Section Policies

 Articles

Articles should be at least 4000 words. Article submissions are, at the moment, open only to graduate students at UCCS or alumni from the graduate program who have graduated within the last two years. We recommend that all undergraduates submit to the Undergraduate Research Journal. Submissions from disciplines outside of history (i.e. Anthropology, Geography, etc.) are welcome, but we will only review works related directly to a historical topic. To submit your work, please send your title page and abstract as a separate document, along with a copy of your paper. Before sending this along, please substitute any references to your name or the name of the advisor who worked with you in the body of the paper with either “Author” or “Professor” respectively. Submissions should be in a readable, serif font, such as Times New Roman, Georgia, or Garamond. They must be double-spaced and follow the Chicago Manual of Style. Please submit your paper using the online submission form at https://thespringsjournal.uccs.edu/index.php/tsghj. Inquiries about the submission process should be directed to the Managing Editor at [email protected] If your article is sent through peer or faculty review, the reviewers will make comments on the paper and recommend whether we should accept the paper, accept it with revisions, or ask you to revise and resubmit or reject the paper. The editors will return the feedback to you along with the final decision, giving you an appropriate amount of time to make the suggested revisions.

Book Reviews

Book reviews should be between 1.5 and 2 pages, single-spaced. Book review submissions are open to all students. We will select 12 book reviews to go through peer review, and plan on publishing 8 to 10 at most. Only reviews of books published within the last three years will be considered for publication. Revised editions of books will only be published in extraordinary circumstances. Submissions are to be in a readable serif font, such as Times New Roman, Georgia, or Garamond, single-spaced, and formatted according to the Chicago Manual of Style. Please make sure you are using the online submission form at https://thespringsjournal.uccs.edu/index.php/tsghj. Inquiries about the submission process should be directed to the Managing Editor at [email protected] The editors will return the feedback to you along with the final decision, giving you an appropriate amount of time to make the suggested revisions.

Research Reflections

This submission category is the most open-ended of any of the submission categories. Research reflections are brief historical snapshots, providing an opportunity for students in the process of conducting research to dig into a particular source they find compelling, to discuss their experiences conducting research, or specific methodologies they are employing in a project. An ideal research reflection should be engaging and accessible to a general scholarly audience—creative approaches are welcome. Submissions are open to all history students, although we will only accept a maximum of ten research reflections. If your primary source is an image, please include details about usage rights in the body of the submission email. Reflections must be no longer than 1000 words, single-spaced, in a readable serif font such as Times New Roman, Georgia, or Garamond. Please submit your reflection using the online submission form at https://thespringsjournal.uccs.edu/index.php/tsghj. Inquiries about the submission process should be directed to the Managing Editor at [email protected] We will send the top 10 into peer review and select at most 5 to 7 for either acceptance or acceptance with revisions. The editors will return the feedback to you along with the final decision, giving you an appropriate amount of time to make or address the suggested changes.

Publication Process

We accept submissions on a rolling basis. Reviews are conducted over the Spring, Summer, and (if necessary) the Fall, and a new issue is published at the end of the Fall Semester. If a large number of submissions are received, the editors may decide to publish additional issues.

Not every work that is submitted to The Springs Graduate History Journal will be published, and no piece will be published without undergoing review by at least one peer or faculty reviewer. After an editor reads your paper, the paper is distributed to peer reviewers via the OJS3 system. The reviewers read through the paper with special attention to the argument, methodology, and structure. Although we aim to review every piece within one month, sometimes this is not possible.

The reviewers will either recommend that we accept, accept revisions, ask you to revise and resubmit the paper or reject the paper. It is rare for a paper to be accepted with no revisions. If the peer reviewers recommend that we accept the paper with revisions, the editors again read through the piece and make comments oriented towards mechanics or grammar. The author then has time to make the required revisions. Upon receiving the revised paper, the editors will return a copy and layout edited proof of the article to the author and give them a chance to approve or reject any changes. Authors will be notified when their article is published.

Open Access Policy

The Springs Graduate History Journal is a completely open-access journal, meaning that any work published in the journal is made freely available to anyone with access to the Web.

For authors, The Springs Graduate History Journal uses the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International License. While authors do agree to publish their work as open access, they retain the rights over the work. The Creative Commons license does not permit anyone to use your work for a monetary profit.

How many papers can I submit?

Authors are limited to two submissions per publication cycle, and cannot submit two papers to the same submission category. This means that if someone submits an article, they can still submit a research reflection or a book review, but not another article.

How can I get involved?

If you’d like to review a paper for the journal, send the following info to [email protected]:

  • Your name
  • Geographical, methodological, or thematic interests
  • the best email to contact you with

Feel free to reach out as well if you are interested in copy editing or layout editing.