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Guidelines for students submitting articles for the student focused publication

Please note that these are guidelines and each article should be tailored accordingly.

Students wanting to contribute to the student focused publication

We are hoping that most of the articles will be written by students, there are several types of articles that we are interested in:

Stories

Could you write about your experiences as a GEES student?  It doesn’t have to be long and you don’t have to had an unusual experience, we just want you to tell us and staff what it’s like being a student.  This is a rather large topic so perhaps if you could concentrate on just one aspect such as

• UK field work
• Field work abroad
• Lab work
• Assistance with your education needs or disability
• Work based learning (work placement)
• IT based learning
• When looking for a course/university did you take value for money into consideration?
• The guidance and support that you have received through the institution N.B. we are not looking for anymore distance learning students on this topic
• Assessment measures – the pros and cons of various methods - student v lecturer viewpoint.
• How does your department make you feel part of that community, how are you encouraged to actively be involved?

Ideally outlining what your expectations were before you started, what happened, how this affected you, what was good and what could be improved in the future.  It should always come back to how it affected your learning experience.

Research

Are you carrying out a thesis, dissertation or piece of coursework to do with Higher education or learning techniques?  If so, here’s an opportunity to get your work published, just follow the advice for contributors at the top of the page.

Write ups

We are carrying out some small scale research ourselves, partly at the student staff discussion group but also through our departmental contacts; if you are interested in writing up the results please drop me an email and I can send you details of the projects.

General points

• This is not peer reviewed, an editorial board comprising of the GEES team will filter and format articles.
• We reserve the right to not publish any material sent to us.
• Manuscripts should be submitted to Sian Evans at sian.evans@plymouth.ac.uk. Please also email me if you have any questions or need further advice.
• The deadline for material is the 19th Feb 2007. If you believe that you will not be able to make this deadline but would like to submit please email me and I’ll see if we can work around it.

Criteria and protocol

• As this is a pilot we are fairly flexible in article length. An average article will be between 500 and 700 words and we won’t be able to sustain article longer than 1500 words. If an article is too small to be on its own it may be incorporated into another and you will be recognised as a co-author.
• It would be preferred if it had 1.5 spacing between lines and was font 12, Times New Roman.
• Any references that you use should be noted using the Harvard System. (There are many guides on how to use this on the web if you are unsure.)
• If you are considering submitting work please send an email prior to starting your article to the address at the bottom stating the following details
  1. Author(s)
  2. Contact details, remember that we may need to contact you over the Christmas holidays; they can be either phone or email.
  3. Whether you are a student(s), a member of staff(s) or both with your degree subject, year and level of study or your department
  4. Description of the article or perhaps a working title (N.B. this doesn’t have to be an abstract just a couple of lines on the topic e.g. I am going to write about my experience of fieldwork in the UK).
  5. If possible include an anticipated rough word count, this is by no mean definite and if further down the road it looks to be a lot different just drop us an email.
  These are purely so we can anticipate the volume of work we are expecting prior to the deadline, to make sure a wide range of topics is covered and none are being repeated. If you have already written your article prior to reading this don’t worry, send it in anyway.
• We do not need an abstract as these won’t be used in the publication
• We may contact you to confirm your involvement, check progress and inform you of any major editing that may happen to the article.

General advice

• Have clear aims and objectives and make sure that the paper ends up answering these;
• Make explicit why your work is relevant and important;
• Have clear headings and signposts;
• Provide a context for your work (e.g. where, when, number of students, year of study, assessment criteria)
• Consider supplementing your text with visuals (e.g.) tables, maps, figures, photographs and screen-grabs;
• Provide a recommendations section for others if appropriate.
• Please bear in mind this is aimed at students and staff, tailor your article to be of interest to both.

Advice for inexperienced writers

• Look at some examples of articles to see how they have been written.
• A punchy title and good opening paragraph will attract readers.
• Keep it simple - keep scientific terms to a minimum to attract a wider audience.
• It doesn’t need to be too long, don’t waffle.
• Get someone to proof-read your work-preferably someone who has no previous knowledge of what you are writing about. Ask them on feedback and ways to improve your article.
• Include examples.
• Be sensitive to cultural, contextual and institutional differences (i.e. it should not expose particular individuals or openly criticise an individual department. Ideally you should anonomise it (or we will.)
• Provide an individual and honest account.
• As far as you can, see things from others’ viewpoints and provide potentially perceptive observations and helpful ideas for teaching staff.
• Be entertaining and interesting to read.
• A glowing report may be pleasant to read but we anticipate that a thorough, fair exposition of what you found/experience, if critical, make sure it’s fully argued and explained.