Contributor FAQs

What is the Oculus?

The Oculus is the interdisciplinary journal of undergraduate research at the University of Virginia. We are an autonomous subcommittee of the Undergraduate Research Network, an organization dedicated to promoting undergraduate research at the University. We are staffed entirely by students, and students are responsible for the entire publishing process, from selection of articles to editing to formatting and publishing. The Oculus is currently published once per semester.

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What kind of papers does the Oculus publish?

The Oculus publishes papers in every field of academic study. The only criterion for inclusion is that a paper must be original research peformed by an undergraduate student at UVa.

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Is my paper eligible?

Papers of any topic are eligible for publication, provided the research was conducted and the paper written while the contributor was an undergraduate student at UVa. The papers do not need to have been written for a class. Unfortunately, we can only publish papers written in English.

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How do I submit my paper?

Please submit your work as an e-mail attachment to oculus@virginia.edu. We accept Word documents and PDFs. Please remove your name from the .pdf to ensure anonymity during our review process if you submit in this format. For specific guidelines for paper submission and more please check the Contributor's Guidelines.

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Who has copyrights to published articles?

Contributors retain all copyrights to published and submitted work. The role of The Oculus is merely to provide a forum for students to present their research.

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What is this semester's theme?

While past issues of The Oculus have had themes, the Editorial Committee has decided not to use themes in future issues. We made this change because in the past, potential contributors had been deterred from submitting articles because they felt their research topic did not fit the theme. This semester's issue will have no theme, so feel free to submit an article on any topic.

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Do I need to include an abstract?

It is an author's choice whether to submit an abstract along with the paper itself, but if the paper is selected the abstract will not be printed with the article. All selected articles will print with abstracts and author bios written by Oculus staff.

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I have charts/pictures/tables in my paper. What should I do?

To ensure proper formatting of articles, The Oculus requires additional media to be submitted alongside the paper in specific file formats. Please see the Contributor's Guidelines for more information.

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When is this semester's submission deadline?

Submission deadlines and additional information can be found on the Schedule page

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How can I get involved?

We encourage anybody who is interested in joining the staff of The Oculus to check out the information on the Join page.

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