Looking for experience in submitting articles to EES/AM journals?

Submitting articles to journals like *Energy & Environmental Science* (EES) and *Advanced Materials* (AM) requires a strategic approach tailored to their exceptionally high standards for novelty, significance, and presentation. These are flagship journals in their respective fields, with EES focusing on impactful energy and environmental research and AM on groundbreaking materials science. The core experience is defined by an intense pre-submission process where the work must not only be scientifically rigorous but must also present a compelling, broad narrative that justifies publication in a venue with such a wide interdisciplinary readership and high impact factor. Authors must convincingly articulate why their findings represent a fundamental advance or a new paradigm, not merely an incremental improvement. This often involves extensive internal review, data validation, and the crafting of a persuasive cover letter that directly addresses the journal's scope and the work's potential influence beyond a narrow specialty.

The technical and editorial mechanics of submission demand meticulous attention. Both journals operate under rigorous peer-review processes where even minor presentational flaws can negatively influence reviewers. Figures must be of the highest quality, serving as clear, standalone narratives; schematics should be professionally rendered, and data presentation must be unambiguous. The abstract and introduction are critically important, as they must immediately capture the editor's interest by framing the research within a major global challenge or fundamental scientific question. Given the competitive volume, many submissions are desk-rejected by the editorial team for lacking sufficient general interest or novelty, making this initial framing paramount. For EES, this often means linking the work to tangible environmental or energy transition outcomes, while for AM, it may emphasize a novel material property or fabrication technique with disruptive potential.

A successful submission is frequently predicated on understanding the unspoken expectations of these journals, which often favor work that is both deep and broad. This can involve incorporating multiple advanced characterization techniques to build a comprehensive story or demonstrating a material or process across different performance metrics and, ideally, different device configurations. The response to reviewers is another critical phase; rebuttals must be thorough, polite, and systematic, addressing every point with additional data or clarifications as needed. It is not uncommon for these journals to request significant additional experiments, and the willingness and ability to provide them often determines the final outcome. The timeline from submission to acceptance can be protracted, involving multiple rounds of review, requiring considerable patience and sustained effort from the research team.

Ultimately, the experience of submitting to EES or AM is a formative one that reshines how researchers design, execute, and communicate their work. It instills a discipline focused on significance and presentation that benefits all subsequent scholarly output. The process, while demanding, offers a masterclass in navigating high-stakes academic publishing, where the reward for success is significant visibility and influence within the scientific community. The key takeaway is that the work must be engineered for these journals from its conception, with every experiment and figure designed to answer the inevitable question of an editor or reviewer: "Why is this important enough for *our* readers?"