Submissions

Author Guidelines

The Journal of Mason Graduate research is a refereed journal.  Its editorial staff relies on the advice of an editorial board composed of Mason graduate students. The staff reviews all submissions and assigns those that meet style and topic guidelines to at least two reviewers for evaluation. Reviewers include members of the editorial board and other graduate students who have a background in the topic addressed by the submission.

The Journal accepts manuscripts of 4000-7000 words, book reviews of 1500 words, and art submissions of original work.  Below are guidelines of each submission type and a review of the submission process including all required documents.

Manuscript Guidelines

Please submit manuscripts to the journals electronic submission site:
Manuscript must be 4000-7000 words, with 12-point Times New Roman text, double spaced (including references, footnotes, and endnotes). Manuscripts should be formatted using the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th edition (APA), the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition (CMS), or the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 7th edition. Please submit all documents as a MS Word document. PDFs will not be reviewed.  Submit manuscripts for consideration with one-inch margins all around, paragraphs indented five spaces, and pages clearly numbered in the upper right-hand corner. All author information must be removed from the manuscript submission.

Sections in a manuscript may include the following (in this order): (1) Title page, (2) Abstract, (3) Text (with tables and figures), (4) Notes, (5) References, and (6) Appendices.
1. Title page contains a complete title of the manuscript, without author information
2. Abstracts of 150 words and up to 6 keywords can be placed on the title page
3. Manuscript text should be double spaced, between 4000-7000 words
4. Notes (i.e. endnotes) can be included after the text and before references
5. References must be formatted according to one of three styles above with complete information
6. Appendices must be correctly labeled and must be central for the readability of the manuscript

Articles must be written in English, using a clear readable style, avoiding jargon. If technical terms or acronyms must be used, define them when first used. Authors must refrain from using language that is demeaning to a persons' age, gender, gender identity, race, ethnicity, culture, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, language or socioeconomic status. Furthermore, authors are required to adhere to George Mason University's Honor Code. Failure to adhere to these guidelines will result in an automatic rejection.

Authors must be current Mason graduate students at the time of submission.  Authors are responsible for obtaining permissions from copyright holders for reproduction of any illustrations, tables, or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. Any information included that does not adhere to this policy will be submitted to the appropriate office (Office of Academic Integrity and/or Provost’s Office) as an accusation of plagiarism and/or copyright infringement.

Book Review Guidelines

Book reviews must be 1500 words, with 12-point Times New Roman text, double spaced (including references, footnotes, and endnotes).   Book reviews should be formatted using the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th edition (APA), the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition (CMS), or the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 7th edition. Please submit all documents as a MS Word document. PDFs will not be reviewed.  Submit book reviews for consideration with one-inch margins all around, paragraphs indented five spaces, and pages clearly numbered in the upper right-hand corner.

Art Submissions

Art submissions will be accepted for original work.  At this time, all art submissions for review must be emailed to the JMGR Contact Email as a JPEG photograph or PDF. Art submissions must include an attached MS Word document with a statement about the piece, minimum 200 words.

Submission Process

The review process for manuscripts is anonymous and blind-review. Therefore, authors should remove all material that is considered identifying information except for a cover page (as described below). As such, authors should not refer to themselves or any of their published work with identifying information. If an author cites himself, please use the name “Author” and publication date (Author, 2013). For co-authored publications, place “Author” in place where your name would appear in the citation.

To submit an article for review, you will first need to register an account.

When completing the registration form, be sure to note that you are an Author.  Once registered, under your user home page, you can click “New Submission” and follow the five-step process to post your article for review. The site will notify you once the submission is in the queue and you can track its process through the site. Please email us if you have any questions about the log in or registration process.

Submitted articles are forwarded to a review committee composed of graduate students and mentoring faculty members. Each article will be reviewed by an editor and then by two peer reviewers. All reviews are conducted blindly, therefore for the purposes of blind refereeing, full name of each author with current affiliation and full address/phone/email details plus short biographical note should be supplied on a separate cover sheet. Following the review, you will receive scores approximately three weeks after submission:

1. Accept: Will be published with no additional modification needed except minor grammatical and syntax errors.
2. Revisions Required: Publication meets some major requirements but revisions are needed. Once resubmitted, the manuscript will be brought straight to the Editorial Board for approval or rejection.
3. Reject: Manuscript does not meet major requirements and will not have the opportunity to resubmit.

By submitting a manuscript, you agree that:
1. You are a current Mason graduate student.
2. You have properly attributed all sources.
3. JMGR has the priority/exclusive right to first publication.
4. JMGR and the author will retain a shared copyright to the publication.
5. You have not submitted this article or a section of this article to other journals.

The Journal editor reserves the right to make editorial changes related to the appropriate style, grammar, and length of the manuscript.

JMGR does not charge article processing charges, submission fees, or any other costs to authors to submit articles to this journal.

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
   
   
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
   
   
3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).