As of January 2024
1. Submission
Manuscripts, which meet the following requirements, should be submitted in electronic format to jalcaeditor@gmail.com as a single Word e-mail attachment (including embedded Figures and Tables in JPG and/or Excel).

2. Subject Matter
The Journal of the American Leather Chemists Association publishes manuscripts on all aspects of leather science, engineering, technology, and economics, and will consider related subjects that address concerns of the industry. Examples: hide/skin quality or utilization, leather production methods/equipment, tanning materials/leather chemicals, new and improved leathers, collagen studies, leather by-products, impacts of changes in leather products industries, process efficiency, sustainability, regulatory, safety, environmental, tannery waste management and industry economics.

3. Types of Articles
Four categories articles are considered: Technical Papers, Technical Notes, Reviews and Invited Lectures.

Our major publication emphasis, Technical Papers, should be a thorough treatment of a specific subject, including such figures and tables (F&T) necessary to illustrate the points made in the text and to justify the conclusions drawn. Technical Papers are subject to peer review prior to acceptance.
Technical Notes accommodate less formal presentations from the tanning industry and suppliers, especially those made at the Association’s annual conventions. Notes from the supplier industries should include technical data to justify the statements made. Notes, while less formal, must meet the literary standards of the Journal, but need not contain an experimental section or references and are usually not Peer Reviewed.
Review Papers and Invited Lectures will be published only on currently important theoretical or practical aspects of leather science, manufacture, and economics and must meet Journal literary standards.

4. General Requirements for Manuscripts
English Language: Manuscripts must be submitted in native American English language consistent with Journal standards and sufficient to enable Peer Review of technical content.
The First page should have a running head, title, authors’ last names with initials, (corresponding author footnoted with e-mail address) and authors’ affiliations/addresses. Also footnote occasion, place and date of presentation on which the paper is based.

While some formatting flexibility is permitted, it is recommended that Technical Papers be submitted with the following sections:

  • Abstract Tells why the work was done and may generally state results (minimize data details) and their significance in one paragraph,
  • Introduction Must judiciously reference using superscripts (ex:…word.6,7) the important contributions to the subject that have been previously published, clearly state how the work in the submitted manuscript differs from the cited work and satisfy reviewers’ determination of originality,
  • Experimental Must be detailed enough to permit other investigators to verify the work, include the source and grade of all chemicals used and detailed descriptions of processes and equipment used to conduct the experiments,
  • Results – The actual dates obtained should be given under Results. The interpretation of this data should be under Discussion,
  • Discussion (Results and Discussion may be combined if clarity can be retained),
  • Conclusions – Brief and based on the reported results,
  • Acknowledgement – Necessary credits appear here,
  • References – Required for all citations (matching sequential numbering as used above, but generally limited to no more than about 20) adhering to JALCA format; Examples
    • 1. Liu, C. P., White, R and McClendon, M.D.; Energy Approach to the Characterization of the Thermal Resistance of Leather. JALCA 92, 103-118, 2007.  (JALCA 92, 103-118,2007 also acceptable.)
    • 2. Trade Practices for Proper Packer Cattlehide Delivery, 3rd ed., Leather Industries of America and U.S. Hide, Skin & Leather Association, pp. 12-19, 1993.

This Journal is referenced as JALCA; for other journals, use the Chemical Abstracts abbreviations. Use of “In press” and web address should be limited.

5. Further Requirements for Manuscripts
Length should generally not exceed 16 single spaced (24 double-spaced) pages of typed text, including embedded Figures &Tables; using 12 point Times New Roman font with paragraphs not indented. The manuscript should contain reproduction quality figures and tables embedded at the appropriate locations in the text, thus offering the entirety of the manuscript as a single Word document.

Figures and Tables
Figures (numbered with Arabic numerals) are preferred with images submitted in JPG format as black and white or color. The electronic JALCA issue will reproduce color as submitted. Excel table data should preferably be converted to and presented in JPG image format whenever possible.

Tables (numbered with Roman numerals) presented in Excel format should be used only when there is no other way to reasonably present accurate readable data. Excel formatted tables must have a width of no greater than 3.5 inches (9 cm.) or 7.5 inches (19 cm.) and embedded in the Word text in a way that most closely follows the flow of the manuscript. F&T should be numbered consecutively with designated numerals.
As a guidance, the total number of compliant F&T should be no more than eight (8) per manuscript.

For a comprehensive overview of all manuscript requirements, authors are urged to review manuscripts in recent copies of the Journal.

6. Life Lines
Every manuscript should be accompanied by a brief biography of each of the authors or the citation of an earlier “Life Line” biography.

7. Publication Rights
Authors of papers to be published in the Journal will be required to sign a “Transfer of Copyright” form before the paper is published. All papers based on oral presentations at the annual conventions of the ALCA are the property of the Association with the Journal having the exclusive right to publish. Authors employed by a U.S. government agency will be required to provide an employee certification.

Contents of papers published in the Journal may not be republished elsewhere without the written permission of the Journal Editor. Permission will be granted for publication of the entire paper in non-English-language publications or for summaries of the paper along with reference to the complete article in JALCA in English-language journals.

8. Peer Review
Two members of the Editorial Board will review editor pre-screened manuscripts. The reviewers’ evaluate:
1. Interest to Subscribers (compliance with Subject Matter policy),
2. Originality (Introduction must make this case),
3. Scientific/technical validity (experimental design, results justify conclusions, controls, statistical validity and appropriate use
of standard deviations),
4. Literary standards (English language readability, grammar, subject tense/verb matches, etc.), reporting the results to the editor on Reviewform14.

The reviewers’ written recommendations will be e-mailed to the corresponding author; who then must respond to all of the reviewers’ recommendations with a revised manuscript (response may include separate explanations of specific disagreements with the recommendations). Other than inappropriate subject or lack of originality, most papers can be rendered acceptable for publication by this revision process.
The Journal Editor makes the final decisions as to acceptability and scheduling of manuscripts for publication in JALCA.

9. Proofs and Reprints
When formatted, our design resource will e-mail a PDF galley proof to the corresponding author. The author will have 2 weeks to respond to the design with suggested final changes sent to the design resource.  Final changes are restricted to editorial type changes.  Technical changes will not be allowed and, if requested, may result in the manuscript being dropped from the planned issue.

10. Conflict of Interest Policy

All authors are expected to identify and disclose any potential conflicts of interest that may impact their work. A statement regarding any or no Conflicts of Interest must be included in all manuscripts.

Reprints of Journal articles may be requested through the ALCA website: leatherchemists.org or by emailing hallks@ucmail.uc.edu or call (513) 290.2502.