Journal Guidelines

Journal Guidelines

The Macalester Street Journal

macalesterstreet.org

Saint Paul, MN

macstreetjournal@macalester.edu

Journal Guidelines

 

20th November 2022

Article I - Purpose

  • Founding Principle 

      1. The Macalester Street Journal (MSJ) is an open-access politics and economics journal that is freely available for all. It is open to all Macalester College students for submission of scholarly work on the topics of politics and economics as well as invited scholars from around the world. The MSJ's goal is to publish in the pursuit of economic and political understanding through the cultivation of learned undergraduate research and opinion. Insight from the youth helps manage this journal and all young people are encouraged to read, submit, and volunteer with the MSJ. 

  • Quality Production

      1. The journal is formed with the intention of allowing students at Macalester College to contribute to the fields of politics and economics through research and opinion. In holding this goal the journal maintains a strict review process thereby ensuring that all published material is of the highest quality. With quality work, this journal aims to showcase the value of young scholars in the spheres of academia and research.

  • Accessibility 

    1. The MSJ is designed as an outlet for student writers to showcase their products to the general public in a non-exclusive manner. It is understood that graduate school is often the first opportunity that students have to publish their writing, and contribute to the public knowledge base. The Macalester Street Journal strives to break down the restrictive barriers that graduate school publication poses to students, and hopes to make an impact on the greater social science scene with undergraduate research.

Article II - Leadership 

  • The Editorial Review Board 

      1. The Editorial Review Board (ERB) is the governing body of the MSJ and will be made up of at least four members for governing purposes. However, because the number of roles necessary is greater than four, in such an instance where the board is short of persons, board members may occupy multiple roles. The board will consist of:
        1. A General Director(s), who will oversee the entirety of the journal including advertising, reviewing, publishing, web presence, and personnel duties. The General Director(s) will be in charge of overseeing the club email, and the presence page. 
          1. The ERB may consist of one or two General Directors, who will share the responsibilities of the title. 
        2. A Chief Politics Editor (CPE), who will oversee the review, and publishing of all works within the category of Politics.
        3. A Politics Opinion Section Editor (POE), who will review all papers classified as opinions within the Politics category.
        4. A Politics Research Section Editor (PRE), who will review all papers that do not classify as opinion pieces within the Politics category. 
        5. A Chief Economics Editor (CEE), who will oversee the review, and publishing of all works within the category of Economics.
        6. An Economics Opinion Section Editor (EOE), who will review all papers classified as opinions within the Economics category.
        7. An Economics Research Section Editor (ERE), who will review all papers that do not classify as opinion pieces within the Economics category. 
        8. A Production Editor, who will be responsible for overseeing the graphic design, style, and format elements of the journal. The Production Editor will also be responsible for overseeing the organization and publication timeline of the journal. 
        9. A Chief Financial Officer (CFO), who will be responsible for all financial matters relating to the journal’s management, and the publication of finalized editions of the MSJ.

  • ERB Eligibility

      1. In order to be elected to a position on the Editorial Review Board, members will be required to have published a paper during the previous publication period, which constitutes two election cycles. A publication cycle takes place during one academic semester, and expires after the publication of an edition, or the start of the next semester. In the case that a member does not fulfill this requirement, eligibility will be determined by the attendance record of the member, requiring at least a fifty percent attendance record during the previous publication cycle. The members of the founding ERB during the 2022-2023 academic year are thus justly eligible.  

