Author Eligibility

All manuscripts at JEI must have at least two authors, one or more student authors and a senior author. Authorship is the highest form of acknowledgement you can give to someone who contributed to your manuscript.

Student Authors

• All middle- and high-school students are encouraged to submit their work
• Initial submission of manuscript must occur prior to the student author’s enrollment in university.
• Access to university labs and advanced techniques not required
• Passion for answering scientific questions by carrying out independent research projects

Senior Mentors

• A senior mentor must be included as the last author on all JEI manuscripts
• A teacher, college/university professor, postdoctoral fellow, or senior graduate student may serve as a senior mentor if research was performed in a school or university.
• A parent can serve as a senior mentor if research was conducted at home
• All senior mentors must have a valid email address provided in their author information on Editorial Manager.

Why do I need permission from all authors before submitting?

If you are listing someone as an author on a manuscript you need to seek and gain their permission prior to submitting your manuscript. This allows them to verify that they agree with the information contained in the manuscript and are okay with it being published.

How should I list the authors?

In scientific writing authors are listed in order of their contribution to the work. This means that the author listed first did the most experimental design, data collection and analysis, and/or writing, and the author listed last did the least. In fact, the last/senior author often only contributes in reviewing experimental design and/or the manuscript.

If any authors contributed equally to the work this can be denoted by placing an asterisk (*) after their name and the statement “these authors contributed equally to this work” at the end of the author affiliations.

What if I collected all the data and wrote the manuscript by myself?

You will still need a senior mentor. If you discussed your experimental design with a teacher or parent, or if they helped edit your manuscript, then this should be acknowledged by listing them as a senior author.

If you did everything on your own, we strongly suggest asking a teacher or parent to read your draft as they will pick up on things you have missed and then list them as a senior mentor. Even if you do not have an adult read over your manuscript, you will still need to list a senior author.

I need to change the author order.

We are happy to assist with author order if there are questions regarding it or if authors need to be added or removed. If an author is being removed we will need to see communication from the author being removed that they have consented to this (and we reserve the right to independently verify this with them as well).

Prior to publication, you will be sent a proof to review and can verify authors, order, affiliations, etc. at that time. (Please note that we will not generate a proof of a manuscript unless there are two or more authors listed.)

Parents / Legal Guardians

In compliance with laws involving minors, a student’s parent or legal guardian must submit the manuscript to JEI via Editorial Manager on the student-author’s behalf.