Submissions

Submission Preparation Checklist

• 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).
• At least one of the authors is an undergraduate student, or was an undergraduate student at the time the submission was written. All undergraduate student authors will be formally identified, with their academic affiliation, in the Comments to the editor section during submission, along with a description of how the student(s) and the advisor met and the circumstances of the preparation of the paper, e.g., the paper was the result of an REU led by the advisor, the student was attending a course given by the advisor, etc. In exceptional cases, we will allow submission of papers with high school student (co)authors, but a case by case decision will have to be made after discussions with the advisor, prior to the submission of the paper.
• If a paper has a large number of authors, e.g., it was the result of a large REU group, the author will be recorded as a collective author using a descriptive name, and the group members will be listed at the end of the paper, with their addresses. A footnote on the first page will state that the group members are listed at the end. What represents a “large number” will be determined case by case, prior to the submission of the paper, after discussions with the advisor, but will be typically around 10.
• If the article is submitted by a student, the advisor, a faculty member from an accredited institution, who has enough publication experience to supervise publishable research, and is able and willing to answer any questions related to the paper, will send an email to the journal, on which the student author submitting the paper will be copied, stating that the submission is ready for publication, and describing how they met the student and the circumstances of the preparation of the paper, e.g., the paper was the result of an REU led by the advisor, the student was attending a course given by the advisor, etc.. The student author submitting the paper will only submit the paper after receiving the email that the advisor sent to the journal, and will include the name of the advisor in the comments to the editor discussion. Recall that undergraduate student authors have to be formally identified, with their academic affiliation, in the Comments to the editor during submission. Papers submitted before the journal receives the email endorsement from the advisor will be automatically rejected
• Spelling and grammar were thoroughly checked before submitting, preferably with an automated grammar/spell checker. Submissions with spelling and grammar errors will not be sent for review until the errors are fixed.
• The submission file is in PDF document file format. If the submission uses the template downloaded from the journal page (Author Guidelines) please compile twice so that the line numbers show up on the left of each page.
• Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
• The text is single-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.