Focus and Scope
PennScience is committed to promoting and raising the visibility of undergraduate research. Doing research has become a standard part of many science majors, and many students go above and beyond the call of the minimum requirements, spending long hours and even summers in the lab. Some even begin their research careers while still in high school. Yet too often, this work goes unnoticed and unreported.
By creating a scientific forum for and by students, we hope to bring together young researchers, helping to make students feel that rather than participating in a disjointed and isolating endeavor, they are becoming a part of a true community of scholars. We also seek to raise the awareness of the outside community to research performed by undergraduates.
A key goal of our journal is to make publication more accessible to college and high-school students, providing a peer-reviewed journal dedicated solely to their work. Publication in academic journals is a time-consuming process which is not always suitable for the duration and scale of projects done by undergraduates; we seek to create another option will allow more students to publish their research.
Science is not something which exists solely in a lab, cloistered in academia and separate from society. Our everyday lives are affected by science at a myriad points; medicine, science, technology, politics and society are intricately and intrinsically intertwined. This journal is, ultimately, a testament to the fact that what student researchers are doing is not simply completing their independent study projects. They are participating in the creation of new knowledge, the building blocks upon our ever-evolving understanding of our world rests; and that this is an endeavor to be publicized and celebrated.
Section Policies
Articles
 Open Submissions |
Indexed |
Peer Reviewed |
Peer Review Process
All articles submitted to Pennscience undergo a thorough review process where reviewers (students and faculty at the University of Pennsylvania) analyze each submitted paper for various factors including clarity, scientific method and originality.
All reviewers for the article then meet and discuss their opinions and a final decision is made regarding the future of the paper within Pennscience. Each paper will be either accepted, accepted with comments, deferred or rejected.
Open Access Policy
This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.