Preparation, formatting and review of IUPAC Technical Reports and Recommendations, IUPAC-sponsored books, or other items carrying the IUPAC label

2.1 Phase 1 (division review)

Authors:

1. prepare the manuscript according to the guidelines in Section 4

2. submit the manuscript to the Division President of the lead Division

Division President of the lead Division (DP):

1. disseminates the manuscript to Division members and other relevant Divisions for review

2. when necessary following Division review, asks authors to revise the manuscript

3. accepts the manuscript and sends a written approval email to authors

2.2 Phase 2 (initial IUPAC Editor review)

Authors:

1. contact the IUPAC Secretariat to request access to ScholarOne Manuscripts

2. once a submission point has been provided, submit the manuscript including written DP approval and external reviewer suggestions (15 for Recommendations; 5 for Technical Reports)

IUPAC:

1. requests an online submission invite to be sent to the corresponding author

Publisher (De Gruyter)/ScholarOne Manuscripts:

1. opens a submission point for the manuscript

2. performs initial quality control (including a check for inclusion of the written DP approval)

IUPAC Editor of PAC (ICTNS Chair):

1. verifies the written DP approval

2. invites reviews by external experts from science and industry and ICTNS members

2.3 Phase 3 (external expert and ICTNS review)

Reviewers:

1. are chosen as external experts from science and industry (up to 15 for Recommendations, about 5 for Technical Reports) and review the content of the manuscript

2. are also all ICTNS members who are invited to review compliance of the manuscript with existing IUPAC-recommended terminology, nomenclature, and symbols, and manuscript content within their expertise

Publisher (De Gruyter)/ScholarOne Manuscripts:

1. collates reviews via ScholarOne Manuscripts

2. communicates with reviewers to ensure timely receipt of reviews

3. communicates with the IUPAC Editor if insufficient reviews are received

IUPAC Editor of PAC (ICTNS Chair):

1. determines the status of the manuscript once all reviews have been received:

2. request for minor or major revisions from authors

3. acceptance as is and entry to Phase 4 for Recommendations

4. acceptance as is and entry to Phase 5 for Technical Reports

5. rejection

Authors:

1. prepare revised manuscript addressing reviewers’ comments and resubmit to ScholarOne Manuscripts for further Phase 3 review (when minor or major revisions required)

2.4 Phase 4 (public review of Provisional Recommendations)

IUPAC Secretariat:

1. creates a webpage with title, synopsis, linked manuscript (now termed “Provisional Recommendation”) and a form to gather feedback and comments (https://iupac.org/what-we-do/recommendations/provisional-recommendations)

2. publishes the synopsis in Chemistry International (CI)

3. informs National Adhering Organizations (NAOs) and other IUPAC-affiliated organizations of the new Provisional Recommendation, who in turn are encouraged to republish the title and synopsis in national chemistry journals, magazines, and newsletters

Public (individuals and organizations):

1. submit comments on a manuscript using the feedback form provided on the IUPAC website

Authors:

1. revise the manuscript to address public comments and resubmit to ScholarOne Manuscripts

Division President of the lead Division (DP):

1. approves the final revised manuscript

IUPAC Editor of PAC (ICTNS Chair):

1. may invite additional reviews from previous reviewers and members of ICTNS

2. approves the final revised manuscript

2.5 Phase 5 (final editing and publication)

IUPAC Secretariat:

1. provides information on sponsoring bodies to be appended to the manuscript

Publisher (De Gruyter)/ScholarOne Manuscripts:

1. performs copyediting and typesetting in consultation with the authors and the IUPAC Editor

Authors:

1. perform proof-reading and make corrections if necessary

IUPAC Editor of PAC (ICTNS Chair):

1. performs proof-reading

2. gives final approval for publication

4.1 Form of the manuscript

The title of the manuscript should reflect its contents to make the document easily findable and designate the manuscript as either a Technical Report or a Recommendation. The manuscript must include an abstract of up to 200 words and indicate the corresponding author.

The organization of the remainder of the manuscript is at the discretion of the authors except for Technical Reports and Recommendations that contain a list of terms (a “glossary”). Entries in such glossaries must follow a special layout (Section 4.7). In addition to “glossary”, the list of terms may also be called “vocabulary”, “dictionary” or “terminology”, but this must be done consistently throughout the manuscript.

The document should include a list of all abbreviations (which includes acronyms, initialisms, codewords, or any other shortened form of a word or phrase) in alphabetical order, with their full meaning, just before the list of references.

Authors may decide to include a table of contents, in particular for longer manuscripts.

Manuscripts must be submitted in electronic form (Microsoft Word or LaTeX format). The submitted manuscript will be converted to portable document format that includes line numbering; this output needs to be checked carefully by the authors because it is the version sent out for review.

4.2 Nomenclature

Where several acceptable names for a substance exist, Recommendations may list them all and single out one as “preferred” (PIN: Preferred IUPAC Name) or may mention other names as “acceptable for use in general nomenclature”. Where IUPAC Recommendations allow several names for the same molecular entity, ICTNS may ask authors to use an alternative, according to the aims and context of the manuscript.

