Submissions

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).

The submission file is not a PDF.

The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements that are consistent with the format and citation style most used in the discipline being submitted. Please specify your documentation style (e.g., APA, MLA...).

The author must provide 4-6 keywords that characterize the article content and provide terms for indexing the submission.

The undergraduate author (or corresponding author) must sign and adhere to the conditions outlined in the Publication Agreement form. It must be uploaded with a submission.

The author(s) confirm(s) that required research ethics approvals have been granted for research with human or animal subjects.

Author Guidelines have been followed.

The work submitted falls within the below criteria:

Research Snapshots

Research Snapshots provide a concise overview of students’ ongoing research, its significance, and, potentially, any preliminary results, but they can also take the form of an original mini-analysis. They are ideal for students engaged in ongoing research that cannot yet be represented in a full research article. While Research Snapshots are not peer-reviewed, they undergo extensive review by USURJ’s Editorial Board to ensure that high-quality work is submitted. To get a better idea of what Research Snapshots are, please review the following examples from education, health and human sciences, and liberal arts.

Interdisciplinary

An interdisciplinary research paper communicates knowledge through “research that combines the skills and perspectives of multiple disciplines” (Aboelela et al. 2007, 330). Repko and Szostak (2016) write that the “prefix inter means ‘between, among, in the midst,’ or ‘defined from two or more’ . . . [so] the starting point for understanding the meaning of interdisciplinary studies is between two or more fields of study” (3). For example, research papers may bring together the field of history and the field of psychology in an analysis of the history of mental illness. Some research papers, though, come from fields of study that are already interdisciplinary, such as Women’s and Gender Studies, Rural and Urban Development, or Land Use and Environmental Studies. In sum, an interdisciplinary research paper submission will extend beyond a single disciplinary perspective to form an integrated understanding or meaning (Repko and Szostak, 2016).

Social Sciences

“[A research paper is] any paper that presents original research, which may be quantitative, qualitative, or theoretical; synthesizes or presents a new theoretical conclusion from existing research or literature; serves as a review or collection of existing research or theories; presents a new perspective on pre-existing or original research; interprets data from a prior study; or attempts to cohesively and coherently account for a paradigm or approach within topics traditionally represented by the social sciences.”

Humanities and Fine Arts

Research papers in the humanities and fine arts cover a broad spectrum and may deal with literature, history, philosophy, visual or performing arts, linguistics, classics, or any topic focused on the study of human culture. Such research papers focus on comparison, analysis, and/or aesthetics more than the empiricism stressed in the natural, health, or social sciences.

Health and Natural Sciences

For health sciences and natural sciences, research can take a few different forms. At the undergraduate level, some students will be performing their own experiments and creating original, primary research articles. Undergraduate students may also synthesize the ideas in primary research articles and write a "review article.”*

* A review article critiques and/or synthesizes current research in a given area. It assesses the current state of knowledge of a given topic, assesses the implications of current research, comments on validity, draws new conclusions, and suggests future directions for research in this area.

Alternative Submission

Alternative submissions represent written work which expands, deepens, or otherwise contributes to research in a particular field without conforming to conventional academic practice. Alternative submission might include autoethnographic work, a focus on positionality or reflexivity, or Indigenous ways of knowing.

Alternative submissions must be accompanied by an endorsement from the professor or instructor in the course in which the submission originated. This endorsement will appear alongside submission at publication.

Note: Please consider publishing your “Alternative Submission” work in USURJ’s upcoming special issue, “Disrupting and Expanding the Status Quo."

For the special issue, “Disrupting and Expanding the Status Quo,” we are looking to publish work by undergraduate students that expands, deepens, or otherwise contributes to research in a particular field without conforming to, or through challenging, conventional academic practice. Submissions could include autoethnographic work, pedagogical critiques and formulations, a focus on positionality or reflexivity, and/or Indigenous ways of knowing.