Author Submission Guidelines
PURSUE: Undergraduate Research Journal provides the Biannual publication of articles in all areas. PURSUE: Undergraduate Research Journal welcomes the submission of manuscripts produced by undergraduate students. The manuscript must meet the criteria of significance and research excellence. Papers will be published approximately within two months after acceptance.
The journal covers all basic areas in STEM, Agriculture, Political Science, Architecture, Health, Education and History.
Submit manuscript at digitalcommons.pvamu.edu. Click on Open Access Journals, then click PURSUE: Undergraduate Research Journal. A manuscript number will be e-mailed to the corresponding author within 72 hours of submission.
Note: Authors are solely responsible for any scientific misconduct including plagiarism in their research articles. The publisher is not responsible for any misconduct happened in any published research article. As a publisher, we will retract any article at any time if scientific misconduct or errors occur in any article(s).
Submission Deadlines
Fall Issue – October 10
Spring Issue – March 10
Editorial Policies and Process
PURSUE encourages researchers to submit their original research and reviews as articles and abstracts, well supported by tables and figures using the APA formatting style for references and citations.
Submission of an Article
Authors should adhere to the required format of a manuscript submission described here. Submitted articles should have an abstract, separate from the main text, of up to 500 words. This abstract does not include references. The abstract should provide an introduction to the subject area; a brief background and principle of the work; main conclusions; and the main findings. The text may contain a few short subheadings of no more than 50 characters each.
Abstracts being submitted for publication should follow the same format as described above.
Format for PURSUE: Undergraduate Research Journal: As long as an undergraduate is a main contributing author, PURSUE: Undergraduate Research Journal accepts original articles and abstracts.
Text Formatting:
- The entire text font should be Times New Roman
- The text should be 12 point font.
- Section title should be 14 point font.
- Margins should be 1”.
- All text in all sections should be single-spaced.
Cover Page Footnote
In the Cover Page footnote box put information regarding the two headings, “Acknowledgements” and “About the Authors”. For the “Acknowledgements” section include funding source and other pertinent research information. For the “About the Authors” section include three sentences per author that include the author’s title at institution, academic classification (sophomore, junior, etc.), college major and research/career aspirations.
Cover Letter
All submissions should be accompanied by a cover letter briefly stating the significance of the research, agreement of authors for publication, number of figures and tables and supplementary information. Also, include current telephone and fax numbers, as well as postal and E-mail address of corresponding author to maintain communication.
Article Preparation Guidelines
Manuscript title
The title of 25 words or less should be a brief phrase describing the contents of the paper.
Author Information
Complete names and affiliation of all authors, including contact details of corresponding author (Telephone, Fax and E-mail address). Author names are to appear on title page only.
Abstract
The abstract should be informative and completely self-explanatory as described above. Abbreviations should be avoided. The preferable format should accommodate a description of the research background, hypothesis and/or research problem, methods, results and conclusion. Following the abstract, a list of five keywords.
Introduction
The introduction should provide a clear statement of the study, the relevant literature on the research subject, hypothesis and/or research problem, and the proposed methodology.
Materials and Methods
The materials and methods section should be a detailed description of the design of the research and methodology. This should include the materials or participants, comparisons, interventions and types of analysis conducted. Only new procedures should be described in detail. Previously published procedures should be cited and important modifications of published procedures should be mentioned briefly.
Results
The results section should provide complete details of the experiment that support the conclusion. The results should be written in the past tense when describing findings in the authors’ experiments. Previously published findings should be written in the present tense. Results and discussion may be combined or written separately.
Acknowledgement
This section should include acknowledgment of people, grants, funds, etc.
Note: Authors should use headings/subheading for sections per the above instructions.
References
Only published or accepted manuscripts should be included in this list. Meetings abstracts, conference talks, and/or conference papers that have been submitted but not yet accepted should not be cited. All personal communications should be supported by a letter from the relevant authors. References should be listed using APA formatting (see https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/ for citation examples etc.).
Figure, captions and tables should be within of the manuscript.
Examples
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/
Tables
Tables are to be double-spaced throughout. Each table should be supplied with a heading and a legend.
Note: If necessary the author may be requested to submit the same manuscript in a .doc file and put tables, figures and illustrations on a separate page in order to aid in successful journal formatting.
Figures
All images must be at intended display size with high resolution. Additionally, image files must be cropped as close to the actual image as possible. Arabic numerals should be used to designate figures and upper case letters for their parts (Figure 1). Include a legend with a title and include sufficient description so that the figure is understandable without reading the text of the manuscript. Information given in legends should not be repeated in the text.
Supplementary Information
Summary diagram/figure included as part of the Supplementary Information (optional).
Copyright
Submission of a manuscript implies that the work described has not been published and it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.
Republishing
Any work published in PURSUE: Undergraduate Research Journal may be reprinted later in another publication, provided that PURSUE: Undergraduate Research Journal is properly recognized.