Submit
Submission for the Fall 2017 issue of the URJ are open!
Submissions will be reviewed on a rolling basis during the Fall semester
The University of Texas at Austin Undergraduate Research Journal is now accepting submissions for the Fall 2017 issue. Research papers may be the products of classes, independent study, supervised research, honors theses, etc., and they can be of any discipline or subject imaginable. In short, the origin of your research paper does not matter. As long as you wrote it before graduating from the University of Texas, we want it!
Prizes
The author of the winning article will receive a $200 prize, and the second-place winner will receive a $100 prize. Additionally, every article selected for final publication will appear in the next annual issue of the University of Texas at Austin Undergraduate Research Journal, UT Austin’s first and foremost research journal for undergraduates.
Submission Guidelines
The Texas URJ is now accepting submissions for the Fall 2017 issue. Submit your article online via the Texas URJ submission form at the bottom of this page according to the following guidelines.
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.
Please consult the archive of previously published articles for examples of recent, successful contributions to the Journal.
URJ Review Process
Deadline for Manuscript Submission – 11:59 PM, February 25, 2017
Faculty Review – Highly-rated articles are submitted to a faculty editorial board for review. Each article will be reviewed by a faculty expert in the particular field of that article.
Staff Selection – Finalist articles are chosen for publication by the Texas URJ editorial staff.
Article Revision – Every article will be subjected to several rounds of revisions for content and grammar, drawing on the comments of the faculty reviewer.
Printing and Distribution – Every issue is printed prior to the beginning of the following fall semester. This semester, we will also be producing an online format. The Fall 2016 issue of the Journal is now available in our archive.
