage prior literature on a specific subject matter. These are intended to function as “one-stop shops” to cover the most crucial aspects of an existing body of knowledge on a topic, and to suggest avenues of further research. They are intended for general scientific readership, including students. Review articles have the same limits as articles (7500 words, 25 combined figures and tables), but given their nature, generally will not have appendices nor supplemental data. Multimedia files may be linked with Editor approval. References may be numerous (~50–100). These undergo full peer review, as with standard articles. Before submitting a review article, the author(s) must provide the Chief Editor with a proposal no more than two pages long, containing the review article’s title, author list, approximate word length, subject matter, content outline, and a short discussion justifying its necessity. The review article can be submitted once the Chief Editor either approves the proposal as-is, or the authors express acceptance of all Editor suggestions for changes. The proposal will not be published with the manuscript. Authors have three months to submit the review article after Editor approval.

Book Review

EJSSM accepts reviews of books directly covering any of the same meteorological scope topics as allowed for journal submissions. Book reviews must be short: at most, three pages in standard EJSSM two-sided format, including header, title, and all text, figures (if any), and references (if any). As with editorials, book reviews are more free-form and subjectively expressed than scientific submissions, but still professional in tone. Book reviews should at least summarize the contents and context of a published book, and evaluate its quality: organization, relevance, writing quality (ease of readership), scientific representativeness, and relatability to the book’s intended audience. The Chief Editor, as well as one other Editor or assigned reviewer, will assess these submissions on a quicker timeline than reviews for full articles. As with all other external submissions, book reviews will pass through copyediting and technical editing once accepted.

History and Biography

EJSSM has published, and welcomes, submissions related to the history of science within the journal’s meteorological scope, as well as biographical articles on one or more people who contributed to that scientific history. Word and figure limits are the same as with articles (7500 words, 25 combined figures and tables), and supplemental files may be used (e.g., historical data, image galleries, presentation files). These will be peer-reviewed similarly to articles.

Corrigenda

A corrigendum is a type of note, specifically addressing one or more substantive errors or omissions of a previously published work in the same journal, by the same author(s). [Minor technical errata, by contrast, may be corrected on the original manuscript with an Editor’s Note inserted as a footnote.] Corrigenda should be brief, focused only on the error(s) and changes resulting therefrom. They either will be approved for publication after review by the Editor, or sent to brief, note-like peer review, depending on the nature of the correction(s). Figures, tables, equations and/or supplemental data provided in a corrigendum only should be what require correction from the original manuscript. For equations, any subsequent mathematics that need adjustment must be given as well. Authors must explain, clearly and reproducibly, the impact of the correction(s) on their results and conclusions. Once published, a corrigendum will link to the original article, which will remain as it was published except for a mutual hyperlink to the corrigendum, added to the original article’s front (title) page.

Comments and Replies

notes (up to 2000 words and eight total of tables and figures). A comment note addresses scientific issues in the original paper, including (but not limited to) corrections, substantial errors of logic, differences in reproduced results not great enough to form a full reproducibility study, and/or substantively differing conclusions based on the same evidence. Comments are subject to peer review similarly to notes, and once reviewed, will be queued for publication and provided to the author(s) of the manuscript at which the comment was directed. The original manuscript author(s) then will have the opportunity to produce a reply, also with the size criteria of a note, and also subject to peer review. Comments and replies should be professional and cordial in tone, addressing substantive issues and not the authors themselves, and will be published simultaneously but separately, each with its own review(s). Front-page hyperlinks will be added from the original article to both the comment and reply.

Copyright Notice

All materials published in EJSSM remain the property of the author(s), who (by submitting their work) have licensed permission for our electronic display and for fair use by the readership. EJSSM expects readers to treat documents published here under the same fair use principles as in the printed scientific literature. Fair use, therefore, includes: online reading, downloading and/or printing for personal, academic and/or library purposes, and URL links to EJSSM material. Author(s) may freely maintain a copy of any of their EJSSM published work on a government, educational, nonprofit, personal or other noncommercial website under their control. When excerpting published work, please ensure that the arguments, conclusions, findings and opinions of the author(s) reflect the original material. Unless otherwise noted, EJSSM assumes the most current CC-BY-ND Creative Commons license, an easy, effective way for copyright holders to manifest their consent to Open Access. Many other open-content licenses will also work. Copyright holders can also compose their own licenses or permission statements and attach them to their works.

Privacy Statement

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