Article Submission Guidelines & Policies
Submission Guidelines
Submission Guidelines
1. Submit: Please visit the Scholastica Submission Portal after reading these article submission guidelines and policies to upload your work: Undergraduate Research
2. Style Guide: Please use the correct style guide for your discipline. UR recommends using Purdue OWL® - Purdue OWL® - Purdue University for citation formatting.
3. Submissions cannot exceed 20 pages single-spaced. Submissions must use automatic line numbering.
4. Images: All images should be high quality (1200 dpi for line art, 600 dpi for grayscale and 300 dpi for color, at the correct size. Preferred formats include: PS, JPEG, PNG, or in Word (Docx).
5. Equations: If you are submitting your manuscript as a word document, please ensure that equations are editable.
6. Originality: All work must be original to the author. (see AI policy below)
7. Instructions for Submission: (see below for files to be submitted)
· Format: Submissions should be in Word (DOC/DOCX) or PDF format, and 12-point Times New Roman, with 1" margins.
· Abbreviations: As a general rule, only standardized abbreviations and symbols should be used. If unfamiliar abbreviations are employed, they should be defined when they first appear in the text.
· Trademark names should be capitalized and spelling verified. Chemical or generic names should precede the trade name or abbreviation of a drug the first time it is used in the text.
· Submission Authors: should include their name and institution/affiliation on the cover page (separate from the manuscript). Since this is a blind review, the authors names should not appear anywhere else (other than the cover page).
· Abstract: Please include a brief abstract (150 to 200 words) of your work. The abstract should be interesting, readable with varied sentence structure, and be written in active voice. Avoid using technical terms that few readers are likely to understand. If using technical terms, include definitions.
· Keywords: Please include 4-6 keywords (which will help with digital indexing).
· Upload: Please upload the primary files in the primary manuscript portal, as separate documents (see below).
· Supplementary material: Supporting files, including supplementary datasets, IRB verification, or any additional supporting material, can be submitted in the supporting files field.
FILES TO BE SUBMITTED:
The following should be submitted in SEPARATE files when submitting through the manuscript portal.
· Author declaration file. (see below) (Each author needs to submit a separate file.)
· Mentor declaration file. (see below) Manuscripts will NOT be accepted without a signed mentor declaration file submission.
· Knowledge Box Deposit Agreement file. (see below) (Each author needs to submit a separate file.)
· Cover page with author names and affiliations. Mentors will be accepted as co-authors and should place their name at the end of the author list.
· Abstract with keywords.
· Complete BLIND manuscript with line numbering and references. (no names /institutions in the document)
· Additional supporting files. (if applicable)
Journal Policies
Author Status: FIRST author must be enrolled as an undergraduate student during the time the research was conducted. First authors will be able to submit their work for one calendar year after their graduation. Authorship is credited to student researchers and their faculty mentor(s).
· The author’s work must be original research conducted by the Undergraduate Researcher under the supervision of a faculty mentor(s).
· All submissions will be checked for plagiarism/AI usage. URJ considers plagiarism to be the use of other author’s published or unpublished works without permission or without a proper citation. URJ also considers the submission of the author's own previously published work; as a whole or in part, to be plagiarism.
· Statement on AI usage: URJ recognizes the position statement from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), which states
“AI tools cannot meet the requirements for authorship as they cannot take responsibility for the submitted work. As non-legal entities, they cannot assert the presence or absence of conflicts of interest nor manage copyright and license agreements.
Authors who use AI tools in the writing of a manuscript, production of images or graphical elements of the paper, or in the collection and analysis of data, must be transparent in disclosing in the Materials and Methods (or similar section) of the paper how the AI tool was used and which tool was used. Authors are fully responsible for the content of their manuscript, even those parts produced by an AI tool, and are thus liable for any breach of publication ethics.” Authorship and AI tools | COPE: Committee on Publication Ethics
· If applicable, the author is responsible for obtaining written copyright permission on all information (e.g., visuals, sound, and other data) in the article.
· Copyright Policies: After publication, all copyrights revert to the author (but must include an acknowledgement of publication in Undergraduate Research).
· Fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, or any other practice by an author that seriously deviates from practices commonly accepted in the discipline or in the academic and research communities generally for proposing, conducting, or reporting research and creative activities will be considered actionable misconduct. Regardless of the quality of the submission, it will be rejected due to any misconduct.
· Faculty mentor(s) must be included in the author list AND sign the Author Declaration page. (see above)
· Human & Animal Experimentation Policy Statement: UR endorses the Declaration of the Helsinki of the World Medical Association regarding the conduct of clinical research. Submitted work involving the use of human and/or animal subjects MUST conform to the internally recognized policies regarding the humane use of experimental subjects. The use of subjects should be approved by an ethics committee prior to the investigation and shall be stated in the Methods section of the submitted manuscript.
· Manuscripts are considered for publication on the condition that they contribute solely to this journal and have not been, or will not be, published elsewhere, in part or in whole.
· Publication Charges: None
Review Process and Final Submission
After Submitting Your Manuscript
- A managing editor will be assigned to your submission.
- The managing editor will forward the submission to two reviewers for a blind review
- The review time varies depending on the type of submission, time of year submitted, etc.
- The managing editor will review the reviewers scores and comments and will then contact the submitting author with the final decision.
After the Review Process is Completed
If your submission is accepted with revisions:
- Read over all of the reviewers' comments carefully.
- Create a separate document to submit back to the managing editor that identifies the changes made or justification for not revising a specific element of the submission. Be sure to reference line numbers for each change or "no change" decision.
- Correct the original submission carefully.
- Resubmit both the revised submission and the additional changes explanation document into the submission portal following instructions from Scholastica.
Authorship Documentation
The following forms are required to be submitted with your manuscript documents.
