Help is at hand

We know that journal articles can sometimes seem overly complicated and overwhelming for students who are new to the world of academic publishing.

Our guide to reading journal articles addresses this confusion. With simple explanations of:

•    how articles are structured;
•    where to find specific information;
•    what peer review is; and
•    how to critically assess content

…students don’t need to feel daunted any longer.


Read our latest annotated articles for free

We have selected articles that we think will be of particular interest to students and linked them to Chemistry World articles, ChemSpider entries, related journal articles, books and relevant Learn Chemistry resources.

Our most recent annotated articles include:

Detecting Strep throat, which was originally published in Analyst and looks at detecting strep throat bacterium using touch spray mass spectrometry.

A natural herbicide, which was picked from Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry and investigates the development of thaxtomin A.

We need you… to give our annotated article series a new name!

Our free annotated articles need a new name. We’d like your help to choose a new one. So, if you think you know what they should be called, send us your ideas – we want to hear from you!

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Prizes and Awards nominations now open

Achievements by individuals and teams in advancing the chemical sciences should be celebrated. That’s why at the Royal Society of Chemistry we have over 80 Prizes and Awards covering all areas of the chemical sciences.

Plus, for 2015, our eight refocused Industry & Technology Awards recognise outstanding innovation, community engagement, industry–academia collaborations, entrepreneurship and science by individuals and teams in the chemical sciences industry:

•    Chemistry World Entrepreneur of the Year Award
•    Creativity in Industry Prize
•    Industrial Analytical Science Award
•    Inspiration and Industry Award
•    Materials for Industry – Derek Birchall Award
•    Organic Industrial Chemistry Award
•    Teamwork in Innovation Award
•    Young Industrialist of the Year Award

Rewarding Excellence, Gaining Recognition

Winning is good for your reputation and good for your business.

Any individual or team can be nominated for an award. But nominations are down to you, our Royal Society of Chemistry members. Do you want to:

…raise the profile of your organisation?
…reward your colleague or employee for their achievements?
…win up to £5000 and the opportunity to raise awareness of your work?

If you know someone that deserves recognition, nominate them today.

Or, if you have made a significant contribution to advancing the chemical sciences or chemical sciences industry, ask a Royal Society of Chemistry member to nominate you.

Nominations close on 15 January 2015.

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Books for 2015

Catalogue Image
As the only major learned society publisher of books and ebooks in the chemical sciences, you can rely on our comprehensive collection to deliver quality titles from international experts on topical subjects.

From forensics and food science, medicine and materials science to environmental issues and nanoscience, we’ve got it covered.

Our catalogue of titles for 2015 is now available.

The books are suitable for a diverse readership, encompassing professional reference books, specialist periodical reports, text books and general interest titles. So whatever you need, you can be sure to find something relevant.

Can’t find what you’re looking for? You can browse our entire collection on our website.

If you have any questions, or would like to place an order, please contact us.

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Publishing Catalogue 2015 – ready for download

The best content for researchers, readers and scientists in academia, industry and beyond.

That’s what to expect from our ever-expanding publishing programme, and there’s even more on offer in the new 2015 Publishing Catalogue.

Built from expert research, and spanning a comprehensive range of science subjects, there are new products available, as well as some exciting changes to the current portfolio.

Download your copy of the Publishing Catalogue 2015 and look out for:

Page 7 – Read more about Chemical Science’s move to Gold Open Access

Page 11Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology joins our Environmental Science journal collection

Page 31 – Find out about MarinLit, the latest addition to our growing database collection

Page 41 – Don’t miss the RSC Historical Collection, our new digital archive featuring thousands of scientific and society publications, dating back to 1505

Don’t forget, because all of our profits are re-invested, anything purchased from the Royal Society of Chemistry will help to support the talent, information and ideas that lead to great advances in science.

We hope you enjoy looking through the Catalogue. For more information about any of the products inside, just email sales@rsc.org and someone will be in touch.

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Important information for Swets customers

On 19 September 2014, we were made aware that Swets & Zeitlinger Group B.V. (Swets), the subscription agent used by many institutions as an intermediary for purchasing our journals, was granted a provisional suspension of payments order by an Amsterdam court.

Swets works on behalf of many of our customers to gather subscriptions and payments before passing them to publishers to complete orders. The Royal Society of Chemistry is only able to fulfil orders placed by Swets once we have received the full payment for them.

