Editorial Objectives

Submissions to the Journal of Chemical Education should address JCE’s audience and its goals. The ACS Division of Chemical Education, Inc., publishes JCE as a means of communication among people who are interested in teaching chemistry. This includes teachers of chemistry from middle school through graduate school, as well as some scientists in industry and government.

W. T. Lippincott, a former editor, stated the Journal’s aims well: “to provide chemistry teachers with information, ideas, and materials for improving and updating their background and their understanding of the science, and for helping them in their teaching and in their effectiveness in developing the talents of students. The central idea here is that this should be not only a ‘living textbook of chemistry’ as one of the early editors put it, but a perpetual and dependable learning source for chemists who teach.”

JCE is a multimedia publisher. We publish chemistry education materials in print via the Journal of Chemical Education. We publish the same material and supplements to it via JCE Online and interactive, dynamic, online resources Only@JCE Online. We publish computer software and video via JCE Software. Submissions to JCE may be aimed at any one or any combination of our media divisions. Additional information is available online.

The Journal (print and online) publishes articles in these main areas:

• Chemical Education Today (news, commentary, reports, reviews of books/media, letters to the editor)
• Chemistry for Everyone (applications, history, interdisciplinary activities, public understanding; JCE Classroom Activities)
• In the Classroom (teaching tips, methods, demonstrations, content, principles)
• In the Laboratory (experiments, microscale, safety)
• Information/Textbooks/Media/Resources (chemical information, textbook forum, technology and multimedia applications, information technology)
• Research: Science and Education (review papers that interpret a specific aspect of chemistry for teachers, science education research)

All submissions are peer reviewed; most are substantially revised and improved before acceptance and publication.

Our Expectations

To be considered for publication, a manuscript must

• have pedagogical content or relevance
• be useful to a clearly defined audience of teachers
• be accurate and original
• include a complete list of literature cited.

We expect that your manuscript has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere and that you have done a thorough literature search to ensure that it does not duplicate previously published work, especially from JCE. (Use our online JCE Index to find JCE references. For laboratory manuscripts, also consult the Project Chemlab database. The text should be in clear, concise, proper English and should begin with an overview of how the work presented is relevant to classroom, laboratory, or curriculum.

Whenever possible, incorporate materials by citing relevant publications. Do not repeat what has been published. Make certain that tables and illustrations convey information effectively, and that graphs and figures are appropriately drawn. You can supply supplementary material that we can make available in JCE Online for downloading.

How to Submit

Letters to the Editor. Send or email to the Editorial Office. Your letter should be brief (400 words or less) and to the point. It may be edited for style, consistency, clarity, or length. Include your complete address, daytime phone number, and signature.

News and Announcements. Send to Elizabeth A. Moore at the Editorial Office. Announcements should be concise, to the point, and appropriate for the Journal’s audience. They may be edited for clarity, timeliness, appropriateness, or length. Announcements must be received at least two months before you want them to appear.

All other submissions. Send print copies of all other submissions to the Journal’s Editorial Office. This includes those intended for feature columns and the Secondary School Chemistry section. Do not attach your submission to an email message. Submissions that do not conform to JCE guidelines will be returned for revision. There are additional guidelines for laboratory experiments and for JCE Classroom Activities.

What Happens Next

When we have received your manuscript and the accompanying materials, you will receive an acknowledgment letter and a Copyright Assignment form. Once your signed Copyright Assignment form has been received, your manuscript will be sent to reviewers. Except in unusual circumstances, we will not communicate with you again until all of the reviewers’ comments are in (usually this takes 1–2 months).

After acceptance, we will need a final version of the manuscript and all supplementary material in the proper electronic format. Please carefully follow the Instructions for Final Manuscript Preparation that will be sent to you and are also available on JCE Online. Before publication the corresponding author will receive proofs and an order blank for reprints (available for a small charge). Mark all corrections on the proof. Papers are scheduled for publication after we receive corrected proofs.

If you have questions about submission procedures, please consult JCE Online or direct your questions to the JCE staff by email, telephone (608/262-7146), fax (608/262-7145), or U.S. mail to the JCE Editorial Office: 209 North Brooks Street, Madison, WI 53715-1116.