FAQ
FAQ for Students:
Q: Am I eligible to submit an article proposal to JPUR?
A: Any student at any Purdue campus who has completed a research project mentored by a faculty member who is part of the Purdue University system is eligible to be published in JPUR. This includes visiting students, high school students on certain Purdue programs, and recent graduates up to one year after receiving their degree. Unfortunately, Purdue Global students are not eligible to publish in JPUR. If you have any concerns about eligibility, please contact the journal coordinator at jpur@purdue.edu.
Q: I am a candidate in a professional graduate course. Am I eligible to submit a paper even though I am not officially an "undergraduate"?
A: Yes, professional candidates in courses of study such as the DPharm are eligible, and JPUR welcomes your contribution.
Q: Is it possible to submit an article proposal before the deadline if I submit the results shortly thereafter?
A: Submitting the proposals without the results and then completing the paper in March, April, or May is acceptable.
Q: If my article is published in JPUR will I be required to transfer my copyright?
A: No, authors who are published in JPUR will not be required to transfer their copyright.
Q: Can I republish my article in a professional, discipline-specific journal?
A: Absolutely! You retain copyright of your article. JPUR is intended for a lay audience. You are welcome to publish your findings elsewhere relevant to your discipline. We suggest that you review the submission policies of the journal where you are interested in also publishing your work.
Q: Must I have a full article already written before I submit an article proposal?
A: No. Selected authors will have over a month to work with faculty mentors and disciplinary experts to develop their articles. One of the main ideas behind JPUR is that it provides students an amazing opportunity to learn about the scholarly publishing process.
Q: What is the deadline for submitting a new proposal?
A: Our fall submission deadline is November 15, and our spring submission deadline is February 15. We invite submissions on a rolling basis – if you miss one deadline, your proposal will be evaluated in the next submission period.
Q: What is the deadline for submitting a revised proposal?
A: If you submit a proposal in the fall and are invited to revise and resubmit, please submit your revised proposal for the spring submission deadline, If invited to revise and resubmit in the spring, please submit by the fall deadline. All revised proposals will be considered with the present active round of submissions.
Q: Why do you ask us to answer four questions instead of submitting an abstract?
A: These four questions are intended to help you summarize the significance of your research and your role in the project for a nonexpert reader. You may also submit a formal abstract, but you are not required to do so.
FAQ for Faculty:
Q: If the paper is accepted for JPUR, will I be listed as co-author?
A: One of the ideas behind JPUR is that the journal gives undergraduates a chance to showcase their technical writing ability to potential employers. For this reason, the undergraduate researcher should be the sole author of the paper. On the front page of the article, however, there will be a biography box with information about both the undergraduate and their faculty mentor, and pictures of both.
Q: Won't publication of an article in JPUR hurt the chances of the results of the undergraduate research project being published in a disciplinary journal? Why would an undergraduate even want to have an article published in JPUR if a disciplinary publication is a possibility?
A: JPUR should be seen as complementary rather than competitive to disciplinary journal exposure. The publication strategy that faculty mentors advise their students to adopt varies from discipline to discipline. Much undergraduate research will not yield results appropriate for publication in a disciplinary journal. If there is a concern that publishing results in JPUR will undermine publication in a disciplinary journal, why not encourage the undergraduate to write more generally about the problem or the methodology? That way, the undergraduate gets several complementary papers out of one research project.
