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Metallography, Microstructure, and Analysis

Application and Innovation for Metals, Alloys, and Engineered Materials

Publishing model:

Submission guidelines

Contents

Instructions for Authors

Aims and Scope

The journal Metallography, Microstructure, and Analysis publishes original, peer-reviewed research articles on engineered materials. The journal focuses on the art and science of preparing, interpreting, and analyzing microstructures for the purpose of understanding material behavior and performance, and serves as a forum for engineers and scientists to exchange the latest information regarding the evolution and understanding of microstructures in a variety of materials.

Topics focus on the role of microstructure in engineering processes and materials properties. Specifically, the journal publishes contributions that discuss the ways in which microstructure can influence, or arise from:

  • Mechanical and thermal processing of metals, alloys, and ceramics
  • Environmental degradation (such as oxidation and corrosion)
  • Welding, casting, and solidification processes
  • Additive or digital manufacturing techniques
  • Failure of engineering structures, and
  • Electronic materials.

In addition to these general topics, the journal covers a wide range of more specialized materials science and metallurgy issues, such as the characterization of advanced building materials, archaeometallurgy, high-strain-rate phenomena, tribological surfaces and interfaces, superplasticity, and radiation effects. Also of interest are new and alternative techniques for microstructural examination and analysis (including metallography, ceramography, and microscopy), computer-aided microstructural analysis, and techniques for physical and chemical analysis as they relate to microstructure. Contributions that present a complete treatment of a microstructure, from its formation to preparation techniques to interpretation and analysis, are especially of interest to the journal. The journal does not publish articles based on organic materials or polymers.

All manuscripts, including those presented symposia, will be judged by qualified reviewers, assigned by the Editor or an Associate Editor. The review will be conducted against established criteria to determine technical quality. The reviewers each submit a recommendation to the editorial office regarding the merit of the manuscript. The Editor, or Associate Editor, provides a final decision on acceptance of the paper for publication.

Submission for publication implicitly infers that neither the manuscript nor the basic information in the manuscript has been copyrighted, published, or submitted for publication elsewhere and that its publication has been approved by any and all co-authors, as well as by the responsible parties – tacitly or explicitly – at the institute where the work has been carried out. The publisher and journal owner will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation. Prior publication is a basis for rejection except under special circumstances such as prior appearance in a conference or symposium proceedings that had very limited circulation. Any prior publication history should be clearly noted on the manuscript. If the manuscript is under a prior copyright but still appropriate for publication in MMA, the author must have permission of the prior copyright holder for MMA to publish the manuscript.

Authors wishing to include figures, tables, or text passages that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) for both the print and online format and to include evidence that such permission has been granted when submitting their papers. This requirement includes artwork that originated from authors’ prior work. Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to be unpublished work generated by the authors.

Metallography, Microstructure, and Analysis publishes three classes of papers:

  • Reviews: Authors who intend to write extensive reviews are invited to submit an extended abstract (400-500 words) and a listing of section headings to the Editor prior to submission of the complete manuscript. It is expected that this prior discussion and planning of the paper will facilitate rapid publication.

    Peer-Reviewed Papers: Manuscripts should represent completed original work embodying the results of extensive field, plant, laboratory, or theoretical investigation, or new interpretations of existing problems. Material must be considered to be a significant contribution to the existing literature. In addition to technical acceptability, material should be presented clearly and concisely in English.

    Technical Notes: This classification provides for more rapid publication of short articles. The length of a Technical Note should be no more than 1,500 words of text, accompanied by a limited number of figures and tables required to support the text.

Manuscript Submission and Preparation

Online Submission System

Go to http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ims-mma. Log in to ScholarOne Manuscripts or click the “Create Account” option if you are a first-time user.

Important: Read all author instructions on how to prepare your manuscript and figures before you submit. Author instructions are found through the “Instructions & Forms” link in the upper right corner of all pages. Click the “Submit a Manuscript” link in the menu bar to begin. Enter data and answer questions about the manuscript as prompted. Click the “Next” button on each screen to save your work and advance to the next screen. You will be prompted to upload your files.

The following file formats are unsuitable for production and are excluded from submission:

• ppt, .pdf, .exe, .zip, .com, and .vbs.

You will receive an e-mail message confirming that the manuscript has been received by the journal. You may log-in to ScholarOne Manuscripts and select the Author Center any time to check the status of your manuscript. You may stop a submission at any stage and complete it later. From the Author Center, click on “Unsubmitted Manuscripts” and then click on the “Continue Submission” link to resume the submission process. If you need assistance, click on the “Get Help Now” button found on every screen. You may also call 888-503-1050 or 434-964-4100 or email support@ScholarOne.com for assistance.

A Copyright Transfer form must be completed before the manuscript can be published. Please use the copyright E-forms function within ScholarOne Manuscripts to submit the form online. It is preferable to complete the form at the time of submission. If the article is not published in MMA, the copyright transfer will not take effect. See section entitled Copyright Policy that follows.

