Guidelines for Preparing a Review Paper

The Journal of Membrane Science publishes Review Papers on both mature and emerging areas of membrane science and technology. Review Papers must go beyond a simple listing or summary of previous research; they should provide comprehensive, authoritative, and critical reviews of published results that have not been comprehensively and critically reviewed in the past three to four years. The primary goal of every Review Paper should be to achieve an organization and synthesis of past work thatsignificantly advances the membrane field, bringing “order” to what might currently appear to be “chaos” in the recently published literature. Review Papers should:

(1) providea critical and integrative evaluation of prior research that effectively defines the current state-of-the-art,

(2) develop a new conceptual framework to explain (potentially contradictory) findings,

(3) identify and clarify relationships, contradictions, gaps, and inconsistencies in the literature, and

(4) suggestdirections for future research and developments​​​​​

As such, Review Papers should be prepared by author(s) who have significant background and expertise in the subject area, including a personal record of substantive contributions related to the topic.

Authors interested in preparing a Review Paper should send the Editor-in-Chief () a proposal that contains:

a)draft Abstract and Outline that clearly describe the scope and motivation for the Review Paper

b)brief description of the author(s)’ pertinent expertise, including a list of five of the author(s)’ contributions that are most closely related to the subject matter

c)list of any recent reviews of the subject matter, including a brief discussion of how the proposed Review will differ from what has already been published

d)tentative timeline for submission of the Review Paper

The Editor-in-Chief will review the proposal with the entire Editorial Team for the Journal of Membrane Science, providing specific feedback and suggestions on both the scope and organization of the proposed Review. Authors must receive approval to submit the Review Paper before beginning the formal online submission process.

References:

D.J. Bem, “Writing a review article for Psychological Bulletin,” Psychological Bulletin, 118: 172 (1995).

P.A. Derish and T.M. Annesley, “How to write a rave review,” Clinical Chemistry, 57: 388 (2011)

C. Mack, “How to write a good scientific paper: Review articles,” Journal of Micro/Nanolithography, MEMS, and MOEMS, 15: 020101 (2016).