Submissions

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Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

  • Please number all pages and put your Eagle ID number on the first page. In order to guarantee an anonymous, objective review process, please do not put your name anywhere on the paper. 

    Typically, papers should be 1500 to 5000 words in length, with some latitude for longer works, such as excerpts from senior theses. We encourage authors to submit graphs, charts, photographs, illustrations, etc. that help to clarify their research. Such appendices do not count against the 5000 word guideline.

  • If chosen for publication, each article will require a 200 word abstract, written and submitted by the author. Papers submitted for review need not conform to the Elements citation guidelines. However, should an article that does not conform to the citation style (Chicago) be selected for publication, the author will be asked to change the citations prior to publication and to locate DOIs (where available) for electronically available items.

    A Boston College undergraduate must be the primary author of the manuscript. Students may collaborate with graduate students, faculty members, etc. but a BC undergraduate must be the driving force behind the research. We also welcome papers completed by more than one BC undergraduate. Graduating seniors may submit papers for consideration for the following year's fall issue, provided that the work was completed prior to graduation and is submitted before the start of the fall semester.

Author Guidelines

Authors are encouraged to include an abstract with their work. All submissions should be sent to elements.submissions@gmail.com.

Copyright Notice

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 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).
    4. Authors are required to agree to the following license terms:

License Agreement

I grant to Boston College the right to include and publish the above-described submission in both the print and online versions of the journal, Elements. I will retain copyright ownership but hereby grant to Boston College the non-exclusive, world-wide, royalty-free right to use, copy, distribute, and display my submission in any format or medium for any educational, non-commercial purposes, including as part of the online and print journals. Boston College will apply the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License to all works published in Elements.

These rights include, without limitation, the right to maintain one or more copies of the submission in multiple formats for security, back-up, and preservation purposes, and to allow a third party to hold one or more copies solely for such purposes.

I represent and warrant that the submission is my/our original work, that I have the right to grant the permission in this agreement and that, to the best of my knowledge, the submission will not infringe upon anyone’s intellectual property rights. I represent and warrant and that the work is not libelous, does not violate any right of privacy or contain otherwise unlawful matter. I have obtained all necessary permissions to include in my/our submission any materials created or owned by third parties and any such third party material is clearly identified and acknowledged within the content of the submission. I agree to submit a copy of each such permission to the editors of Elements upon submission of the finalized version of the work for publication.

If the submission is based upon work that has been sponsored or supported by an organization or agency other than Boston College, I certify that I have fulfilled any right of review or other obligations required by any contract or agreement with such agency or organization.

I agree that others may review the work and that editors of Elements may edit the work, as they deem necessary after reviewing proposed revisions with me. Boston College will clearly identify my/our name(s) as the author(s) or owner(s) of the submission.

Nothing in this agreement shall be deemed to obligate Boston College to publish the submission.

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.