Guidelines for Authors

 

Submission Outline

Document Structure: 

All submissions must be made within the DURMS paper template, which can be found here. 

In summary, you should have a title page followed by the main body of your paper. The title page must include your title, the authors, the institution, and the word count. The main title for the article should be 14-point and bolded, followed below by the author’s name in 12-point, and the author’s institutional affiliation in italicised 11-point font. 

There are two main formats which may be used for the main body:

• For empirical research, please use the headings: Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, and References. The methods section should be further subdivided into Design, Participants, Materials/Stimuli, Procedure, and Data Analysis. 
• For theoretical research and reviews, please use the headings Abstract, Background, Aims, Main Contribution, Implications, and References. 

Document Formatting: 

• The main text should be in 10-point Times New Roman font. 
• All submissions must have a 1-inch margin on all sides of the page (top, bottom, left, and right).
• Documents must be double-spaced throughout (including references) and be justified as opposed to aligned left.
• Start new paragraphs on the next line, with no indent..Do not add extra spacing between paragraphs within the same section. 
• Include page numbers in the bottom centre of every page, including the title page. 

Length: 

The maximum length for submissions is 5,500 words (excluding Abstract and References). An abstract of no more than 250 words is also required. Shorter submissions are also welcome, and the submission length will depend on the type of project. 

Language: 

All submissions should be written in British English.

Referencing:

A consistent referencing style is required throughout the submission. As this is a psychology journal, please use American Psychological Association (APA) style (7th edition) ONLY. Resources for using APA 7 can be found here.

 

Additional Formatting Specifics

Tables/Figures: 

All figure and table formatting must follow APA 7 guidelines. They should be clearly labelled as Table 1, Table 2, Figure 1, Figure 2, as appropriate, with a brief title above which describes the contents (e.g. Mean Scores on Pitch Memory Test by Age Group).

Tables and Figures are enumerated separately. You may optionally include a Note underneath the table or figure if required, to detail additional information such as the survey question item to which the table/figure relates. All tables and figures must be referred to within the written text of the paper. Please refer to pages 9-12 of the APA 7 Student Paper Setup Guide for more details. 

Statistics: 

Means and standard deviations can be presented as ‘M =’ and ‘SD =’, and correlations reported as ‘r =’. If your paper includes inferential statistical tests, p-values should be presented by using a lowercase italicised p followed either by exact values (p = .07), or the following standard ‘less than’ significance thresholds (p < .05, p < .01, p < .001). Values are given in two decimal places; if values lie between -1 and 1, the 0 is omitted (e.g. .65 rather than 0.65). 

Authorship:

Both single and multi-author submissions are accepted. Please note that if you are submitting work completed in a group project, you should, in the first instance, reach out to your group mates to explore submitting co-authored articles with other group members. If this is the case, please include a short paragraph detailing the contributions made by each author.

Typical examples of contributions often include, but are not limited to: 

• Conceptualisation of study
• Established methodology and research design
• Data collection and analysis
• Interpretation of results
• Preparation of tables and figures
• Writing and compilation of the manuscript

If someone is included as an author, they must have 1) made a clear contribution to the research process,  2) agreed to being listed as an author on the article, and 3) seen and approved the final, submitted version of the article. There are three possible alternatives for deciding the order of author names on a multi-authored paper:

1. Order is based on contribution, with the author who contributed the most to the article listed first.
2. If two or more authors contributed equally, they can be listed as joint first authors. In this case, this should be flagged up to the editors, and this will be marked in the publication as a joint first authorship.
3. If the research was an entirely equally shared process across all authors, you can list all authors in alphabetical order, followed by the note: All authors contributed equally to this work.

 

Peer Review

All submissions will be reviewed by the editors and editorial team. The assumption is that before submission to DURMS the author will have addressed any queries or weaknesses outlined in the feedback from the marker for the original assignment. Therefore, the submission should already be of a standard acceptable for publication in an undergraduate research journal at the point of submission and the editorial team will provide only light feedback, primarily to ensure there are no inconsistencies in the style and formatting of the work. If the original coursework submission received a mark of less than 70, please include a Response Letter with your submission, detailing how your work has been revised in line with the marker’s feedback.

 

Timeline

The next issue of DURMS will be published in Autumn 2025.

Submission accepted from: 1st June 2025

Submission deadline: 1 September 2025

Feedback and revision: September – October 2025

Publication of DURMS, Volume 8: Early November 2025

 

Submission

To submit to DURMS, send an email to DURMS2025@gmail.com with your article as a Word Document (formatted using the guidelines above and using the linked template) and a Response to Feedback Letter (only required if you are submitting a revised summative which achieved a mark less than 70%) attached by Monday, 1 September 2025.

 

Questions?

Any questions can be directed to the 2025 journal editors Dr. Caroline Curwen & Aliya Edwards at DURMS2025@gmail.com