Submissions

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Author Guidelines

Before writing an article for the journal, you should first consult your supervisor to ensure that they agree with your intention to submit that work here for publication.

Create a submission by clicking on 'Make a new submission' in the grey box at the top of this page.

Submissions from recent graduates will be considered on the length of time since graduation, and your current employment status. Submissions from third year undergraduates will be considered in exceptional circumstances. In both cases above, I strongly recommend emailing ESJS@ed.ac.uk to check whether you are eligible before submitting work.

Submission Process

Once an article is submitted, it will be checked by the editors to ensure it meets the scope of the journal and the author(s) are eligible to submit work. It will then be peer-reviewed by two PhD students from the editorial team whose interests and/or research lie in the field of the article with the review period expected to take no more than 14 days. Reviewers use the double-blind method and will determine whether the article should be accepted, and if any revisions are required. If accepted, author(s) will then have 10 days to address any comments or revisions suggested by the reviewers and provide a revised manuscript for publication.

Word Limit 
The word limit is 1500 words, not including references, figure/table captions, titles, abstract etc. Your article should begin with an abstract that is strictly no more than 100 words.

Format and Styling 
When submitting your work, you must anonymise your manuscript. This means removing any instances of the names of any authors, links to any websites (e.g. GitHub, ORCID), and mention of your supervisors (e.g. in the acknowledgements). If you do wish to include such details, please mention this when submitting in the 'comments to the editor' box available. You will be able to add these details to your article following the peer review process.

You may present your work however you choose, ideally split into key sections. You should write a short abstract with no more than 100 words and your article can contain a maximum of one figure or table. Figures may be taken from online sources, but must be of CC-BY copyright, and you must reference these as you would a paper or book. Articles should not contain an excessive amount of equations, unless absolutely necessary.

Your article will be reformatted by the editors before integration into the next issue of the journal and its publication. As such, you should not take the time to format your work and the position of figures, tables, text etc. Your article should be written in either LaTeX or Microsoft Word; a LaTeX and Word template are provided below for your convenience, though are not required to be used. Though LaTeX submissions are preferred, you should only write your article in LaTeX if you are comfortable and experienced with it - the editors will not fix errors in your code during the review process.

LaTeX Template (.zip) and Word Template (.docx) – SharePoint, requires university login: https://uoe-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/g/personal/jsmith51_ed_ac_uk/EkFuif54ng1Mo7EG-mHrGMMB095KWC4tA9MQEoSfvcjAIw?e=nbC5sa  

You should add line numbers to your work to allow for easier reviewer feedback, as is done in the templates provided. 

References 
Works and images you use or reference should be referenced using the author-year citation style, with references appearing like this (Smith 2024) in the text and in alphabetical order by surname in the references section. 

The best way to provide your references is in a .bib file in conjunction with your LaTeX submission, however, a Word document or other text file with a list of references you have used is also acceptable, whether you are submitting your article via LaTeX or Word. 

Each reference should contain at least one of i) the DOI of the work, ii) url link to the work, or iii) ISBN (for books), with both of i and ii being preferred. 

Your references will be reformatted by the editors prior to publication to ensure they match the referencing style of the journal. 

Submission Form and Supervisor Acknowledgement 
The submission form below must be completed and submitted alongside your article. It contains three sections for: details about the authors, details about supervisors and collaborators, and a section to be signed off by your supervisor. Please do not leave this until the last minute; ensure that you read this form and ensure that it is fully completed. If you or your supervisors have any issues or questions whilst completing the form, please don't hesitate to send an email to ESJS@ed.ac.uk.

Submission Form: SharePoint, requires university login: https://uoe-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/g/personal/jsmith51_ed_ac_uk/EkFuif54ng1Mo7EG-mHrGMMB095KWC4tA9MQEoSfvcjAIw?e=nbC5sa.

Plagiarism and Generative AI 
All submissions may be subject to plagiarism and generative AI detection methods. The University of Edinburgh and the Edinburgh Student Journal of Science take plagiarism very seriously, which you can read more about here: https://www.ed.ac.uk/academic-services/students/conduct/academic-misconduct/plagiarism.
Should we have strong reason to believe that your work is plagiarised or written by AI, your article or any further submissions will no longer be considered for publication, and further action may be taken. AI can be a great tool for research, but should not be used to assist in writing articles or to generate images for this journal.

Submission Format
When submitting your article, you must submit the following files, depending on whether you have written your work in LaTeX or Microsoft Word: 

LaTeX
Upload all individual files from (or a .zip file of) your LaTeX project (e.g. main.tex, references.bib, image.jpg) as 'Source Files'. This should include any figures or images in the highest possible quality. Also upload the compiled PDF of your article as a separate file.

Word
Upload the .docx file you have written your work in, including your list of references. Please also separately upload any figures or images used in your work as their own individual files, in the highest possible quality.

All submissions must also be accompanied by the supervisor acknowledgement form.

Submission Preparation Checklist

All submissions must meet the following requirements.

  • The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.
  • The submission 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: All authors are either: in years 4 or 5 of study, are completing a taught/research Master’s degree, or have recently graduated (see more details under 'Author Guidelines' below). Submissions from PhD students are not accepted.
  • Author Eligibility: All authors of the work are currently students in the University of Edinburgh’s College of Science and Engineering, or have recently graduated from it (more details under 'Author Guidelines' below).
  • Author Eligibility: All authors of the submission have not published more than 2 previous articles in the journal and have not already submitted work to this issue of the journal.
  • You have completed the Submission Form, adhere to the criteria within it, and will submit this form alongside your article. See 'Submission Form and Supervisor Acknowledgement' below for more details.

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