  • ERB Responsibilities 

      1. The ERB is responsible for the planning and publishing of each issue of the MSJ. The Production Editor serves as the one in charge of overseeing and managing the ERB as they plan and publish each issue, as it outlined in Artl.2.SA.CA.8. Within the planning process of each issue, the Board must hold planning meetings that are open to all members of the MSJ. In these meetings the Board will decide on the distribution of topics to publish, the quota and maximum for accepted works, the date by which it is to be published and indexed, and any other pressing decisions. 
        1. All decisions that pertain to the responsibilities discussed in the above Clause must be voted on, and are decided by a simple majority. Quorum is constituted by a simple majority of Executive Review Board members, and is needed for all ERB voting responsibilities.
      2. Within the planning process of each issue, the board must hold regularly scheduled weekly meetings that are open to all members of the MSJ. In these meetings the board will decide on the distribution of topics to publish, the quota and maximum for accepted works, the date by which it is to be published and indexed, and any other pressing decisions.
        1. All decisions that pertain to the responsibilities discussed in the above Clause must be voted on, and are decided by a simple majority.
      3. The ERB must maintain transparency with club members regarding the status of the working issue, and the publication process. This includes entertaining questions at regular meetings and reviewing author appeals on rejected submissions. 

  • ERB Ethnics

      1. Beyond publishing, the Editorial Review Board pledges to maintain agreed-upon Core Practices as outlined and specified by the Committee on Publication Ethics which can be viewed at: https://publicationethics.org/core-practices. This includes but is not limited to outlined processes regarding ethics, misconduct, authorship, and appeals. The journal must receive documentation from its authors and contributors that they have agreed to abide by these principles before the first publishing date. Ethical rules are further expanded upon in the Ethical Practices Document, published by the MSJ ERB. 

  • Non-ERB Staff Roles

    1. The leadership and administration of the Macalester Street Journal will also include members who are not a part of the Editorial Review Board. These members will not be granted voting privileges on ERB matters, but may express their opinions on issues at hand. Non-ERB Staff members are invited and encouraged to attend board meetings. Non-ERB Staff roles will include:
      1. A Journal Indexer, who will be responsible for all indexing matters related to publishing the MSJ.
      2. An Editor(s) At-Large, who will be responsible for editing papers assigned to them by Section Chiefs, or papers assigned to them based on their personal preference.
        1. There may be any number of Editors At-Large depending on the volume of submissions received for the issue-at hand.

 

Article III - Programming

  1. The journal will entertain open programming in order to advertise to readers, attract authors, and popularize the journal. These events will be held prior to, or shortly after publication in order to showcase the work of authors.
  2. The journal will maintain instances of author-inclusive meetings which outline pertinent aspects of the submission process generally and for that specific publishing cycle. An election cycle takes place during one academic semester, and expires after the publication of an edition, or the start of the next semester. Furthermore, these will be opportunities for authors to present their research and showcase their progress. This is held as the responsibility of the ERB mentioned in clause 3. At least one of these meetings must occur before the submission deadline for some specific cycle and during the submission review process for some specific cycle.
  3. The journal will hold closed, ERB exclusive meetings in which the responsibilities of the board are discussed along with the information on papers submitted during that cycle. An ERB meeting must be held at the beginning of a publishing cycle, prior to the publishing dates, and at the end of a publishing period. A publishing period is constituted of two publishing cycles. 

Article IV - Submission Review Process

  • Submission Requirements

      1. All applicants must maintain copyright permission or ownership of their work to submit their papers to the journal.
      2. All papers must pertain to the intended purpose and mission of MSJ (see Purpose section), and must be void of inappropriate language.
      3. All submissions must follow MLA, APA, or Chicago formats in order to be considered and must include pertinent information about the author and the paper's context.
      4. All submissions must not plagiarize and must contain a references section in the manuscript. Applicants must be able to submit their references separately in the submission process as well.
      5. All submitted manuscripts must contain the entire paper that the applicant wishes to publish in a single file and must clearly mark which pages are not to be published.
      6. All submissions must be accompanied by the required biographical and contextual information outlined in the submission process.
      7. All applicants must provide adequate avenues of communication and be prepared to receive communication during the process.
      8. All submissions must contain the appropriate acknowledgments to contributors.
      9. All applicants must consent to the public dissemination of their submissions for possible inclusion in scholarly databases and indexes, and for advertising and educational purposes.
      10. All submissions must be accompanied by an abstract.
      11. All submissions must be originally submitted in English.

