How to Submit Your Work

1.  Please check the guidelines below to ensure that your essay meets our requirements for publication. You will need a 1-2 sentence description of the essay, a 1-2 sentence description of the assignment, and an editable text file of the manuscript. Submissions are also required to use Chicago Style citations. 

2.  To submit work, please fill out the submission form

Notes

• Authors may submit more than one essay for consideration.

• Authors are also invited to resubmit work that was considered for previous issues and has been revised.

• We are currently unable to accept essays written for courses taken as part of a non CUA study abroad program. Papers written for courses taken at CUA’s Rome Campus, Summer Irish Institute, and for other CUA faculty taught courses abroad are welcome

• Co-Authored essays will be considered.

• Essays written as part of the FYE, Cornerstone Program, University Honors Program, and the Liberal Arts Curriculum course are welcome.

• Essays originally written in a foreign language will be considered in translation or accompanied by an English translation. If accompanied by an English translation, the word count limit applies only to the original essay and both versions should be submitted as a single manuscript.

• Longer papers which have been condensed or excerpted to meet the 2000 words limit are welcome.

Types of Writing Accepted

• Aspectus accepts submissions of short academic writing in theology, philosophy, the humanities, the fine arts, and the social sciences written by undergraduate students at The Catholic University of America. Papers should be written as part of a Catholic University course or supervised independent study. Authors should be current students or within 6 months after their graduation.

• The papers should be written for a general, well-educated audience and may use technical language. The writing should show an attempt by the undergraduate author to tackle an intellectually challenging subject. 

Format

• Manuscripts must be in the form of an editable text file (.doc, .docx, or .rtf).

• Manuscripts should  contain the author's name.

• Manuscripts should include: original course the paper was written for, supervising instructor's name and email, title, 1-2 sentence description of the paper, 1-2 sentence description of the assignment, and endnotes.

• Papers should not exceed 2000 words (not including notes).

• Manuscripts must be formatted using the guidelines set out in the Chicago Manual of Style and the Inventio stylesheet.

• Authors are responsible for securing permission to reproduce images in their work (if you are uncertain how to go about doing this, please consult your supervising faculty member or advisor) or selecting images that are in the public domain. If you cannot secure permission to publish the images used in your essay, permanent links to sources will suffice.