With this in mind, and until we receive clearer information about the situation, we are advising all customers to consider carefully before placing further orders with or making payments to Swets, as well as to identify any orders or payments made recently.

We are currently working to gather more information about this and will post another update as soon as we know more. If you have questions about any orders you have placed recently, please contact your Account Manager or email sales@rsc.org.

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Can annotated articles help you?

As a new student, encountering the world of academic journals for the first time can be a little daunting. But help is at hand.

The Royal Society of Chemistry has introduced free annotated articles: a student-friendly way of reading our journals, designed to teach you how to understand, interpret and extract the most from an article.

Clearly defined, bite-sized chunks – rewritten by the authors – allow you to quickly grasp the key concepts of an article:

•    Why is this study important?
•    What is the objective?
•    What was their overall plan?
•    What was their procedure?
•    What are the conclusions?
•    What are the next steps?

With links to the associated Chemistry World article, ChemSpider entries, related journal articles, books and relevant Learn Chemistry resources, annotated articles are also a great practical tool for those teaching students how to read and understand journal articles.

Read the first two examples: Detecting iron the smart way, originally published in Journal of Materials Chemistry A, and Photocatalytic water oxidation at soft interfaces from Chemical Science.

Annotated articles are just one of the many free resources for students and educators on the Learn Chemistry Higher Education website. Check out further practical tools such as:

•    case studies to help with independent study;
•    problem-based laboratory projects which develop teamwork and investigation skills; and
•    How to… guides explaining vital skills such as referencing and citation.

So, whether you are a student yourself, or someone teaching new students how to use resources independently, bookmark Learn Chemistry today.

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2013 Impact Factors

You know you can trust Royal Society of Chemistry journals to deliver high quality content.

Our exceptional standards are reinforced by the recently published 2013 Journal Citation Reports ®:

Individual journal Impact Factor (IF) highlights include: Chemical Society Reviews (up 22% to 30.425); Catalysis Science & Technology (up 27% to 4.760) and Energy & Environmental Science (up 33% to 15.490).

Energy & Environmental Science remains the top journal in the Environmental Sciences category, and is now in the top 5% in the other three categories where it is listed.

Natural Product Reports is #1 in the Chemistry: Medicinal category with a figure of 10.715.

Chemical Science, recently announced as moving to Gold Open Access in 2015, records an improved figure of 8.601. This is one example of how we, as a not-for-profit organisation, support and invest in the community.

Looking at all our journals in the multidisciplinary chemistry category:

  • Of the top 20 journals in this category, six are from the Royal Society of Chemistry. No other publisher has more.
  • It’s the same when you look at 5-year Impact Factors: no other publisher has more in the top 20
  • 33% of our journals have an IF above 5
  • 83% of our journals now have an IF above 3
  • Three-quarters (76%) of our journals are in the top 25% of their ISI categories

More authors are choosing to publish their best work with us, and we have achieved all this while publishing more than double the number of articles in 2013 compared with 2010.

So the figures speak for themselves: our journals are the best place to publish work that advances excellence in the chemical sciences. For guaranteed impact, choose Royal Society of Chemistry journals.

You could contribute to our next Impact Factor… Register to receive email updates about our journals including calls for papers, most accessed articles, themed issues and breaking news.

Journal 2013 Impact Factor 5-Year Impact Factor
Analyst 3.906 4.097
Analytical Methods 1.938 1.913
Catalysis Science & Technology 4.76 4.764
Chemical Communications (ChemComm) 6.718 6.485
Chemical Science 8.601 8.547
Chemical Society Reviews 30.425 33.159
Chemistry Education Research and Practice* 1.309 1.436
CrystEngComm 3.858 3.908
Dalton Transactions 4.097 3.959
Energy & Environmental Science 15.49 15.263
Faraday Discussions 4.194 4.193
Food & Function 2.907 3.132
Green Chemistry 6.852 7.081
Integrative Biology 3.996 4.455
JAAS (Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry) 3.396 3.134
Journal of Environmental Monitoring 2.109 2.133
Journal of Materials Chemistry 6.626 6.743
Lab on a Chip 5.748 6.002
MedChemComm 2.626 2.737
Metallomics 3.978 4.010
Molecular BioSystems 3.183 3.359
Nanoscale 6.739 6.925
Natural Product Reports (NPR) 10.715 10.353
New Journal of Chemistry (NJC) 3.159 2.837
Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry (OBC) 3.487 3.389
Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences 2.939 2.793
Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics (PCCP) 4.198 4.023
Polymer Chemistry 5.368 5.676
RSC Advances 3.708 3.708
Soft Matter 4.151 4.429
Toxicology Researchǂ 3.273 3.273

ǂ Partial IF only

*Chemistry Education Research and Practice is listed in the Education, Scientific Disciplines category. It is the highest ranked journal devoted solely to chemistry education.

