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Information for Authors

PDF file of the Instructions for Authors
Template for English manuscripts
Template for German manuscripts

General Information

Zeitschrift für Naturforschung B publishes articles on fundamental studies in all areas of inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, and analytical chemistry. Articles reporting mainly routine spectroscopic, X-ray, or other data of no general importance should not be submitted. The contributions should meet the highest standard as to novelty of the material, organization, and conciseness. They must not have been published elsewhere (including web publication and electronic conferences). The manuscripts should be correct in grammar and style. All contributions are subject to peer review. Authors may suggest competent referees for their papers.

Categories of Contributions

  1. original (full) papers
  2. research notes and preliminary communications not exceeding two pages in print
  3. reports on specific research topics of current interest (reviews). Contact the editors before writing.
Language: English or German

Manuscript Submission

Manuscripts must be submitted electronically via e-mail to the Editorial Office at znb AT znaturforsch.com. Due to the large amounts of spam mail arriving, electronic mail for the Editorial Office must have a meaningful subject line clearly indicating that it is correspondence for Zeitschrift für Naturforschung B.

A directly printable version of the contribution is required to be forwarded for refereeing. Acceptable file formats are MS WORD (DOC), RTF, or PDF. All elements (text, tables, figures, figure captions, equations, and formula drawings and schemes) must be incorporated into one manuscript document file.
In addition, for each X-ray structure determination reported in the paper the respective crystallographic information file (CIF) should also be submitted for evaluation purposes (each CIF file separately, not concatenated and not contained in the manuscript file). The deposition of the crystal structure data has to be done by the authors, however, and the respective CSD/CCDC numbers must be provided at the time of manuscript submission.

Final Version

The author(s) will be informed of the comments of the referees and of the editorial decision by electronic mail. After acceptance of the paper, the Editorial Office will ask for a revised electronic version of the manuscript. In addition to the final manuscript all figures have to be provided as separate EPS or TIFF files. Please consult the Technical Instructions below for further details.

Manuscript Preparation

Simple templates in English and German are provided (see above) for the preparation of manuscripts. These optional templates contain but the most basic features required for any manuscript and may serve as a quick guide. More detailed information is given below.

