Guest Submissions
The World Mind accepts guest submissions in addition to its regular column articles. Guest writers seeking to be considered for publication in The World Mind are encouraged to send their submissions to worldmindau@gmail.com. Authors are required to specify the column for which they would like to be considered in the subject line of the email (e.g., “Paper submission: COLUMN TITLE”) Authors must attach their submissions as a Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx) file with the document name according to the following format: LAST NAME_TITLE_YEAR. Submissions must be received by 5:00pm EST the day of each issue’s announced deadline. Articles considered for submission must conform to the official copyright, intellectual property, and academic integrity policies of American University.
Eligibility
The World Mind publishes work exclusively written by undergraduate students from American University. Students from American University who have graduated within one year of the spring deadline may submit work completed during the course of their undergraduate degree. Students who have transferred to American University may submit work completed at their previous institution. Submission material may be based on previous coursework, research seminars, or symposiums and conferences.
Students in a combined BA/MA program may only submit work substantially completed before finishing the requirements of the BA. Those students may not submit work completed for a 600 or 700 level class, or any other class which appears on their transcript as providing credit towards the MA.
Format
Authors must incorporate bibliographic information into their prose and cite the relevant information by hyperlink, rather than in footnotes, endnotes, parentheses, or a formal bibliography. For example, authors should refer to information like so: “In her 2010 book, This Land Is Ours Now, Wendy Wolford advanced a theory that holds institutions, norms, and historical structures as constitutive elements of social movements like the Landless Workers Movement in Brazil.”
If authors include information in their work that cannot be easily found by the World Mind staff, they will be required to include an annotated bibliography along with their submission.
Submissions should be double-spaced in Times New Roman font with one inch margins. All papers must be written and punctuated according to American English grammatical requirements.
Length
Guest submissions should be between 1,000 - 4,000 words. Members of staff are allowed to write longer form research pieces up to 10,000 words long. If you are interested in writing longer pieces, apply to join our staff here.
Review Process
All guest submissions will have any and all personally identifiable information removed during the review cycle. Each submission will be sent to an anonymous undergraduate Editor who has knowledge of the material. The Editors will evaluate submissions and provide comments for improvement, as well as a recommendation for or against publication.
Following the feedback on each article, the Executive Editor will make initial decisions on whether or not an article will be published. The Executive Editor and Contributing Editors will sort article submissions into one of four categories: (1) accept, (2) accept with minor revisions, (3) reconsider with major revisions, and (4) reject. Articles requiring minor revisions will be published should the author decide to make those specified revisions, although the World Mind reserves the right to publish any submission in its original form, should revisions not be made. Articles requiring major revisions may or may not be published by the World Mind depending on the content and substantive nature of the revisions made by the author.
Evaluation Criteria
Contribution to Existing Knowledge.
Theoretical Richness and Consistency.
Methods of Analysis.
Soundness of Conclusions.
Organization and Readability.
Technical Requirements.