Submissions

Due Date TBD. After submission of an article or essay, to be considered you must work with the editors of the Morganton Scientific. This process will help refine your article to be ready for publication and meet our specific requirements.

Use the links below to submit to the Morganton Scientific and learn more about our requirements!

Submission Guidelines:

Please verify that your submission meets the requirements of the Broad Street Scientific style guide (linked above) before submitting your paper. Along with your paper, you must also complete and submit this author checklist (linked above) in order for your paper to be considered for publication. Also, note our submission rubric, which we use to evaluate papers.

All submissions should be in the form of a Google Drive Folder that is shared through the submission form. This folder must contain paper, an author checklist, all images in JPG, PNG, or SVG format, all data, and all code used in the study. This is a requirement for your paper to be considered. 

Submissions may be one of three types:

1. Original Research Paper – Documentation of complete research project in the most appropriate format for the discipline of study – Approximately 13,000 to 26,000 characters and one page of illustrations

2. Literature Review – A review of previous research and future work for a specific field of study – Approximately 13,000 characters

3. Scientific Essay – Reflection or argumentative analysis on a scientific topic – Approximately 8,000 characters

Original Research Paper:

Your original research paper should include the following components:

1. Abstract – In 100-200 words, write a technical synopsis of your paper that includes background, methods, results, and conclusions.

2. Introduction – Start with a broad picture of the importance and significance of your chosen field while explaining introductory concepts. State the problem and goals that your research will address. Please cite any referenced literature.

3. Materials & Methods – Describe how you performed your work, referencing methods and procedures of previous research conducted. Focus on the important aspects of your methods and avoid going into too much detail in describing commonly used methods.

4. Results – Present your findings in sufficient detail so that the reader can understand the results that were obtained or can follow the arguments of a mathematical proof. All figures should be high quality (minimum 300 ppi) and captioned appropriately so that they can be independently interpreted.

5. Discussion – Demonstrate how your results are statistically significant and address the research questions posed in the introduction. Interpret your results and the implications of your findings with respect to your field and describe their possible applications.

6. Conclusion – Recap briefly what was learned from your research and assess the validity of your conclusions. Consider what questions might still remain to be answered and put them in terms of future work and how your research could act as a foundation in addressing these questions.

7. References – References should use APA format and in text citations should be numbered. For example, for a paper by Smith et al., cite the paper in the text with “[1]” and then in the numbered references page, reference 1 should be the cited paper by Smith et al.

8. Acknowledgments

9.  Additional Required Materials

• ORCID and CRediT information for each author.

• Data and code. Any code that you used to produce graphs or to complete your research. 

• Each image should be high-quality and be in either PNG, SVG, or JPG format. An SVG is required if you are downloading a graph from Google Sheets. 

• Additional Resource: Link (requires you to be logged in through NCSSM) 

Literature Reviews:

While referencing relevant research, recount the scientific progress of the topic under consideration. Model your diction after professional peer-reviewed journals in your chosen field, but do not assume that the reader has previous knowledge of your topic. Assume, however, that the reader is reasonably well-versed in your discipline.

References should use APA format and in-text citations should be numbered. For example, for a paper by Smith et al., cite the paper in the text with “[1]” and then on the numbered references page, reference 1 should be the cited paper by Smith et al.

Scientific Essays:

Start with a topic that interests you and briefly describe the background information in a manner understandable to those not familiar with the scientific discipline. After evaluating current research, take a stance on your topic by addressing any questions. For example:

• Is there a possible avenue of research that seems promising in the future?

• Have you thought about a different way to approach the topic at hand?

• What makes this topic interesting?

These guidelines were adopted from the Siemens Competition requirements (2012).

Photos:

Photos must be original work and not AI generated! Please provide a caption for your photo as well as some background information. For example, if there is a bird in your photo, please tell us the species, where you took the photo, etc.