JMURJ Submission FAQs

JMURJ accepts submissions from all current and recent JMU undergraduates across all our different fields of research and scholarship.

We invite you to submit research and scholarship that you have created and/or substantially revised during your JMU undergraduate career for a class, project, or thesis, or as an independent effort.

• Yes: we do invite and publish work by freshmen and sophomores.
• Yes: we do invite and publish work by recent JMU graduates: JMURJ accepts submissions from JMU undergrads for 16+ months after you've graduated. We can bend even this 16+ number regarding submissions, and we'll happily continue working with you once we have your submission after the deadline. Just be sure to include your favorite non-JMU email address with your submission so that we can stay in contact.

JMURJ's open, inclusive definition of research and scholarship means that we accept submissions from all JMU fields of study, including majors and minors within and in between Arts and Letters, Business, Education, Health and Behavioral Studies, Integrated Science and Engineering, Science and Mathematics, and Visual and Performing Arts.

JMURJ invites submissions that are empirical or interpretive and that involve the discovery or application of knowledge. We accept text- and media-based submissions.

The research or scholarship you submit should be accessible to a diverse academic audience, which means that some submissions will require supplementary material to be considered for publication:

• Some media-based and artistic works (e.g., architectural designs, dramatic pieces and performances, musical scores and performances, art and photography, translations, and creative fiction/non-fiction) may require an accompanying research statement to be considered for publication. See JMURJ's Media-based Submission Guidelines page for a quick research statement template, and then contact us at jmurj@jmu.edu if you have any questions.
• We welcome research/scholarship written in a language other than English. You may submit your piece in that language, with or without an English translation. On our end, we'll work to screen and then share your work with faculty reviewers. If our reviewers suggest that your piece merits publication, we'll ask that you supply an English translation, and we'll work with you to edit yor submission in both languages before we go to press. For an example of a published JMURJ piece orginally composed in Spanish, see Jemma Stratton's Volume 6 article titled El VPH y el cáncer cervical en el Perú: diferencias de accesibilidad entre las mujeres de las zonas rurales y urbanas / HPV and Cervical Cancer in Peru: The Differences in Accessibility for Rural and Urban Women.

Check out the JMURJ website's Submission Guidelines page and then send an email including your submission to jmurj@jmu.edu.

Please use your @dukes.jmu.edu email address to send us your submission, and remember to include your most-used non-JMU email address. If you've graduated and don't still have access to your JMU email address, submit anyway using your most-used non-JMU address, making sure to include your full name, old e-id, and graduation date in your email.

JMURJ accepts and publishes submissions on a rolling basis. This approach means that deserving undergraduate researchers and scholars who submit earlier in the academic year need not wait until May to see their work published.

We welcome submissions at the ends of semesters (or later, when you've had a chance to gather your breath). Whether you'll be back for a new semester or whether you've just graduated (congratulations!), strike while the iron is hot: SUBMIT YOUR WORK. We'll refire the JMURJ publication process in the new semester and contact you with your submission at the top of the list.

Yes. You may submit any research/scholarship you worked on or have worked on during your time as a JMU undergradute student.

• If you did not create your JMURJ submission for a JMU class or JMU-related project, just let us know in your submission email.
• If you have already graduated, congratulations, and be sure to include your most-used non-JMU email in your submission email.

Yes, within reason (i.e., send us your best research and scholarship, rather than all your research and scholarship).

• You may submit multiple projects to JMURJ during and after your years as a JMU undergraduate student.
• You may submit more than one project to JMURJ in a single email.

JMURJ can publish only one submission from each student in each volume and will consider other deserving submissions for later volumes.

Yes! Keep reading.

JMURJ welcomes submissions from students in all JMU disciplines, in any medium or genre. This said, we do have a length limit:

• Text-based submissions and text-focused multimedia submissions should range from 2,000–6,000 words, not counting any abstract, references list, or appendices.
• Other media-based submissions should be able to to be viewed, heard, or otherwise appreciated within a similar time window (e.g., 15–20 minutes).

If your project is longer, you can work to condense it on your own before submitting, or you can send us your whole project along with a note suggesting that you'd like us to focus on a specific chapter or section. A last option is to send us your whole project: we can help you narrow down.

Please contact the JMURJ Editorial Board at jmurj@jmu.edu if you have questions.

Yes! JMURJ publishes co-written and co-produced work. Be sure to obtain permission from each of your collaborators before you submit your team's work and include their names and their JMU and most used non-JMU email addresses in your submission email.

Volume 8 of JMURJ offers a perfect example of a team-written paper: Assessing Perceptions of Group Work Using Team-Based Learning. The first piece we published in JMURJ Volume 1 was a capstone report by four Engineering researchers. In Volume 3, we published a submission created by 11 Biology scholars from a Viral Genomics class.

No. JMURJ holds no copyright on published submissions. You may submit your work elsewhere after publication in JMURJ. 

JMURJ does not accept hard-copy submissions. Please submit your research electronically to jmurj@jmu.edu. 

We'll work to inform and involve you in every step. Please know, though, that the JMURJ Editorial Board and the JMU faculty members we enlist as reviewers work within the constraints of the academic year, and that the publication process does take time.

Looking for information on what you can say on applications and résumés and during interviewers after submitting to JMURJ? See our FAQ below regarding resumes/CVs and interviews.