Manuscript types

The following types of manuscripts can be considered for peer-reviewed publication in SOIL:

  • Original research articles are based on primary data collected and present substantial and original findings.
  • SOIL Letters are research articles that report particularly important results and major advances in soil research in a concise and engaging style. Letters have fewer than 2,500 words in the main text, 200 words in the abstract, and an appropriate number of figures, or tables, and references. For more information, see the instructions for authors. Papers accepted for final publication as SOIL Letters will also become "Highlight articles", which have high visibility in EGU. SOIL Letters are also eligible for inclusion in EGU Letters. Manuscripts submitted for consideration as SOIL Letters are subject to regular peer review with interactive public discussion, and the selection procedure is overseen by the SOIL executive committee.
  • Review articles should comprehensively summarize and especially synthesize the state-of-the-art science of specific subjects related to the scope of the journal. Depending on the subject and further characteristics, review articles are also eligible for inclusion in the Encyclopedia of Geosciences. If you are interested in this option, please see the author instructions and contact the editors of the encyclopedia.
  • Short communications report new methods or small data sets that have significant implications.
  • Forum articles should stimulate an open debate by presenting new ideas and views of soil as part of the larger Earth system. As such, they must strive to be a point of departure for future work. Purely speculative contributions are discouraged. Manuscript composition is free of parameters, although it is requested that forum articles should be short (less than 2500 words, with a maximum of three figures and tab items).
  • Letters to the editors are short commentaries on published articles in SOIL. Such letters should be submitted to the executive editors for review.
  • Comments (and replies thereon) continue the discussion of papers published in SOIL beyond the limits of immediate interactive discussion. They may be longer and submitted later than the comments exchanged in the interactive public discussion of preprints in SOIL Discussions. They undergo the same process of peer review, publication, and interactive discussion as articles and technical notes and are equivalent to peer-reviewed comments and replies in traditional scientific journals. The manuscript title should start with "Comment on" or "Reply to".
  • Corrigenda correct errors in preceding papers. The manuscript title reads as follows: Corrigendum to "TITLE" published in JOURNAL, VOLUME, PAGES, YEAR. Please note that corrigenda are only possible for final revised journal papers and not for the corresponding preprints. Corrigenda have to be submitted to Copernicus Publications within 3 years from the publication date of the original journal article. Should there be reasons for publishing a second corrigendum within these 3 years, the first one will be substituted by a single new corrigendum containing all relevant corrections.