  • Application Cycle

      1. Applicants must complete the submission form and provide the required information including an abstract and full length work as is outlined in the Submission Requirements section.
      2. Submissions will be processed and discussed by the full board. A vote by simple majority will be conducted to make this decision.
      3. Inclusion within the next published issue of the journal will be based on: 
        1. The mission of MSJ seen at the beginning of this document and located on the website.
        2. A quota of papers and distribution of topics decided by the Editorial Review Board. The goal of being an open journal will push the number of accepted papers to be higher, however a stringent selection based on volume must be planned for. A good distribution of topics will be defined as: varying ideas and opinions expressed within the journal that are diverse in the factors of, geography, social discussion, economic principles, or political systems.
        3. The quality of research found within the paper which will be decided by reviewers and concerns multiple factors. MSJ agrees and follows the characteristics outlined by the Colorado Department of Education at cde.state.co.us. The following characteristics can be found at https://www.cde.state.co.us/sites/default/files/documents/research/download/pdf/highqualityresearch.pdf on page 4 and includes,
          1. “A well defined research topic and a clear hypothesis,
          2. Focused research questions responsive to a literature review, 
          3. An absence of research bias,
          4. High quality data fit for their intended use and reliable, valid, relevant, and accurate,
          5. Analytical methods appropriate to the data and the questions (descriptive or inferential),
          6. Findings of the study written in a way which brings clarity to important issues,
          7. Tables and graphics which are clear, accurate and understandable with appropriate labeling of data values, cut points and thresholds,
          8. Include(s) both statistical significance results and effect sizes when possible,
          9. The conclusions and recommendations both logical and consistent with the findings.”
        4. Further than these, the inclusion of significant contextual information that clarifies and expands the thesis or research question.
        5. The originality of the topic if the paper has been written for an academic course. This refers to papers whose prompts were assigned to two or more parties by a professor. While conclusions may be different across students, the topics of these papers are still deemed as unoriginal in this context.
        6. The prospective impact of the paper and/or the overall importance of the submission's context. MSJ would like to accept papers by students who wish to explore tough subjects and provide students with an opportunity to not simply learn about their academic interests but contribute themselves to that field.
      4. By a certain timeframe, full papers are to be submitted and processed down to reviewers and copy editors, who will work with authors to edit and perfect the work until the publishing date.

  • Review Timeline

      1. The initial submission is required for some cycle by a certain date.
      2. A notification about inclusion will be sent to authors by a certain date.
      3. All technical and content edits will be due by a decided pre-publishing date. An adequate pre-publishing date will be 7-14 days before the publishing date.
      4. Some issues of MSJ will be published on a certain date.
      5. Letter of intent

  • Important Information

    1. The journal will follow an open-peer review practice in which authors and reviewers maintain contact and communicate with one another. Measures will be taken to prevent unethical or inappropriate communication in that regard.
    2. Contributors may be listed as contributors on multiple submissions. Authors may contact the MSJ Editorial Board with questions regarding the status of their submissions or the review process. Inquiries may be sent to: macstreetjournal@macalester.edu 
    3. If rejected from inclusion, applicants may appeal to the editorial review board for a further presentation and vote on prospective inclusion. See the MSJ Ethical Practices for further information.

Article V - Journal Indexing and Availability

  1. The Macalester Street Journal will maintain an account with the Library of Congress ISSN network and intends to apply for an ISSN number as soon as the first issue is complete. The journal will be available publicly and freely on the journal website and pursued for indexing in further databases, such as Google Scholar. All editions of the journal online will be freely accessible. Hard copy editions may be available for purchase through third party vendors such as Amazon Bookstore. 




The Macalester Street Journal Guidelines are written and published as a living document by the Macalester Street Journal Editorial Review Board.

Special thanks to General Director Sean Maxfield, Class of 2026, and Chief Politics Editor Luke Evans, Class of 2026, for initially preparing this living document.