Undergraduate Publishing Opportunities

As science education incorporates more inquiry-based activities throughout the curriculum, students gain important opportunities to take active roles in scientific research via independent research courses and summer research, as well as within traditional lab courses. While some industrious student researchers will experience the process of publishing their research in a scientific journal, the nature of most undergraduate research projects yields results that are of insufficient depth and/or breadth to stand alone as journal articles. Consequently, undergraduates may miss opportunities to develop the reviewing, revising, or editing skills that are critical for success in scientific research and publication. While the typical undergraduate research project is necessarily limited in scope, many such research projects powered by undergraduates ask novel questions via intellectually and experimentally sound methods. Furthermore, undergraduate research represents significant investments of time, effort, and resources by the students who conduct the research as well as by their advisors and their institutions and deserves recognition. Undergraduate research projects typically culminate in a thesis and/or manuscript submitted to an instructor or department. Even when instructors incorporate peerreview into this writing process, students still miss the experience of contributing to the body of scientific literature. Moreover, submitting a manuscript to a small, local audience does not fully reflect the process of scientific publishing where manuscripts must be reviewed critically by peers and then revised to address those criticisms