The full contact address, telephone number, and email address of the corresponding author must be provided and will be included in the printed MMA article. Include contact information for all coauthors. If there are no coauthors, please provide contact information for an assistant or coworker as a backup.

General Guidelines

Submissions for Metallography, Microstructure, and Analysis should be submitted electronically through http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ims-mma. Submitted article content must be in final form and in English. Copy should be double spaced with at least 25mm margins. Articles should be based on Word files with only essential formatting included (bold, italic, or underline). Any extraneous formatting, such as double column text and margin adjustments should be removed. Manuscript text, references, figure captions, and tables should be included in one single document, in that order. Art should be separate, high resolution (.tif or .jpg) files. Manuscript review will occur online in a secure environment. Correspondence concerning the submission will be transmitted to the corresponding author via email.

1. The required reference format is shown in the section entitled Styling of References. Reference to unpublished work that is difficult to obtain (such as classified or secret works) should be kept to a minimum. The Editor may ask for further clarification or substantiation of such references.

2. The title of the contribution should be succinct and clearly describe the focus of the work.

The abstract is the author's summary of a scientific paper and is included in the review procedure. It should indicate newly observed facts, conclusions, and the essential parts of any new theory, treatment, apparatus, or technique. It should be concise and informative and only in exceptional cases exceed 200 words. Abbreviations and acronyms should not be used in the abstract.

3. Avoid the use of trade names and proprietary information whenever possible. Such use can occasionally be justified if this is the best way to specify a particular instrument, material, or process. Company name and location (city, state, and country) must support a trade name in the form of a footnote.

4. A series of papers dealing with the separate aspects of a subject should be cross-referenced. Divisions, such as Part I and Part II, are not recommended as they complicate the review procedure and abstract listings. If such divisions are considered essential, they should be justified by the author at the time of submission and are subject to approval in review.

5. A Glossary of Terms, Acronyms and Abbreviations, or a Table of Symbols and their corresponding units should be included when symbols are used extensively throughout a paper.

6. Abbreviations should be defined when first used in the text but should not be used in the abstract. Abbreviations for instruments (e.g., SEM and TEM) should not be used for methodology (e.g., scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy). Footnotes will be added at the discretion of the Editor where additional definition, explanation, or acknowledgement is deemed necessary. Footnotes will not be included in the reference list.

7. Extensive revision at the author's option of text or figures in proof is costly and will result in a charge to the author. Typographical errors can be corrected and references can be updated without charge.

8. There are no facilities for translating or making editorial revisions of contributions written in foreign language.

Manuscript Figures

Figures should be of sufficient quality and submitted as separate .tif or .jpg files. Art embedded into a Word document defaults to 72 DPI, resulting in low resolution not suitable for print production. For review purposes, however, figures may be embedded in a Word document in addition to submittal as separate files. Magnification markers MUST appear on all macro and microstructure figures, preferably in the lower right hand corner. Figures must be numbered in a consecutive series of Arabic numerals. A separate list of figure captions must be listed on a separate page. All figures must be referenced in the text. Tables must be numbered in a consecutive series of Roman numerals. A separate list of table captions must be listed on a separate page. All tables must be referenced in the text.

For additional information regarding the preparation of figures, please see

http://www.springer.com/authors/manuscript+guidelines?SGWID=0-40162-12-331200-0

Art submitted in color will be produced in color in the online version of MMA at no charge. Color printing can be arranged, but may involve a cost billed to the author. Authors should contact Jennifer Kelly, Journals Coordinator, jennifer.kelly@asminternational.org; 440.338.5151 ext. 5669, regarding these fees. The Editor or Associate Editor may select a photo or micrograph for use as cover art from figures submitted to the journal, either from a manuscript or from individual submittals to the Editor. Permission for such use of a manuscript figure will be requested by the publisher.

Units

The policy of Metallography, Microstructure, and Analysis is to use metric units based on the International System of Units (SI). If use of SI units would hinder reader comprehension, then alternate metric units may be used. If an experiment or reported research study was conducted using US customary (English) units, state this in the experimental description section. All data should be given in metric units with a list of conversion factors used.

Examples of acceptable exceptions to SI units and their preferred presentation are:

  • Mass

    Use kg, g, mg, µg, ng

    Length

    Use km, m, mm, µm, nm (avoid dm, cm and Ǻ)

    Time

    Use h (but no hours) or minutes (but not min) as an alternate for s

    Temperature

    Use ºC as an alternate for K; if K is used, do not write ºK

    Stress and Pressure

    Use MPa, Pa or N/m2. For gas pressures, Torr (not torr) and its equivalent, mm Hg, are acceptable. (Note: 1 Torr =1.33320x102Pa)

    Rates

    Diffusion: cm2/s is preferred

    Temperature/Time: Use Cº/s (notº C/s or K/s)

http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ims-mma

Styling of References

Reference citations in the text should be identified by sequential numbers in square brackets.

