Desired Research

The deadline for submission is 11:59 p.m. on February 22, 2013. Submit your article online via the Texas URJ submission form at the bottom of this page according to the following guidelines.

• The manuscript itself must be free of all identifying information in order to ensure an objective review process.
• The manuscript must be in .PDF, .DOC, or .DOCX format.
• The length of the manuscript must be no more than 25 pages double-spaced (except under exceptional circumstances).
• The manuscript should be written using Times New Roman 12-point font.
• References style, word style, and number style must follow the recommended citation system for the respective discipline of the manuscript.
• If the manuscript was co-authored, all authors must agree to the submission of the research article.
• The manuscript must be original work not under consideration for publication elsewhere and must not conflict with previous copyrights.

Criteria for Submitted Research

The main goal of the published journal is to provide an interesting, thought-provoking set of articles that maintains high academic standards and that people will enjoy reading. One should consider four primary criteria when preparing a submission.

Composition - The paper should be well-written, both in terms of organization of ideas and in sentence construction and diction. Papers with excessive grammatical mistakes or poorly structured sentences are unlikely to be selected.

Originality - The paper should not be a book review or recitation of another author's opinion. Rather, the paper should present original ideas. This could involve insight obtained by conducting original research or could involve synthesizing sources in a new and unique way. Papers from each discipline may fulfill these requirements in different ways, however. For example, natural science papers may emphasize original laboratory research while liberal arts papers may synthesize unique primary source material. Either way, the author must offer some perspective or interpretation that is unique and that represents an original contribution to academic research.

Importance - Well-written papers should connect the micro issue being discussed to some larger issue. Papers that do not offer insight into the relevance of the issue or connect the issue to something broader are not as effective as papers that do.

Audience - Articles are expected to be comprehensible to undergraduates in all disciplines and should be written with a well-read and generally educated audience in mind.

Also see the archives for previously published articles.

URJ Review Process

Deadline for Manuscript Submission - February 22, 2013 at 11:59 p.m.

Selection Day - Submissions are scored by the URJ selection board, composed of fellow undergraduate and graduate students. A selected number of high-scoring submissions will continue in the review process.

Faculty Review - Highly-scored articles from Selection Day are submitted to a faculty editorial board for review. Each article will be reviewed by a faculty expert in the particular topic of that article.

URJ Editorial Staff Selection - Final articles are chosen for publication by the URJ editorial staff.

Article Revision - Every article will be subjected to several rounds of revisions for content and grammar, depending on the comments of the faculty reviewer.

Printing and Distribution - The 2013 edition of the Journal will be distributed near the end of the coming spring semester.

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