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.
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.
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 student 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” underneath the list of author affiliations. If any senior authors should have equal contribution, please do the same as for student authors, but use a symbol other than an asterisk.
Here is an example of how to list out authors for a manuscript.
If the author contributions look like this:
1st authors: Jane Doe, Bob Smith
2nd author: Jack Trice
3rd author: Alice Ball
4th/Senior author: Rosalind Franklin
Then they should be written like this on your cover page (including affiliations):
Jane Doe1*, Bob Smith2*, Jack Trice3, Alice Ball4, Rosalind Franklin5
1Anonymous High School, Plaintown, Illinois
2Super Secret High School, Metropolis, Illinois
3Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa
4University of Hawai’i, Honolulu, Hawai’i
5University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England
*These authors contributed equally to this work
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.
JEI requires two (2) authors on every manuscript - at least one student and senior (adult) author. If a student did all the experimentation on their own, they must ask an adult to serve as a senior author on your manuscript. The senior author will not only submit the manuscript for the student, but they are expected to help read through the manuscript to help identify any errors or parts that may be confusing prior to submission.
Under no circumstances does JEI allow student author(s) to be the sole author(s) of a manuscript nor do we allow students to submit their work on their own behalf in our Editorial Manager platform.
Note: JEI does not encourage students to undertake experiments without adult supervision and guidance.
An adult still MUST submit the manuscript on behalf of the student author(s) on the manuscript. We still require a separate adult to submit even if any of the student authors are 18+ years at the time of submission.
The senior author’s email address still must be entered into Editorial Manager so they are on all communication from JEI about the manuscript. If this email is not provided, senior editors will reach out to ask for it and put an editorial hold on the manuscript until it is received.
Note: The submitting author will have all correspondence addressed to them as that is the default of Editorial Manager. Author order for publication is taken from the information provided to the journal on the Word file of the manuscript.
All authors listed on the manuscript must have a valid affiliation. “Unaffiliated”, “mentor”, etc. are not valid affiliations for JEI.
Parents serving as senior mentors should use a student author’s affiliation. We only recommend using a professional affiliation if the parent mentored the student in their professional role with their employer.
Note: Author affiliations are taken from what is provided in the Word file of the manuscript (just like author order). Do NOT be concerned if your affiliation does not show up as a verified institution in Editorial Manager - we have no control over that list.
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.)
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.