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Submission Guidelines

Contents

Philosophy of Discussions

For more information, please see Discussions Aims and Scope page.

Eligibility and General Submission Rules

1. Any undergraduate or recent graduate (within one year of their graduation date) in any field may submit an original article to be considered for publication in Discussions. No submissions by high school students or research conducted while being in high school will be considered for review.

2. The author has the right to publish the work. Authors should take care to secure copyright for figures that they did not create.

3. Submitted articles cannot have been previously published, nor be forthcoming in an archival journal or book (print or electronic). Please note: "publication" in a working-paper series does not constitute prior publication. Presenting your research in a poster or oral presentation is not recognized as publication of your research.

4. By submitting a manuscript to Discussions, the author stipulates that the material is not currently under review at another journal (electronic or print) and that the author will not submit the material to another journal (electronic or print) until the completion of the editorial decision process at Discussions. Authors are permitted to post their articles on bioRxiv or other open access preprint repositories if they so choose.

If you have concerns about the submission terms for Discussions, please contact the editorial board.

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Formatting Requirements

Discussions requires articles to be formatted upon initial submission according to the following criteria:

All articles must be written in English.

2. Submit the manuscript formatted in 12 pt. double-spaced with Times New Roman font. We require all submissions to be in /index.html">APA formatting! and use APA citations. Submitted manuscripts not in APA format or lacking APA citations will be rejected during pre-screening and will not be reviewed.

3. The article is a high-quality PDF (Adobe's Portable Document Format) file, or a Microsoft Word file that can be converted to a PDF file. While Bepress can provide limited technical support, it is ultimately the responsibility of the author to produce a readable version of the document. It is understood that the current state of technology of Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF) is such that there are no, and can be no, guarantees that documents in PDF will work perfectly with all possible hardware and software configurations that readers may have. We suggest that you review your article through our submissions portal page to ensure that it has been received in the correct format. Scratched-out, blacked-out, password-protected, and blank articles will not be reviewed.

4. All images and graphs are of high quality resolution (300 dpi).

5. The author must have rights to use all figures and images. If there is a cost associated with publishing any images, the journal will not cover this cost.

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AI Statement

AI use is discouraged.

Discussions reserves the right to reject a paper if we suspect significant AI usage is involved. We do not use AI checkers on papers.

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Tips For Authors

Here are the marks of a good paper:

1. Make your paper accessible to undergraduate students from any field. We understand that our authors are experts in their topics, but our audience is broad. Define field-related terms the first that they appear and provide history/context to situations where required.

2. We highly encourage prospective authors to read published articles to discern the level of rigor in research we expect for publication.

3. Make it clear where you are presenting an opinion and where you are presenting others’ research. Make a balanced, professional argument. Avoid using the first person excessively.

4. Novelty in argument is hard to find at the undergraduate level, but we encourage you to try to contribute something new to the field, no matter how small. We give preference to papers that display some level of novelty. To do this, you can: a. Add your own informed opinion b. Analyze a situation from another perspective or lens c. Synthesize many sources and create conversation between them to reveal new conclusions or nuance in the argument d. Provide your own solutions to a problem e. Focus on a subpopulation of the data that is not well-studied

5. Sources should reflect the current state of the field. For example, most scientific fields are rapidly advancing and are constantly adding new literature.

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Rights for Authors and Scholarly Commons @ Case Western Reserve University

As further described in our submission agreement (the Submission Agreement), in consideration for publication of the article, the authors assign to Scholarly Commons @ Case Western Reserve University all copyright in the article, subject to the expansive personal--use exceptions described below.

Attribution and Usage Policies

Reproduction, posting, transmission or other distribution or use of the article or any material therein, in any medium as permitted by a personal-use exemption or by written agreement of Scholarly Commons @ Case Western Reserve University, requires credit to Scholarly Commons @ Case Western Reserve University as copyright holder (e.g., Scholarly Commons @ Case Western Reserve University © 2025).

Personal-use Exceptions

The following uses are always permitted to the author(s) and do not require further permission from Scholarly Commons @ Case Western Reserve University provided the author does not alter the format or content of the articles, including the copyright notification:

  • Storage and back-up of the article on the author's computer(s) and digital media (e.g., diskettes, back-up servers, Zip disks, etc.), provided that the article stored on these computers and media is not readily accessible by persons other than the author(s);
  • Posting of the article on the author(s) personal website, provided that the website is non-commercial;
  • Posting of the article on the internet as part of a non-commercial open access institutional repository or other non-commercial open access publication site affiliated with the author(s)'s place of employment (e.g., a Phrenology professor at the University of Southern North Dakota can have her article appear in the University of Southern North Dakota's Department of Phrenology online publication series); and
  • Posting of the article on a non-commercial course website for a course being taught by the author at the university or college employing the author.

People seeking an exception, or who have questions about use, should contact the editors.

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General Terms and Conditions of Use

Users of the Scholarly Commons @ Case Western Reserve University website and/or software agree not to misuse the Scholarly Commons @ Case Western Reserve University service or software in any way.

The failure of Scholarly Commons @ Case Western Reserve University to exercise or enforce any right or provision in the policies or the Submission Agreement does not constitute a waiver of such right or provision. If any term of the Submission Agreement or these policies is found to be invalid, the parties nevertheless agree that the court should endeavor to give effect to the parties' intentions as reflected in the provision, and the other provisions of the Submission Agreement and these policies remain in full force and effect. These policies and the Submission Agreement constitute the entire agreement between Scholarly Commons @ Case Western Reserve University and the Author(s) regarding submission of the Article.

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