Who Can Submit

BERKELEY SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL publishes materials only by UC Berkeley undergraduates or recent BA/BS recipients from UC Berkeley. For additional information, please contact us.

How to Submit a Research Paper to the Berkeley Scientific Journal

I. Manuscript Preparation

Please fill out the submission eligibility form and the PI (Principal Investigator) release form, by the appropriate deadline, at http://bsj.berkeley.edu/?page_id=277

Research papers

Please include the following at the beginning of your paper:

1. Name(s) of author(s)
2. Research Sponsor (PI)
3. Major, Year, Department in which research is done
4. List of Keywords

Format as follows

1. Palatino or Times New Roman font, 12 point size
2. Double spaced, 8-14 pages (excluding figures)

Your paper should have the following structure:

1. Title of paper
2. Abstract (no more than 150 words)
3. Introduction
4. Materials and Methods
5. Results
6. Discussion
7. Conclusion
8. References (in proper format: see below)
9. Acknowledgments (no more than 50 words and should include funding source)

Guidelines

1. No more than ten total figures and charts.
2. Images should be part of the same document you upload and should be of the highest resolution possible.
3. If your paper is selected, we will request the graphics as separate files, resolution at least 300 dpi, in a format readable by Adobe Photoshop.
4. Similarly, your tables and graphs should be part of the document you upload. If your paper is selected, we will request the tables and graphs as separate Word and Excel files.
5. Do not forget to include correctly-numbered figure legends at the end of your paper's text.

References

References should be listed at the end of the paper in the order they appear. When refering to them in your paper, simply put the reference number in the proper location and enclose it in parenthesis. Please do not put reference numbers in superscript. The required format is as follows:

For Journal Articles
1. Johnson, R.B., Hayes, C., and McDonald, T., Article Title, Journal Of Scien tific Research, 123.14, 475-479, 1998.

For Books:
1. Johnson, R.B., Hayes, C., and McDonald, T., Book Title, 123.14, pp. 475-479 , 2000.

II. Manuscript Submission

1. Make sure your paper is in an acceptable format. We can accept papers in Microsoft Word, Rich Text Format (RTF), or Adobe Acrobat (PDF).

   If you use a word-processing program other than Microsoft Word, look for an "export" or "save as" option in your program to save it as an RTF file. If you have questions, please contact us.

2. Submit the paper by following the instructions at the submit article link.

Features articles

BSJ accepts submissions for the features section of the journal on a rolling basis. Previous submissions have inluded book reviews, news, opinion pieces, review articles, etc. Generally, a feature will be submitted within the first month of the semester prior to its printing. If you would like to submit a feature, please contact us via e-mail.

Most of the features writers are BSJ staff members. If you're interested in writing, why not come and meet others interested in writing? Collaborations are encouraged, and the occasional social event / pizza catered stuffing party will make it more than worth your while. Check out the staff page at http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~bsj/staff.htm or email us to find out more.

Overview of the Process

The Review Process

Reviews of research articles will be carried out by distinguished faculty and suggestions for modifications will be returned to authors. Papers can be: 1. "accepted w/o revision," 2. "accepted after minor revisions," 3. "accepted after major revisions," or 4. "rejected." Failure to meet reviewers' suggestions will result in rejection of paper.

Features articles are reviewed by the BSJ editorial board.

How to Revise Your Paper after It Has Been Published

If you publish this paper or a revised version elsewhere, for example in a journal, please send the citation of the new version to our email address. We will be able to inform repository users about the new version.

If you would like to post a revised version of your paper on the site, please follow the instructions in "How to Submit"; however, please specify when you submit the paper that it is a revision of a previously submitted paper.