Instructions for Authors

Inland Earthquake

1.  Manuscript Requirements

1.1 Manuscripts should report original or applied research in seismology, geophysics, earthquake geology, earthquake monitoring and prediction, disaster prevention and relief, and related interdisciplinary fields. Authors are solely responsible for the content of their submissions.

1.2 Submissions should state a clear thesis, be supported by sufficient evidence and reliable data, and be concisely argued. The abstract must identify the novelty of the work. Papers should normally be 5,000–8,000 Chinese characters in length. Figures should follow the journal’s style guide, and tables must be three-line tables. Full formatting requirements are available in the Download Centre.

1.3 Titles should be concise and specific, indicating the methods and subject of the study, and should not exceed 20 characters. Provide 3–8 keywords using standard disciplinary terminology. The Chinese abstract should be 200–300 characters, written in the third person, and should objectively state the purpose, methods, results and conclusions of the study and, where relevant, its novelty.

1.4 Authors should be listed in order of decreasing contribution and should not exceed eight in principle. All authors must be aware of the submission and must sign the Copyright Transfer Agreement. Authors bear sole responsibility for any copyright dispute or authorship disagreement.

1.5 Units of measurement must be the legal units specified in the national standard Quantities and Units of the People’s Republic of China. Symbols for variables are set in italics, symbols for constants and units in roman type, and symbols for matrices, vectors and tensors in bold italics.

1.6 Headings should not exceed four levels and should be numbered with Arabic numerals, for example 1, 1.1, 1.1.1 and 1.1.1.1. Sub-items within a paragraph may be marked with (1), ① and so on.

1.7 Where the work of others is used, the source must be acknowledged in accordance with the Copyright Law and listed in the references. References follow the author–date system: list up to three authors and add “et al.” for any others.

1.8 The first page must carry, below the body text, the dates of receipt and revision, the funding programme and a short author biography (see the journal’s format guide).

1.9 The title, authors, corresponding address, abstract, figure captions, table titles and references must be provided in both Chinese and English (see the journal’s format guide).

1.10 Manuscripts are accepted only through the journal’s official website. Every submission undergoes four review stages: editorial screening, external peer review, re-review of the revised manuscript, and final decision by the Editor-in-Chief. All rejections are notified. Authors who receive no notification within two months may contact the editorial office by telephone or submit the manuscript elsewhere.

2.  Publication Policy

2.1 Since November 2023, Inland Earthquake has been published on an open access basis through the journal website. Articles are freely available to read and download on the website as soon as they are published online. Articles published between 2020 and 2026 have been converted to open access and are freely available on the website; data for articles published before 2020 will be released progressively.

2.2 Open access articles are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). Subject to that licence, third parties and authors may reproduce and disseminate articles through any medium. Any use must carry proper attribution, a link to the licence and a statement of whether changes were made. The licence prohibits adaptation and derivative works, any commercial use, and the distribution of modified versions. Details are available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

2.3 Authors must sign the Copyright Transfer Agreement, assigning worldwide copyright in the article to the editorial office of Inland Earthquake. The editorial office holds the rights of compilation, reproduction, distribution, translation, network dissemination and adaptation for the full term of copyright protection. In accepting the journal’s open access policy, authors agree that the journal’s articles may be reproduced and disseminated under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

2.4 Full texts are also available in databases including CNKI, Wanfang, VIP, Chaoxing and Changjiang Library.

3.  Editorial Policy

3.1 The journal uses single-blind peer review, and only manuscripts that pass all four review stages enter editing and production. On receipt, the editorial office screens each manuscript and rejects at this stage those that lack originality, contain major scientific or technical flaws, offer limited academic value or fall outside the journal’s scope. Manuscripts that pass screening are sent to at least two external reviewers. Authors must respond to every comment and submit a revised manuscript, which is re-reviewed by one of the external reviewers before it is submitted to the Editor-in-Chief for a final decision.

3.2 Author responsibility. Authors are solely responsible for the content of their manuscripts. In accordance with the Copyright Law of the People’s Republic of China, the journal may copy-edit and abridge manuscripts; any change affecting the core meaning of the original text requires the author’s consent.

3.3 Submissions by board members and editors. Board members and editors must follow the journal’s full review and editorial procedures. They must not take part in the review, editing or acceptance decision for papers written by themselves, their relatives or their colleagues, and peer review must be conducted independently of the authors, the editors and their research teams.

3.4 Special columns and special issues. Manuscripts for special columns and special issues are assessed by the same standards as those for regular issues. The Editor-in-Chief decides on acceptance and is responsible for all published content. The organisation of special columns and issues is supervised by the editorial office so as to safeguard the fairness of review.

3.5 Corrections and retractions. If a non-subjective scientific oversight that does not affect the core conclusions is identified after publication, the editorial office will promptly publish a correction notice stating the changes made. If a published paper contains a serious scientific error, or is suspected of plagiarism, fabrication or other misconduct, the editorial office will conduct an investigation, may issue an expression of concern and, where appropriate, publish a retraction statement and retract the paper.

3.6 Conflicts of interest. Authors must truthfully disclose any financial, employment or project-related interest that could compromise the objectivity of the research or the fairness of review. The editorial office will assess these disclosures in order to ensure a fair review process.

4.  Charges and Remuneration

4.1 Page charges. Page charges are based on the final paginated length at CNY 500 per page, with a maximum of CNY 6,000 per article.

4.2 Review fees. Reviewers are paid for peer review at CNY 150 per review for associate research fellows and CNY 200 per review for research fellows. These fees are borne by the editorial office.

4.3 Page charges are the only fee levied by the journal. Any request for payment in the name of priority publication, expedited publication or figure processing is fraudulent, and authors should verify all such requests.

4.4 After publication, the journal pays authors an honorarium and provides two complimentary copies of the issue.

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