Submitting an Article Online

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Author Guidelines

Timeline: We are accepting papers now through  July 31^st, 2019. Reviewing will begin August 1^st, 2019, with the expectation to officially publish our inaugural issue by November 15^th, 2019. 

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We expect all submitted papers to follow the guidelines described below:

Overview: Mental Note does not accept full-length papers. Instead, we are looking for shorter submissions that should be no shorter than 1500 words, or about 3 pages single spaced, and no longer than 5000 words, or about 10 pages single spaced.

Eligible Work: You need not be an undergraduate to submit your work; however, submissions should include original work that was mainly completed as an undergraduate student in Cognitive Science related fields, including philosophy, computer science, psychology, linguistics, neuroscience (and others). Research and papers done for classes, honors theses, and independent work are all welcome. We also accept commentaries. For original research, students must include a sponsoring statement from their faculty advisor to assure the quality of work and that all ethical considerations, if applicable, have been followed.  If there are questions about the suitability of the work for this journal, please contact the editorial team.

Submission Type: There are three types of submissions, empirical, theoretical, and commentary papers. The first two should focus on the impact of your research. For empirical work, methods should not be overly detailed, and there should be more emphasis on setting up the problem and the implications of your findings. The what, why, how, and impact of this work should be clear. Similarly, theoretical work should include a clear overview of what you are researching and the impact of your conclusions. This is to ensure both brevity and readability for people of all expertise.

The third option is submitting a commentary paper. Commentaries are not your original research and are responses to others published work in Cognitive Science. The topic you choose to write about is something that you are knowledgeable in and your commentary should be an informed critique of the research.

The structure of Empirical and Theoretical Paper submissions should be as follows:

1. Title Page
2. Abstract/Introduction: Papers should be prefaced with a short paragraph that introduces readers to the topic and to your research.
3. Keywords
4. Main Text: See below and overview of the 5 points that should be covered. Keep in mind, submissions should be short, and focus on the high level findings from your work.
5. Sponsoring Statement
6. References

Empirical	Theoretical
What: your research topic	What: your research topic
Why: the significance of your research topic	Why: the significance of your research topic
How: the methods used in your research	How: an analysis of your research topic
Findings: what results reveal	Findings: what analysis reveals
Significance: a discussion of results and significance	Significance: a discussion of findings and significance
Click here to download the Empirical Paper Template (.DOCX)	Click here to download the Theoretical Paper Template (.DOCX)
Click here to download the Empirical Paper Template (.PDF)	Click here to download the Theoretical Paper Template (.PDF)

The structure of Commentary Paper submissions should be as follows:

1. Summary: Quickly summarize the research that you are responding to. Some questions you may wish to discuss are: Was the research done at a university or by a corporation? How exactly does it relate to Cognitive Science?
2. Main text: Give your commentary in a coherent fashion. The logical flow of your argument is extremely important. However, ensure that individuals of all levels of expertise will be able to appreciate your commentary by limiting your use of technical vocabulary. Keep in mind that submissions should be kept short.
3. Conclusion: Briefly describe the contributions and importance of your work. Where do you think researchers should go from here? Discuss new possible avenues of research.
4. References

Please only submit commentaries on research that occurred after May 2015, so as to maintain relevance. If possible, include a link to the article that you are responding to.

Given your commentary, briefly describe the contributions of your research work. Explain why it is important and where do you think researchers should go from here? Discuss new possible avenues of research.

Click here to download the Commentary Paper Template (.DOCX)

Click here to download the Commentary Paper Template (.PDF)

  

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Faculty Sponsorship and Approval

For original work (Empirical and Theoretical), students must include a sponsoring statement from their faculty advisor to assure the quality of work, that all ethical considerations, if applicable, have been followed, and that they approve of the submission. To be considered for publication in the Mental Note, you must submit a completed and signed version of the template below when you submit your work. This form is not needed for commentary submissions.

Click here to download the authorization template (.DOCX)

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.

1. The submission has not been previously published, in part or in whole, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
2. All third-party-owned materials used have been identified with appropriate credit lines, and permission has been obtained from the copyright holder for all formats of the journal. Authors acknowledge their responsibility to gain all permissions prior to submission.
3. All authors qualify as authors, as defined in the authorship guidelines, and have given permission to be listed on the submitted paper.
4. The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines. Every effort has been made to ensure that the submission is ready for peer review according to the journal's review policy (following the instructions to ensure blind peer review).
5. Tables are all cited in the main text and are included within the text document.
6. Figures are all cited in the main text and are uploaded as supplementary files. Figures/images have a resolution of at least 150dpi (300dpi or above preferred). The files are in one of the following formats: JPG, TIFF, GIF, PNG, EPS (to maximise quality, the original source file is preferred).
7. All patients included within case reports or other article types in which an individual or a group of individuals can be identified have signed informed consent forms, or had had their legal guardian do so, giving permission to publish the submitted content under a CC-BY licence.
8. Research has been approved by an appropriate ethics committee, with the name of the committee and reference number of approval included within the submitted file. Otherwise, a statement that ethics approval was not required has been added to the file.
9. The corresponding author is submitting an ORCID identifier in their author data and co-authors have been recommended to also provide an ORCID, as per the journal policy.
10. Students have read, understood and accept the requirement regarding Faculty Sponsorship and Approval as outlined on the submissions page.

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 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).

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Publication Fees

This journal is published by the Center for Cognitive Science Undergraduate Consortium and we do not charge any author fees. This does not mean that we do not have costs. Instead, our costs are paid by the Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science.

Waiver Information

This journal is published by the Center for Cognitive Science Undergraduate Consortium and we do not charge any author fees.