Guidelines
FERNS is an intercollegiate academic journal that focuses on the intersection between human action and environmental impact. It emphasizes the conversation necessary between scientists, politicians, ethicists, and theologians, welcoming work in fields that intersect around environmental stewardship. FERNS showcases the intellectual, academic, and creative research from emerging scholars at graduate and undergraduate levels. Students have the ability to promote their work in a double-blind peer-reviewed journal in addition to developing research ideas in the professional arena.
FERNS gives preference to theoretical and empirically-based research articles. The journal will feature original work, including academic paper, scholarly work, and book reviews.
Submissions should follow Chicago style citation and formatting, including endnotes (not footnotes) for citations, as well as page numbers on the upper right corner of each page. The title of the article and a 200-250 word abstract should be included on the first page of the submission. Authors should remove all identifying titles (name, institution, email, etc.) from their work, to ensure our double-blind peer-review process. Authors should submit a separate document that contains the title of the work, author's name and institution, a contact email, and the same 200-250 word abstract.
The editorial process will be as follows:
READY TO SUBMIT?
Submissions should be sent to our Scholastica Online Submission site for our next Issue. Questions should be directed to our Editor-in-Chief via the online Contact Form.
FERNS gives preference to theoretical and empirically-based research articles. The journal will feature original work, including academic paper, scholarly work, and book reviews.
- Research and Application Articles: 5,000-8,000 words
- Essays and Thematic Issues: 1,000-4,000 words
- Book and Article Reviews: 750 - 1,000 words
Submissions should follow Chicago style citation and formatting, including endnotes (not footnotes) for citations, as well as page numbers on the upper right corner of each page. The title of the article and a 200-250 word abstract should be included on the first page of the submission. Authors should remove all identifying titles (name, institution, email, etc.) from their work, to ensure our double-blind peer-review process. Authors should submit a separate document that contains the title of the work, author's name and institution, a contact email, and the same 200-250 word abstract.
The editorial process will be as follows:
- Editors-in-Chief (EIC) are the gatekeepers for submissions. They decide if submissions are worthy of review through our online submission system, Scholastica. EIC send approved articles, which meet standards for cohesive relevance, to two Peer Reviewers to begin the editorial process.
- Peer Reviewers (PR) add notes and thoughts about each submission, correct significant grammatical errors, summarize thematic relevance to the journal’s mission statement, and send each manuscript to assigned Manuscript Editors.
- Manuscript Editors (ME) review the submissions, including the comments made by the Peer Reviewers. They add their own comments and document corrections and then either send the manuscript back to the author to revise and resubmit, or send the submission forward to the Senior Editors with preliminary recommendations to either publish or reject.
- Senior Editors (SE) review manuscripts along with all notes and commentary to date. Senior Editors will finalize drafts, noting any grammatical and thematic corrections necessary for publication, and then send to the EIC with final recommendations.
- Editors-in-Chief and Senior Editors collaborate to make final decisions about submissions to finalize manuscripts for publication.
READY TO SUBMIT?
Submissions should be sent to our Scholastica Online Submission site for our next Issue. Questions should be directed to our Editor-in-Chief via the online Contact Form.
