Submit a Paper

Submit to UMURJ here!

Accepting submissions until January 15th, 2025 at 11:59 PM ET (Authors are encouraged to submit in the fall semester or at their earliest convenience)

Submission Guidelines

Submissions should be in APA Style. Download these guidelines as a PDF.

I. OVERVIEW

The Journal will accept research articles, reviews, abstracts and reports authored by undergraduate students. Mentors and faculty members may act as secondary authors, but submitted articles must be composed primarily by undergraduate students. The work must be an original article. A research article submission must include experimental and/or survey evidence as the basis for the conclusions of the author(s) for it to be considered research-related. Submissions may be about technical research, but must be written at a more general level appropriate for the broad readership of the journal.
Prospective authors should submit a complete copy of the work online, in Microsoft Word (doc/docx) format, via the UMURJ website (​www.umurj.org​). The submitted manuscript cannot be published or undergoing review in another ​undergraduate​ research journal. Publication in UMURJ will not generally hinder the publication of the author’s work in any professional journals due to the non-exclusive, general, and non-technical nature of our journal. However, each professional journal has its own guidelines and more specific questions of this nature should be directed to the UMURJ Editors-in-Chief through the email address listed above.

II. TYPES OF SUBMISSIONS

The main purpose of UMURJ is to publish high-quality original research articles written by undergraduates. Thus, full-length research articles will be given highest preference in publication over other formats. Other submissions will be considered on a case-by-case basis, including Reviews, Reports, Interviews, and Abstracts (described below).
Please read the descriptions provided below and determine which category your work falls under. More complete guidelines on submission formats for each category of work are given in the next section, Submission Requirements.
We encourage you to send in your work regardless of category, and to direct any questions you have to our Editors-in-Chief via email.

Original Research Article

An original research article should report motivations for research and relevant literature, methods, experimental data, discussion, and subsequent conclusions while assuming a reader of limited technical understanding. Submitted manuscripts must concern original research (i.e. novel methodologies, new results, or different interpretations). The primary author of the article must have completed the majority of the research described. Senior honors thesis work will be accepted under this category.

Abstracts

Submission of short research abstracts will allow students to showcase their work-in- progress to the wider campus community. Students who may be interested in submitting abstracts include underclassmen, beginning researchers, individuals who have done extensive work on a project but may not yet have a full-length research article prepared.

Review

A review summarizes past research performed in a specific academic concentration and discusses possible future directions for research in that field in an accessible manner. We suggest that University of Michigan faculty who specialize in the field reviewed should also be mentioned.

Report

A report will be a brief presentation of an undergraduate student’s research. This submission will be more developed than an abstract but typically does not have the well- developed results and conclusions of a complete research article. The purpose of a report will be to educate other undergraduates about an interesting and promising area of research.

Interview

An interview of a researcher or another individual closely connected to research may be conducted by a student and submitted to the Journal with the signed consent of the person interviewed. We suggest that other faculty who specialize in the same field as the interviewee should be mentioned.

III. SUBMISSION PREPARATION

Formatting Guidelines

All submissions must be in a Microsoft Word document format. Text should be double- spaced, in Times New Roman 12-pt font. All files should be named beginning with the last name of the primary author (Example: lastname_MainText.doc)
Individual presentation of the submission may vary slightly depending on the nature of the research; however, work submitted to UMURJ must adhere to the following guidelines:

• The maximum length is ​fifteen pages ​double-spaced. Honors theses can be shortened to comprise the central premise, results, and conclusions in order to be eligible for publication in UMURJ. Shorter papers are welcome. However, we are open to considering papers over the 15-page limit should there be difficulty in shortening them. Contact the Editors-in-Chief beforehand should this be an issue.
• Images and data figures should be included in the body of the article, and should be numbered and accompanied by a brief descriptive caption. Images should be properly referenced within the text, and their relation to the surrounding text should be clearly outlined. Authors should have high resolution image files, (300 dpi) and preferably in TIFF, PNG, and JPEG format. Following submission of the research paper, editorial staff will ask for these high-quality images during the review and acceptance process.

It is expected that all research article submissions contain the following sections.
Submissions that fail to include one or more of these sections may cause delays in the review process, and may not be published in UMURJ. ​Please exclude personal identifiers from the main content file to help us ensure an unbiased review!

Cover Page

The cover page should include the title of the work, and the 300 word abstract.

Title

Titles should be brief descriptions containing keywords. They should not be full sentences.

Abstract

An abstract should be limited to a concise paragraph (300 words) that summarizes the major arguments of the submission and explains the most compelling motivations for performing the research. The abstract should provide a background sufficient to establish a context for understanding the research, summarize the research article itself, and highlight the major results.