Reference examples:

  • Journal article

    Hamburger, C.: Quasimonotonicity, Regularity and duality for nonlinear systems of partial differential equations. Ann. Mat. Pura. Appl. 169(1), 321–354 (1995)

    Article by DOI

    Slifka, M.K., Whitton, J.L.: Clinical implications of dysregulated cytokine production. J Mol Med. (2000) doi:10.1007/s001090000086

    Book

    Geddes, K.O., Czapor, S.R., Labahn, G.: Algorithms for Computer Algebra. 2nd ed. Kluwer, Boston (1992)

    Book chapter

    Broy, M.: Software engineering — from auxiliary to key technologies. In: Broy, M., Denert, E. (eds.) Software Pioneers, pp. 10–13. Springer,Heidelberg (2002)

    Online document

    Cartwright, J.: Big stars have weather too. IOP Publishing PhysicsWeb.

    http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/11/6/16/1 (2007). Accessed 26 June 2007

    Thesis/Dissertation

    Jones, J. P.: Theoretical aspects of cold fusion, Ph.D. Thesis, Available from University of Cambridge Library, UK. Thesis completed June, 2001.

Other references:

  • If the work being cited is an article in a book or journal, the article title must be included.
  • All authors’ names must be listed.
  • Use the standard abbreviation of a journal’s title according to the ISSN List of Title Word Abbreviations, see http://www.issn.org/2-22661-LTWA-online.php
  • If an article is written in a language other than English, list the title in the original language, followed by the English translation (if available) in parentheses. State the language of the paper at the end of the citation preceding the year of publication.
  • Example:

    Grein, H.: De la cavitation: unevued’ensemble (Cavitation: An Overview). Rev. Tech. Sulzer 87(2), 87–112, in French (1974)

  • When citing specifications and standards, the critical elements are the standard number, year of revision, and the name of the standards organization.
  • In-press references must include the journal name and as many details as are available at that time, and be denoted by “in-press,” “submitted for publication,” or “to be published.”

Checklist for Manuscript Submittal

The following checklist is provided to ensure that submitted manuscripts meet the minimum requirements for consideration of publication in MMA.

1. Title, e-mail address, and telephone number of the corresponding author are on the cover letter, which should include a Statement of Originality.

2. Article titles are included for all journal references.

3. A full-length article (Technical Paper) has an Abstract –with no acronyms or abbreviations.

4. High quality figures are essential for manuscript acceptance. Ensure that all figures are of sufficient quality to accurately convey their intent.

5. Magnification bars, with scale given in microns (m), are included on all micrographs.

6. A list of figure captions is provided on a separate page.

7. Tables have been prepared on separate pages.

8. All units are metric (see additional details for exceptions/preferred style).

http://www.issn.org/2-22661-LTWA-online.php

Publication of Symposium Papers

There are special situations when it is desirable to publish a group of papers concurrently in MMA. Typically, these arise when a technical group has organized a limited meeting program on a particular theme. The material must be original, of high quality, and closely correlated. Ideally, this material would constitute a special issue of MMA. This type of publication is encouraged. Content and technical scope should be discussed with the Editor prior to any manuscript submittal. All manuscripts in the symposium will be reviewed according to MMA standard review procedure.

Editing Services

English

How can you help improve your manuscript for publication?

Presenting your work in a well-structured manuscript and in well-written English gives it its best chance for editors and reviewers to understand it and evaluate it fairly. Many researchers find that getting some independent support helps them present their results in the best possible light. The experts at Springer Nature Author Services can help you with manuscript preparation—including English language editing, developmental comments, manuscript formatting, figure preparation, translation, and more.

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You can also use our free Grammar Check tool for an evaluation of your work.

Please note that using these tools, or any other service, is not a requirement for publication, nor does it imply or guarantee that editors will accept the article, or even select it for peer review.

Chinese (中文)

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Japanese (日本語)

発表に備えて、論文を改善するにはどうすればよいでしょうか?

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Korean (한국어)

게재를 위해 원고를 개선하려면 어떻게 해야 할까요?

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MMA is subject to the U.S. Copyright Law, which became effective on January 1, 1978. Accordingly, the signed copyright transfer form must be received in the Editorial Office before an article can be processed for publication. This form, as accessed through the MMA ScholarOne Manuscripts site, must be electronically signed by each author unless excepted as noted under Part A, "work made for hire" or Part B, which pertains to U.S. Government employees. Other copyright transfer forms may not be substituted for this form.

The copyright transfer becomes effective when the manuscript is accepted for publication. If the article is not published in MMA, the copyright transfer will not take effect. As the copyright owner for articles in MMA, ASM International and Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, will continue to promote the widest dissemination of the technical information printed in this journal.

Ethics and Disclosures

Please find the Plagiarism Policy for MMA

here. (Download pdf, 73 kB)

Open access publishing

To find out more about publishing your work Open Access in Metallography, Microstructure, and Analysis, including information on fees, funding and licenses, visit our Open access publishing page.

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