Author guidelines

Our peer-review process

Our editorial board consists of undergraduate students who first screen the submissions for adherence to guidelines and general fit with the journal. Successful manuscripts are then reviewed by 2-3 volunteer faculty members and/or graduate students who evaluate the quality and rigour of the article. Any comments and/or constructive criticism from the reviewers are sent back to the author(s) for manuscript revision. CJUR implements two stages of the review process; following each stage, the reviewers and CJUR editorial board will assess the manuscript’s suitability for publication. If deemed appropriate, the manuscript will be copyedited and then typeset for eventual publication. 

Please note that CJUR reserves the right to decline a manuscript for publication at any point throughout the peer-review process. 

Issue publication

We generally accept submissions on a rolling basis throughout the year and process them in the order they are received. CJUR issues are published typically two to three times a year, whenever we have collated enough manuscripts to compose an issue. Due to the volume of submissions we receive, we cannot guarantee that your submission will be considered for the upcoming issue.

Submission eligibility and formatting

Manuscript and author eligibility

Before submitting a manuscript to CJUR, please ensure that you meet the following requirements: 

  1. The research you did was performed during your undergraduate degree at a Canadian institution. Submissions from authors who have graduated are welcome, so long as you graduated within the current or the previous calendar year. 
  2. If the research is based on coursework, it must:
    • Discuss projects originally designed by the author(s)
    • Acknowledge the help of the instructors of the course for which it was originally intended and be granted permission by the instructor to be submitted for publication
    • Be confirmed that a grade has already been obtained upon submission
  3. The research must have been either supervised by a faculty member, or is endorsed for publication by a faculty member. Explicit permission to publish the manuscript must be obtained from a faculty member who is familiar with the subject matter (for more information, check our submission requirements below). 
  4. The research you are submitting is neither currently under review, nor has been published in another journal. 
  5. The work should fall within one of our four publication categories. For more information, see below. 

If your manuscript does not meet all of the above requirements, we are unfortunately unable to accept it. However, we do encourage you to try submitting your research to a different journal. If you have any additional concerns regarding the eligibility of your article, please contact us.

Submission categories

All submissions to CJUR should fall into one of the below submission categories. Note that all page limits are exclusive of abstracts, figure captions, methods, and references.

  1. Original research

Research articles report on the outcomes of primary observation and/or experimentation performed in response to a research question. These can concern topics in the sciences or the humanities. Articles fall between 4 and 6 pages and must cite at least 10 peer-reviewed sources.

  1. Reviews

Narrative reviews summarize the state of understanding on a research topic, while scoping and systematic reviews synthesize the findings of existing literature in response to a research question. Reviews should only take primary literature into consideration, falling between 4 and 8 pages and citing at least 15 peer-reviewed sources.

  1. Book reviews

Book reviews discuss the findings and methodologies of a work of non-fiction and place it in the context of its wider discipline. Submissions should fall between 3-5 pages in length and must cite at least 5 peer-reviewed sources in the bibliography.

Manuscript formatting

In addition to following any category-specific requirements, all submissions to CJUR (regardless of submission type) must adhere to the following requirements:

  1. The article is in a Microsoft Word file and in 1.5 spaced 12-point Times New Roman font.
  2. All citations are in APA style and are in-text.
  3. All lines in the text file are numbered.
  4. All illustrations and figures must be submitted as separate PNG, BMP, RAW, JPEG, or TIFF files of at least 300 dpi, and datasets for all figures and tables must be submitted as clearly labelled spreadsheet files.
  5. All tables must be submitted as separate Excel or CSV files.
  6. All illustrations, figures, and tables must be referred to in the main text in addition to being submitted as separate files 
  7. All original quantities must be given in SI units; if a quoted source notes a quantity in a non-SI unit of measurement, the SI equivalent must be indicated in square brackets.
  8. To ensure a double-blind process, the article text and the file name itself must be free of any identifying information. This includes author names and affiliations, any names present in the acknowledgements, etc. These may be added in again after the review process is complete. 

The editorial board reserves the right to request further information from authors or changes in formatting before deciding whether a submission is to be accepted. Additional questions about formatting or submitting an article should be directed to [email protected].

Style and accessibility

CJUR is a multidisciplinary undergraduate journal. Submissions should be clear and concise, and be written to be accessible to readers outside of the research field. Although no submission will be rejected on grounds of poor language, CJUR reserves the right to make all final decisions regarding writing style.

Include as much background and contextual information as possible. Abstract and obscure ideas should be explained clearly and concisely at first mention. Avoid using loaded descriptions or non-standard terms.

Technical terms and jargon should be avoided where possible. Specialized names and abbreviations must be written in full using internationally agreed nomenclature at first mention.

Registration and submission

Before you submit a manuscript to CJUR, please make sure that you have read our guidelines on submission eligibility and formatting. Any manuscripts that blatantly do not follow our requirements will be automatically rejected.

Required documents

Your submission must consist of:

Manuscript submission

To submit to CJUR, simply register as an author on our online submission system to submit your article.

Rights for authors

Usage policies

The posting, reproduction, transmission or other distribution or use of the article submitted or any material therein, in any medium as permitted by a personal-use exemption (see below) or by written agreement of the Canadian Journal of Undergraduate Research, requires credit to Canadian Journal of Undergraduate Research as copyright holder (e.g., Canadian Journal of Undergraduate Research © 2021).

General terms and conditions

The failure of the Canadian Journal of Undergraduate Research 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 endeavour 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 the Canadian Journal of Undergraduate Research and the Author(s) regarding submission of the Article.

Personal use exemptions

The following uses are always permitted to the author(s) and do not require further permission from the Canadian Journal of Undergraduate Research provided the author does not alter the format or content of the articles, including the copyright notification:

  1. Storage and back-up of the article on the author’s computer(s) and digital media (e.g., external hard drives, back-up servers, etc.), provided that the article stored on these computers and media is not readily accessible by persons other than the author(s);
  2. Posting of the article on the author(s) personal website, provided that the website is non-commercial;
  3. 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 biochemistry student at the University of British Columbia can have her article appear in the University British Columbia’s Department of Biochemistry online publication series); and
  4. 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.