The term “trivial name” may be used for names having no part used in a systematic sense. The term “semisystematic (or semitrivial) name” may be used for names in which at least one part is used in a systematic sense. Where such names are incorporated into systematic nomenclature, they may be called “retained names".

Instead of IUPAC names, certain common names are acceptable in the following cases:

1. for pharmaceutical substances, International Non-proprietary Names (INNs)

2. for agricultural chemicals including pesticides, International Organization for Standardization (ISO) names

3. for recently discovered natural products with complex structures, where systematic names would be too unwieldy and no IUPAC names exist yet, names derived from the biological materials in which they occur

4.3 Quantities, units, and symbols

The recommendations of the Green Book [1] and the SI Brochure [5] on notation and formatting of quantities, units and symbols must be followed, in particular:

1. The symbols for quantities are generally single letters of the Latin or Greek alphabets, printed in an italic font, and are recommendations (for exceptions, see [1], Sections 1.3.1 and 2.15.1).

2. The symbols for units and elements are mandatory and are printed in an upright font [5].

3. Quantity calculus ([1], Section 1.1) is used for equations, graph axes and table headings.

All symbols used in equations must be defined.

When a document includes quantities, a summary table of relevant quantities can be included in the document, like the tables in the Green Book, with the headings: Name, Symbol, Definition, SI Unit, Notes. The definition may be an equation, verbal description, or both.

4.4 Use of terms from and transfer to the IUPAC Gold Book

In compiling a document, inspecting the IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology (Gold Book) [8] is required to identify whether terms have been defined previously within IUPAC documents.

It is the intention that for all terms defined in future IUPAC Recommendations, corresponding entries are created in the online Gold Book or revised if they already exist. For this reason, the layout in Section 4.7 must be adhered to.

For Recommendations already published, a review/reconciliation process is underway to avoid duplications and inconsistencies when transferring terms from previous Recommendations into the Gold Book. The management and update of the Gold Book is under review by the Joint ICTNS–CPCDS Subcommittee on the IUPAC Gold Book (JSIGB, https://iupac.org/body/039). CPCDS (Committee on Publications and Cheminformatics Data Standards) has responsibility for the metadata management (i.e., digital expression) of terms. ICTNS has final authority over the terms transferred.

4.5 Formatting of citations and references

All references should be cited in the text or captions. They should be typed in brackets, e.g., [41], [42–44] or [41, 42, 45], in sequence, and numbered separately (i.e. [41], [42], …, not [41(a), (b) …]). Only primary and secondary references such as articles in journals, books, and issued patents should be used. Meeting abstracts and patent applications may not be quoted unless they are published in a form that is available for library reference.

References appear at the end of the manuscript in numerical order and should be accompanied by their digital object identifier (DOI), when available. Names of all authors should be used rather than “et al.” Abbreviations of journal titles should agree with usage by Chemical Abstracts (https://cassi.cas.org). For journal articles, only the first page is required, but for book chapters and sections, inclusive page numbers are desirable.

Examples:

[40] J. P. Lee, G. C. Pimentel. J. Chem. Phys.75, 4241 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1063/1.442652.

[41] S. Stoeva, G. Grübler, H. Echner, W. Rönspeck, W. Voelter. Pure Appl. Chem.66, 101 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1351/pac199466010101.

[42] E. R. Cohen, T. Cvitaš, J. G. Frey, B. Holmström, K. Kuchitsu, R. Marquardt, I. Mills, F. Pavese, M. Quack, J. Stohner, H. L. Strauss, M. Tamaki, A. Thor. Quantities, Units and Symbols in Physical Chemistry. IUPAC Green Book, 3rd ed. RSC Publishing, Cambridge (2007).

[43] ISO/IEC 17043:2010. Conformity assessment – General requirements for proficiency testing. International Organization for Standardization, Geneva (2010).

[44] F. Bloch. US Patent 2960 649, Filed 18 June 1954, Issued 15 Nov 1960.

[45] European Commission. Commission Decision 2002/657/EC implementing Council Directive 96/23/EC concerning the performance of analytical methods and the interpretation of results. European Union, Brussels (2002). https://data.europa.eu/eli/dec/2002/657/oj.

4.6 Data availability

IUPAC has endorsed the FAIR data principles (https://iupac.org/iupac-endorses-the-chemistry-go-fair-manifesto) to ensure that research findings are based on “findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable” data, for both human readers and machine-processing (e.g., data-mining algorithms). The preferred means for providing access to data underpinning Technical Reports and Recommendations is through open data repositories, using DOI references and an IUPAC-approved reuse license. Where third-party data have been used, these need to be properly referenced as well. Data sets should be cited as: title, publisher/repository, identifier (publication year).

Where appropriate, software, algorithms or computer code used to produce the results should also be made available in FAIR-data compliant archives or repositories, as required by the open access policies of many institutions and funding agencies.

4.7 Construction of a glossary entry

A glossary entry for a term in an IUPAC Recommendation or Technical Report should give a concise and accurate definition, synonyms of the term, suggested symbols, and common abbreviations. Notes and examples should be added to give the appropriate context in chemistry. Relevant sources should be referenced.