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How can I publish an academic article as an undergraduate student?

Published July 5, 2020 by Kate Shuttleworth

If you're an undergraduate student involved in research, or you've written some original work, you may be wondering about your options for getting an article published in an academic journal.

We've written about graduate student publishing before on Radical Access when we showcased recipients of the GSS Open Access award and answered the question,"Can I publish my thesis?." While publishing as an undergraduate is less common than for graduate students, it is absolutely possible, and many undergrads are successful in getting published. Undergraduates are also eligible for the Library's Open Access Fund for publishing in qualifying open access journals which charge an Article Processing Charge.

Choosing where to submit your work as an undergrad

As a researcher, where you submit will really depend on the details of the submission and where it best fits, as well as where you're likely to be successful at this point in your career. Journals will often consider any original research and will assess it based on the novelty and contribution to the field of research. However, there are a few steps you can take to increase your chances of being successful in getting your work published at this stage.

Check out our post on Getting Published: Tips for choosing an academic journal for general suggestions about journal publishing, including where to look for possible journals and options for making your work open access.
Check the journals' rejection rates. Journals with very high rejection rates may be more challenging to publish in as a student, simply because they accept fewer articles.
Consider whether you can work with a faculty member to co-author the paper that you submit.
Do some research to find out where other undergraduate students in your department have been successful in getting published.

Journals dedicated to publishing undergraduate research

Some journals are dedicated to publishing undergraduate research - For example, the Canadian Journal of Undergraduate Research (CJUR) based out of UBC. Student journals are another great option: SFU hosts a number of student journals* run by and for students, and many of these accept undergraduate student work in a particular discipline. The Library's Student Learning Commons also hosts the Undergraduate Writing Contest each year, and the contest winners have their work published in the journal. American University's School of International Service keeps a list of a variety of publications that publish undergraduate research.

Keep in mind that your work can't be under consideration by more than one journal at the same time. Once you choose a journal you will need to wait to hear back from them before you can submit elsewhere (and this can take some time). With this in mind, unless it's clear that the journal accepts undergraduate work, it may be worth contacting the managing editor of any journal that you are considering to check that they accept undergraduate work before continuing.

More information about undergraduate publishing

Visit the following resources to learn more about Scholarly Publishing, and contact your liaison librarian or digital-scholarship@sfu.ca for additional support.

Scholarly Publishing and Open Access webpages
Attend a Research Commons workshop, such as the Preparing to publish (while the Research Commons workshops are primarily offered to graduate students, undergraduate students interested in publishing are welcome to attend).

*Don't see an SFU student journal in your discipline? Consider starting one! Visit the SFU Library Digital Publishing webpages and contact digital-publishing@sfu.ca to learn more.

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Contact us: For assistance with scholarly publishing, please contact digital-scholarship@sfu.ca.

This work, the Simon Fraser University Scholarly Publishing website, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License unless otherwise noted.