The Impact Factor provides an indication of the average number of citations per paper. Produced annually, Impact Factors are calculated by dividing the number of citations in a year, by the number of citeable articles published in the preceding two years.

The 5-Year Impact Factor is the average number of times articles from a journal published in the past five years have been cited in the Journal Citation Reports year. For journals in subjects where citation activity continues to rise through several years, this metric allows more of their total citation activity to be included in a critical performance metric.

Data based on 2013 Journal Citation Reports ®, (Thomson Reuters, July 2014).

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Publishing Price List 2015

We all want value for money.

Here at the Royal Society of Chemistry we’re proud to be a not-for-profit organisation, dedicated to advancing excellence in the chemical sciences. So we invest any surplus back into the community.Price List 2015

And as the world’s leading chemistry community, we want to make sure your researchers can access the very best content.

Our plans and pricing for 2015 show our commitment to this aim.

Key highlights and changes for 2015 include:

  • Chemical Science will become a Gold Open Access journal, with no article processing fees for at least two years
  • A new journal: Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology, available free online to all existing customers (and registered individuals) until the end of 2016
  • Our collections continue to represent excellent discounts when compared with individual journal prices:
    • RSC Gold, our most comprehensive package, has expanded to include Biomaterials Science
    • We’ve increased the discount on the Core Chemistry Collection to 35%
  • More content: Nanoscale and Polymer Chemistry are doubling in frequency to 48 issues per year
  • To help smaller institutions, the flexibility of our eBook Pick and Choose model lets you choose only the books you and your researchers really need
  • Our annual eBook Collections are now available for all years from 2008 to 2015. We will publish a minimum of 65 eBooks in 2015

And in response to customer feedback, Methods in Organic Synthesis and Catalysts & Catalysed Reactions will merge to form Synthetic Reaction Updates – a new easily digestible, quality database with no content overlap.

If you would like to discuss your current subscriptions, or you have any questions, please contact us.

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Chemical Science moves to Gold Open Access

Gold Open AccessChemical Science, launched in 2010, is set to become the world’s first high-quality Open Access chemistry journal.

From the first issue in January 2015, our flagship journal will move to Gold Open Access. All content published from that date will be free to every reader.

Plus, unlike other Gold Open Access journals, we will waive all Article Processing Charges (APCs) for at least two years. So it will be free for authors too.

Why are we doing this?

First, we strongly believe that Gold Open Access is a sustainable model for the future of publishing. Chemical Science will become part of our wider Open Access offering, which also includes Gold for Gold vouchers.

Second, we’re a not-for-profit organisation and we’re passionate about promoting, supporting and celebrating chemistry. So we invest in advancing the chemical sciences, and we spread knowledge to the international community. It’s what we’ve been doing for 170 years.

By moving Chemical Science to Gold Open Access, we are giving the global community access to some of the very best research.

Read our Press Release to find out more.

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The RSC joins CrossMark

CrossMark Web Banner
Those who publish with us and read our journals will know that we take our responsibility as a publisher very seriously.

Now, we’re taking that responsibility one step further by improving our ability to maintain the content we publish.

CrossMark is a system provided by CrossRef, which monitors published articles bearing the CrossMark logo. If you’re connected to the internet, clicking the logo will tell you whether or not the article version you have is current, providing a CrossRef DOI link to any updates.

You will also be able to see key record information such as funding sources, researcher identifiers, related data, copyright & licensing data and publication history.

Being a member of CrossMark gives our authors extra assurance that their work’s integrity is being protected. It’s also helped to simplify the research process. If a paper bearing the CrossMark logo is downloaded or saved, the system will make sure that you’ll always have the right version, so no need for repeat searches.

The CrossMark logo will be added to all articles published in our journals from 14 July 2014. Find out more on our CrossMark Policy page.

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