Submissions
uKnighted Minds encourages undergraduates in psychology or a related field to submit their work for our upcoming Spring 2027 publication. As the first and only undergraduate journal for psychology at Rutgers, uKnighted Minds provides undergraduates with a specialized platform to share their research. We encourage submissions from authors of all backgrounds to apply.
To ensure that publications comply with industry and university standards, authors and manuscripts must meet certain criteria. Please refer to the following guidelines before submitting. Additionally, please be aware that articles submitted here should not be under consideration for publication elsewhere. Finally, be sure to communicate with everyone who advised you on your manuscript (e.g. faculty and graduate student supervisors) prior to submitting.
General Submission Deadlines:
-
- Deadline 1: Feb 1st
- Deadline 2: March 1st
- Deadline 3: March 15th
Registered Reports
If you anticipate difficulty with completing your submission prior to the March 15th deadline, or would prefer to receive feedback on your empirical manuscript early, we encourage you to submit a registered report. Please see below for deadlines, and see the Types of Submissions section for more details on what this is.
Registered reports involve two stages of submission: a proposal submitted in the fall and a completed report submitted in the spring. If you submit a registered report, you are agreeing to work on implementing reviewer edits on your introduction and methods throughout the fall and early spring prior to submitting and editing your results and discussion in the spring.
- Fall Deadline: Proposals
- Deadline: November 15
- Spring Deadlines: Reports
- Deadline 1: March 15th
- Deadline 2: March 31st
If you anticipate being unable to make our final deadline but are still interested in submitting a paper, please reach out to us via email (undergraduatejournal@psych.rutgers.edu) to inquire about a potential deadline extension.
-
Non-empirical work:
- Theoretical papers
- Literature reviews
- Coursework papers only if substantially edited or added upon since initial submission: The uKnighted Minds criteria for a “Substantially Edited” course paper includes:
- Shifting the premise of the paper from answering a prompt made by your professor to a defended scientific argument and/or concept
- Providing a detailed mention of a research gap in which your paper strives to fill and/or provide more insight to
- The removal of any professor or instructor-made material (i.e., lecture slides) to be replaced with relevant peer-reviewed sources, empirical & non-empirical references
- Inclusion of a literature review section and overall alteration of paper structure to better match a scientific paper’s structure
- Inclusion of APA-style in-text citations and references page
- Ensuring that the paper is not self-plagiarism (i.e., including new ideas that your original paper did not already cover, as the paper will be run through Turnitin)
Empirical work:
- Case Studies*
- Honors theses*
- Senior theses*
- Registered Reports*: If you anticipate that you will collect data in the spring and may struggle to meet earlier deadlines, we encourage you to submit a registered report to facilitate earlier reviews of your manuscript and timelier feedback. Registered reports should include a full introduction and methods section, as well as a data analysis plan. We will review your registered report and inform you of your submission status. If you receive an R&R, you must submit the rest of the report (results & discussion) prior to publication. Please see this link for more information on what a registered report is.
-
- Lab course papers
- Plagiarized work
- AI-generated work
- Work that has been published previously
- Research that does not follow APA procedural and ethical guidelines
-
- Submissions must include a Rutgers undergraduate as the primary author or co-author. Faculty & graduate student advisors (when applicable) must be listed as co-authors in order of preferred appearance on the authorship approval form. Please discuss with all authors prior to submission to confirm the authorship order.
- Authors must be willing to receive feedback from peer reviewers and complete subsequent revisions if requested.
- Submissions from recent graduates (within 3 years of graduation) are accepted. Note: Priority consideration is given to current undergraduates.
-
- Submissions must include research conducted at Rutgers.
- Submissions must be written in English with minimal spelling or grammatical errors.
- Submissions must have all names and other personal identifiers obscured to ensure anonymity during the review process.
- Research involving human subjects must show evidence of IRB approval.
- Submissions must be original work (i.e., not plagiarized and not written with the use of AI).
- Multiple submissions from the same author are permitted.
- Submissions previously submitted (but not published) to other journals are permitted.
- Submissions may not be under submissions to other journals concurrently.
- Submissions must include a Rutgers undergraduate as the primary author or co-author. Please discuss with your advisors prior to submission to ensure that this journal is the best fit for you.
-
- Expected word count
- Abstract: 150-250 words
- Total: 4,000-8,000 words
- Note: falling above or below the range does not automatically disqualify the paper from submission—the range functions as a guideline, not a strict requirement
- Must be compliant with APA guidelines, such as:
- Times New Roman font
- 12-point font size
- Double-spaced
- 1” margins
- Labels for all sections
- Expected word count
-
- Please submit your manuscript to the form at this link.
- You will be asked to submit the body of your paper with all identifying information removed as well as a separate title page with identifying information included to help us conduct anonymous reviews.
- Additionally, you will be asked to write a 100-200 word cover letter-style statement describing your work, why it is a good fit for the journal, and any other information the editors should consider.
- Finally, you are required to fill out and submit the authorship order approval form The form can be downloaded here: uKnighted Minds Authorship Order Approval Form. This will require you to list all authors of the manuscript in order of desired appearance, indicate which aspects of the manuscript they contributed to using APA’s CRediT system (see more at this link), and obtain all author’s signatures. This form is required for consideration of a submission for all types of articles, even if you are the only author.
- Please submit your manuscript to the form at this link.