Main Content

Although ​it is preferred that submissions be written for the non-specialist​ (someone who is not an expert in the field addressed in the article) we recognize that this is not always entirely possible. ​However, we do require that the author make an effort in reflecting on the implications of the research and drawing the relevant conclusions.​ The Sweetland Writing Center is recommended as a resource in helping draft and refine the mechanics of your submission. We advise that submitters request colleagues in different fields to read their final draft before submission for confirmation of the article’s comprehensibility. The research article itself may be organized into the following sections: introduction, methods, results, conclusion, references, appendices (if applicable).

Images and Data Representation

Tables​: Each table should appear on a separate page. Please include a title, appropriate SI units, a short, descriptive caption, and a legend with each table. All tables must be in Black & White.
Figures​: Figures may be inserted directly into the document, but the images should not be overlaid or resized. Restrict all DNA/amino acid sequences, chemical schemes, mathematical equations, etc. to a level comprehensible to the general public. Four to six figures are recommended.
If a manuscript is selected or seriously considered for publication, UMURJ editors will request high resolution figures. It is preferred that figures are sent as separate attachments. Each figure should never exceed 5 MB, and the advised file type is TIFF, although PNG and JPEG will also be accepted. Magnified images should include magnification and bars for scale.
Graphs​: Each graph should be titled. The ordinate and abscissa should be labeled with the measured parameter and the units of measure, but the graph should not be cluttered with scale lines. Colored or shaded lines should not be used on graphs. Instead, solid or open symbols should be used to represent different lines. The background of each graph should be white. A copy of each graph should be saved in case future revisions are necessary. It is preferable that graphs be in black & white; however we recognize that in many cases this is not possible. Data presented in figures should describe statistical significance by the convention of * for p=0.05, ** for p=0.01, and *** for p=.001 or lower.

Acknowledgements

Sources of funding or technical assistance should be addressed in a separate acknowledgements section in the submission form ​(exclude acknowledgements from the main content file to ensure a blinded review process!).

References

The reference format required for the journal ​Science Signaling ​ will be used for all works submitted to UMURJ, regardless of subject-area​. This is to facilitate cohesiveness and uniformity throughout our multidisciplinary research journal. Citations should be professional, organized, and readers should easily be able to trace referenced works in the body of the paper. Failure to appropriately cite relevant information will cause the work to be rejected for publication. References must include all authors, full titles of journal articles, the journal abbreviation, the volume, the first and last page, and the year of publication. Within the text, references must be cited by number. An example of the citation style is below:

1. J. J. Tesmer, R. K. Sunahara, A. G. Gilman, S. R. Sprang, Crystal structure of the catalytic domains of adenylyl cyclase in a complex with Gs·GTP-γ-S. ​Science ​ 278​, 1907-1916 (1997).

IV. POST-SUBMISSION CORRESPONDENCE

Following submission of the research article, abstract, or other work to UMURJ, authors will receive Mentor and Author Agreement forms to be filled out and returned as quickly as possible. Authors will also be requested to submit high-quality image files as described above.

• Research completed under the supervision of a faculty member must be accompanied by a ​mentor agreement form ​indicating acceptance of the terms of UMURJ publication and affirming that the paper is the work of the submitting student author.
• All submissions must be accompanied by a completed ​author agreement form​, indicating acceptance of the terms of UMURJ publication, particularly the stipulation that any work appearing in UMURJ may not be published in any other undergraduate research journal.

The author will receive confirmation that UMURJ has received his/her article no more than two weeks after submission. The article will be reviewed by a student editing team in the specific subject area of the submission (Humanities; Social Sciences; Physical Sciences, Mathematics & Engineering; Biological Sciences). Communications with the author will be through Associate editors in the subject area, or through the Editors-in-Chief of the journal. Notification of article acceptance or rejection will occur by the 10​th​ of February. The author must respond to a notification of acceptance within one weeks. If a reply is not received within this time frame, the original submitted article may or may not be published.
After acceptance of a submission, the author will work with associate editors and copy editors to revise and enhance the submission for publication. An associate editor in the subject area will have assistance in evaluating the technical aspects of the article from Faculty experts in the field. Authors are expected to respond to requests for a revision of an article by February 2​nd​.

V. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Members of the University of Michigan Undergraduate Research Journal editorial team currently may ​not ​ submit works in the same manner as any other student, except as an interview as described above.
For more resources and additional updates please visit our website at ​www.umurj.org​,​ or contact our Editors-in-Chief at ​umurj-editorsinchief@umich.edu​.​ On behalf of the entire editing team, we thank you for your interest in UMURJ, and we look forward to receiving and reviewing your submissions.

 

Any questions regarding submissions can be sent to the following: umurj-editorsinchief@umich.edu