Submissions

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Author Guidelines

Before submitting work to the Edinburgh Student Journal of Science, you should discuss your intent with your supervisor(s), then read this page carefully.

Before You Submit

Manuscripts should present novel, scientific research carried out by later-year undergraduate or Master’s students. In the first instance, please read the ‘Submission Preparation Checklist’ at the bottom of this page, and ensure you satisfy the submission criteria.

Consider which of the three article categories below best suits your work – all are treated and published equally, differing only in scope and length. You may wish to discuss with your supervisor(s). Keep in mind that high-impact research doesn't always require extensive length; often, the most compelling findings are presented concisely.

  • Letters are brief reports (up to 2000 words with up to 2 visuals) focused on quickly sharing significant new findings or preliminary data.
  • Research Notes (less than 4,000 words & 4 visuals) describe new or adapted scientific methods, more contextualised results, or null results.
  • Extended Reports present comprehensive original research from student-led research projects (not exceeding 6500 words and 7 visuals). These manuscripts should offer a complete scientific narrative with thorough introductions, detailed methods, extensive results, and in-depth discussions, ideal for Master’s or full-year projects.

Manuscripts cannot be considered for publication without an accompanying submission form (download here). This form must be filled out both by the author(s), and at least one supervisor.

While artificial intelligence tools can aid scientific research, their application in generating any part of a manuscript – including text, figures, or other content – for submission to this journal is not permitted. Please also consult the following guidance on plagiarism.

Preparing A Manuscript

Manuscripts should be prepared using LaTeX or Microsoft Word; templates for both are available here. You must include line numbers on your submission to facilitate the review process (see help for Word or LaTeX). You must anonymise your initial submissions by removing all author names, affiliations, acknowledgements, and any other identifiable material, which can be added in upon acceptance.

Please follow the guidance above on word-count and the number of figures or tables (visuals) depending on the type of manuscript you intend to submit. Manuscripts must contain an abstract of no more than 200 words, which, along with section headings and references, do not count towards the word limit; figure and table captions are included.

Figures not produced by the author(s) must be CC-BY licensed and reference their origin. References should be provided in a uniform style, preferably with an accompanying .bib file.

It is not necessary to format the style of your manuscript (figure positions, text styles). Accepted articles will be transcribed into the journal’s own format for publication.

If you intend to provide code or other supplementary materials, please indicate this when submitting your manuscript. These materials can be provided upon acceptance.

Submission Process

To start a submission, click on the ‘Make a new submission’ link at the top of this page.

Follow the online interface, providing a completed submission form and at least a PDF or Word document of your anonymised manuscript, and ensuring that the details of all authors and supervisors are added.

Once submitted, your article will face an initial decision by the editors before passing to peer-review. All articles are reviewed double-anonymously by two independent PhD students. As a guide, we expect to complete reviews for Letters manuscripts within two weeks, with the turnaround time increasing with manuscript length.

Submission Preparation Checklist

All submissions must meet the following requirements:

Work & Scope

  • The work must be novel scientific research – as determined by the editor-in-chief upon their initial decision, and of the reviewers during peer-review.
  • The work must be approved by the supervisor(s) – to ensure no confidentiality, data protection, etc. are breached – through their completion and signing of the submission form, which must accompany your submission.
  • The research has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in the ‘comments to the editor’ box when submitting).

Author Eligibility

  • Submissions are currently welcomed from the following institutions: University of Edinburgh, University of Glasgow, University of St Andrews, Edinburgh Napier University, Heriot-Watt University, Queen Margaret University, SRUC, University of Strathclyde.
  • All student authors must currently be in the last two (Honours) years of their degree, or be completing a Master’s degree. See * for exceptions and recent graduate details; submissions from PhD students are not accepted.
  • A student can only have a total of 2 first-author publications in the journal, and all authors who contributed to the work must be attributed.

* Pre-honours students with exceptional work should email ESJS@ed.ac.uk with details of the work to inquire about eligibility.
* Students who have graduated within the last 12 months and satisfy the above criteria can publish one article.
* Master's level research as part of PhD doctoral training programmes is accepted.

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