Guidelines & Evaluation Criteria

Please review these submission guidelines and follow the Oshkosh Scholar Style Guide to improve your chances of getting published in Oshkosh Scholar.

Submission Guidelines

Enrolled UW Oshkosh students and recent graduates are eligible to submit their scholarly and creative works to Oshkosh Scholar. Scholarly and creative works include:

• Independent study projects
• Honors theses
• Undergraduate Student/Faculty Collaborative Research projects
• Other faculty-mentored undergraduate research or scholarship
• Creative work, if accompanied by a scholarly essay explaining the work*

Recent UW Oshkosh graduates can submit work that they completed as undergraduates for up to one year after graduation. While the author may have graduated from UW Oshkosh by the time of publication, the work must have been completed while the author was enrolled as an undergraduate student at UW Oshkosh.

Oshkosh Scholar does not accept submissions that are term papers or literature reviews.

Only one manuscript per student per volume will be accepted.

Please make sure your submission meets all of the submission guidelines and conforms to the Oshkosh Scholar Style Guide, which requires Chicago style. It is common to do one or two rewrites.

Your paper can be a maximum of 20 pages. You may have to condense your original manuscript to meet the page requirements. Please see "Length" section in the Oshkosh Scholar Style Guide. Rely on your faculty adviser for help with this process.

Human and Animal Subjects - Obtaining Approval

The University of Wisconsin Oshkosh requires that all students engaged in research involving human subjects, or using data derived from human subjects, must obtain the approval of the Institutional Review Board (IRB). Please visit the Human Subjects and IRB section of the Office of Grants and Faculty Development website for details on the process and the forms necessary for IRB approval.

Animal research must be reviewed by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC). For more information, contact the Office of Grants and Faculty Development.

Proof of IRB or IACUC approval, if needed, must be included in the manuscript packet.

Editing and Review Process

Your original manuscript will be read and edited by an editorial board including: Susan Surendonk, Oshkosh Scholar managing editor; Dr. Michelle Kuhl, Oshkosh Scholar faculty adviser; student editors; and two faculty reviewers. 

If their submissions are deemed appropriate for publication in Oshkosh Scholar, authors will have the opportunity to review/revise their submissions as suggested by faculty reviewers and the Oshkosh Scholar editorial board. The Oshkosh Scholar editorial board will meet with student authors and their faculty advisers to discuss manuscript revisions. After the review meeting, you will have approximately two weeks to make the revisions and return your edited manuscript. Don't wait until the last day to make revisions! In many cases, we will send the manuscript back several times for revisions, so the earlier you make the changes, the more likely your final manuscript will be accepted for publication.

In order for your final manuscript to be considered for publication, you must make the revisions suggested by the editorial board, unless the changes will alter what you are trying to convey. If you have questions, contact the editorial board at ugjournal@uwosh.edu.

If you make the revisions suggested by the editorial board, you are not guaranteed publication of your final manuscript in Oshkosh Scholar. However, making the revisions improves your chances of getting published. The editorial board has jurisdiction over what will and will not be published.

Evaluation Criteria

Submissions will be juried by a faculty panel that will consider quality and intellectual merit, as well as ensuring that a representative variety of disciplines are included in the final publication. Please download the Reviewer Forms for details about evaluation criteria.

Once through the review/editing process, the submissions will be published online on the Oshkosh Scholar website. Of these, the best submissions will be selected for the print publication, which is typically distributed in late fall. The Selection Committee will choose submissions for the print edition based on the following criteria: strong argument, interesting to a broad readership, lots of good evidence, and beautiful writing. The editors reserve the right to alter submissions to fit the layout. If you have questions concerning article submission guidelines or standards, send an e-mail message to ugjournal@uwosh.edu.

*Creative work includes musical scores, non-fiction creative writing, visual art, poetry or fiction, but only if accompanied by a scholarly essay or analysis to explain the work. For example, the essay could explain the inspiration for a painting and an explanation of the medium used. Creative work not accompanied by a scholarly essay or analysis, or work that would be more appropriate for publication in Wisconsin Review, will not be accepted.