By: Melissa Boneta
Students can now begin submitting any works of scholarship to the Mako Undergraduate Student Journal. After remaining dormant for a few years, this relaunched journal is an opportunity for students to get their scholarly material published and recognized by their peers and faculty.
Aarti Raja, editor-in-chief of the journal and a professor of the Halmos College of Natural Sciences and Oceanography, said that this is an opportunity for the undergraduate population to showcase their work. Raja said that she understands that students have different backgrounds and there are a variety of things students study.
“The biggest benefit in my mind is when a student is involved in any kind of project, it’s your own project. You have ownership of it and it’s always nice to publish it somewhere where it gets recognized as your work, as something you did when you were an undergraduate student at NSU,” said Raja.
Raja works alongside other faculty members to put the journal together. The submissions will be reviewed by professors from all colleges.
Raja said, “We encourage [students] to submit their written work. If they are unsure if it is something that we would accept for publication or not, always check in with us… It can be lab research, it can be an analysis of texts, reviews, social science studies, historical research, analytical essays, thought pieces. There is a whole variety of things we are willing to accept.”
Michael Reiter, associate editor and professor of family therapy at the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, originally developed the journal back when it was called the Farquhar Student Journal and when it was designated for the Farquhar College of Arts and Sciences. He was editor-in-chief for about seven to eight years before he decided to revamp the journal and pass his torch on to Raja.
“I very much appreciated the journal and wanted to continue to be a part of it,” he said. “We haven’t published an issue in a few years so this year is the renaming and relaunch of the journal.”
There will be three determinations in the submission process: accepted without revisions, accepted with revisions and not accepted. So far, every submission to the journal has been accepted with revisions, including the faculty submissions. In this case, students receive feedback on their work, they are given a chance to apply those edits and then they are eligible for resubmission of their work.
“We have undergraduate students that are in a lot of different colleges here at the university so I want to make sure that we are inclusive… We clearly state that we’re looking for everybody, from nursing to education to biology to psychology. Every undergraduate student here at NSU has a place where their voice and what they’re learning about can be honored,” Reiter said.
The goal is to have this year’s issue published by the end of the year. The web journal is based on a rolling submission basis, so there is no deadline for students to meet.
Reiter said, “The journal gives students the opportunity to take their work beyond the classroom. That used to be a slogan of NSU, ‘Beyond the Classroom.’ To show that you’re not just learning things in class and it stays only there. Have you put what you’ve learned into practice? Students gain knowledge and students create knowledge. We want students to do both while also helping other people understand that knowledge. That’s where the journal can come into play.”
For more information, visit the journal website at nsuworks.nova.edu/mako.
