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• PERC Proceedings
• Volumes
• About the Proceedings
  • General Information
  • Paper Types
  • Editors
  • Notable Papers
• Authors
  • General Information
  • Submitting a Manuscript
  • Review Process
  • Publication Rights
  • Policies and Practices
  • Tips for Authors
• Peer Reviewers
  • General Information
  • Unique to PERC Proceedings
  • Evaluation Criteria
  • Questions to Ponder
  • Publication Decisions
  • Ethical Guidelines
  • Policies and Practices
  • Tips for Referees

Information for Authors: Tips for Authors

General

Due to the length restriction on PERC Proceedings papers, it is recommended that you focus on only the most significant one or two findings or aspects of the research that you are presenting. These findings should be supported with strong evidence so that your conclusions are clear.

If the paper describes preliminary or work-in-progress, this should be made clear early in the paper.

As PERC Proceedings papers may be read by undergraduates or researchers in other fields in addition to other PER researchers, you should not assume that the reader knows what you did and what methodology you applied.

State your research question(s) that you are addressing as early in the paper as possible to provide the reader with a clear path through the paper.

Be sure to situate your work within the larger body of knowledge to provide a context for how your work relates to work already done in the field. Include appropriate references to provide the interested reader with supporting ideas and reference work.

Be sure that the work that you are presenting is really at a point that it warrants "getting the word out."

Update your Contact Information

Every year you should check and update as necessary your profile on PER-Central so that interested parties can connect with you. It is also important for the editors to have the most recent contact information in case of questions or issues with your submission.

If you have recently legally changed your name, please inform the Editor so that the editor can be aware of any potential differences within the system.

Preparation for Submission

Editorial Guidelines

Color Figures
- Electronic figures submitted in color (PostScript or EPS preferred) will be published online in color. Note, however, that grayscale images printed from color figures do not generally have monotonic gray scales so you should check to make sure that your figures are still understandable in grayscale.

References
- Check the accuracy of your references. Avoid broken hyperlinks.
- Include the complete source information for any references cited in the abstract. (Do not cite reference numbers in the abstract.)
- Number references in text consecutively, starting with [1].

Language
- If your native language is not English, please enlist the help of an English-speaking colleague who can assist you with proper spelling and grammar in preparing the text.
- Use a spell checker and grammar checker as a first step. You should always check it yourself as well since a spell checker will accept "form" when you meant "from." (Reviewers are not favorably impressed by careless mistakes.)

List of collaborators
- With your submission, include a list of your collaborators who are not your co-authors but may have a conflict of interest related to your paper because they are too familiar with the paper/project to serve as a peer reviewer.

Brief Checklist for Authors

• Is the standard of English acceptable to an academic audience in any country?
• Is the title of the paper concise, conveying the focus of the paper?
• Is the format of each author's name listed in the standard format used by that author for all publications? For example, Billy Smith uses William D. Smith for all his formal publications but Billy Smith informally.
• Is the abstract concise and informative?
• Is the literature review appropriately comprehensive and critical?
• Are the instruments used in an empirical study clearly explained?
• Is the nature of the sample(s) in an empirical study carefully defined?
• Are the processes of any data collection clearly explained?
• Are the findings of any inquiry fully compatible with the evidence cited?
• How do the findings of the inquiry relate to those previously reported?
• Does the paper make a 'contribution to knowledge', either in terms of theory or practice?
• Have all co-authors had an opportunity to review the paper before it was submitted to the peer review?
• Has someone read the paper to check for spelling and grammar errors?

Technical Guidelines

Include figures in your Word document as pictures. Include equations by using Design Science's MathType equation editor rather than Word's built-in editor, and tables by using Word's Table Editor. Please do not embed any of these items as objects, since this will cause a problem when converting your file to PDF.

For REVTeX and LaTeX files, please run BibTeX before submitting your paper, and include (read-in) the resulting .bbl file within the reference section of your paper.

Be sure to check your convert Word, REVTeX or LaTeX PDFs as the conversions can introduce changes and some errors might result.

If your attempted submission is not successful, please do not begin a new submission. Please send a message to Lyle Barbato for further assistance.

When sending a message for assistance, please be sure to include the full text of any error messages received. This will help us to quickly determine and resolve the source of any problems encountered.

After Submission

You should receive a confirmation e-mail stating that you have successfully submitted your paper. If not, please contact Lyle Barbato for further assistance