The manuscript pages should be prepared with margins of 2.5 cm and with double-line spacing; all pages must be numbered. A sufficiently large character size should be used (e.g. Times New Roman, 12 pt).
The material should be placed in the following order: Running title (maximal 60 characters) – Title (German and English if the paper is written in German) – Authors' names (e.g. Jan Baier, Tom F. Miller, and John F. Kelly) – Authors' address (or addresses if differing. In this case the name and the address of each author should be linked by superscripts a, b, c...) – Address for reprint requests (name with academic title, fax number and e-mail address) – Dedication (optional) – Abstract – Key words (up to five) – Main text – Acknowledgment (optional) – List of references and footnotes.
Tables, equations, figures, and schemes are to be mentioned in the text in numerical order. They may be placed at the end of the manuscript or integrated at appropriate places in the text file. Figure captions must not be integral part of the figures. Tables should not contain structural formulas.
Abstract
The abstract should be short, concise, and must be suitable for direct use by the abstracting journals. Only the more commonly used abbreviations should be used, otherwise they must be defined. Compound numbers may be used if they have been properly defined before. IUPAC names should be avoided. Citations should be avoided in the abstract or must be in the form of the full bibliographical reference.
Main Text
The main text should be organized as follows: Introduction – Results and Discussion (combined or separate) – Conclusion (optional) – Experimental Section. Alternatively, it may be ordered: Introduction – Experimental Section – Results and Discussion (combined or separate) – Conclusion (optional), if the description of the experimental methods is essential to the understanding of the results and their discussion.
Presentation of Experimental Data/Crystallographic Data
References and Footnotes
Since January 1, 2007, bibliographical references are given as in the following examples.
References must be numbered consecutively by order of mention in the text. Journals: [1] A. Meyer, E. Schmid, Z. Naturforsch. 2001, 56b, 503–510. Journal abbreviations be in accordance with the Chemical Abstracts Service Source Index. Books without editor: [2] M. Bodansky, Principles of Peptide Synthesis, Springer, Berlin, 1984. Books with editor: [3] H. Müller in Inorganic Experiments, Vol. 7 (Eds.: H. Wood, F. Belger), VCH, Weinheim, 1994, chapter 4.8, p. 321. Patents: [4] K. Ziegler, H. Breil, E. Holzkamp, H. Martin, DBP 973626, 1960. Programs: [5] G. M. Sheldrick, SHELXL-97, Program for the Refinement of Crystal Structures, University of Göttingen, Göttingen (Germany) 1997. [6] A. L. Spek, PLATON, A Multipurpose Crystallographic Tool, Utrecht University, Utrecht (The Netherlands) 2000. See also: A. L. Spek, Acta Crystallogr. 1990, A46, C34. [7] C. K. Johnson, M. N. Burnett, ORTEP-III (version 1.0.2), Rep. ORNL-6895, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN (USA) 1996. Windows version: L. J. Farrugia, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland (U.K.) 1999.
Formatting of characters
Symbols of physical quantities, but not their units (e.g. c for concentration, d   for chemical shifts), stereochemical descriptors (R, S, cis, trans), locants (O-ethyl), prefixes in formulas and names (tBu, tert-butyl) must be typed in italics. Exception: The stereochemical descriptors L and D should be written in small capitals (L-alanine, D-(+)-glucose). The preferred forms for some commonly used units and abbreviations are °C, K, cm, L, mL, g, mg, mol, mmol, 2.5 M solution, ppm, nm, pm, Å, deg, s, min, h, m.p., b.p, MoKα, CuKα1. Space group symbols should be formatted as in the following examples: P1, P21, P21/c, C2/c, P212121, Cmc21, Pnma, Cmce, Imma, Fm3m.
Graphics
Graphics are schemes and figures. They should be designed, if possible, for reproduction in a one-column format (7.6 cm wide). All graphics should be produced with a good quality laser printer and have lines, letters, numbers and symbols of uniform strength and contrast. After acceptance of the contribution, all graphics must be provided in camera-ready form as separate EPS or TIFF files. Please consult the Technical Instructions below for further details.
Scaling of Graphics
For optimum reproduction, the graphics should be larger than the desired final size. Authors should pay attention to the line widths, for some features (e.g. dotted and thin lines) may disappear after reduction to the final format. The other extreme, such as heavy lettering and thick lines, should be avoided. We recommend to prepare all artwork intended for 1-column format with a maximum graphic width of 15 of 17 cm and a lettering of 3.5 or 4.0 mm, respectively. After reduction to 1-column format, the letter height should be 1.5–2 mm.
Color Figures
Additional cost for the reproduction of color figures in the print version must be paid by the authors. Details will be provided after acceptance of the manuscript. The publication of color illustrations in the electronic version of the article is free of charge.
Proofs
The authors will receive page proofs electronically. Please note that corrections should be restricted to typographical errors. Cost for extensive additional changes will be charged to the authors.
Reprint Orders
Please return the reprint order together with the corrected proofs. 25 reprints are free of charge, for additional reprints EUR 0.14 per page will be charged.
Technical Instructions for Manuscripts and Illustrations in Final Electronic Form
Text
  • Preferred text formats: MS WORD (DOC), RTF, or LaTeX.
  • Layout guidelines
    • Use a normal, plain font (e.g. Times New Roman, 12 pt) in the same size for the abstract, main text, and references.
    • Type using double line spacing.
    • Use the automatic page numbering function to number the pages.
    • Do not use field functions, especially not to create the list of references.
    • Deactivate hyphenations.
    • Do not use manual hyphenations.
    • For indents use hard returns or tabstops (but not spaces).
    • In MS WORD, use the table function to set up tables.
    • Use the equation editor of your word processing program or MathType for equations. Submit equations created with MathType as separate files converted in LaTeX.

Graphics

  • Preferred graphics formats: EPS for vector graphics exported from a drawing program and TIFF for halftone illustrations.
  • The figure captions should not be a constituent of the figures.
  • Scan resolution: Scanned line drawings should be digitized with a minimum resolution of 600 dpi relative to the final size, halftones with 300 dpi/final size.
  • Color illustrations: Store color illustrations as RGB (8 bits per channel) in TIFF format (resolution 150 dpi/final size).
  • Vector graphics: Fonts used in the vector graphics must be included. Please do not use drawing functions of MS WORD. Do not draw with hairlines (minimum line width: 0,2 mm/final size). Avoid heavy lettering and thick lines. Lines, letters, numbers and symbols should have uniform strength and contrast.