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Photo illustration by Dora Lei

Submission guidelines

SPARC publishes original student-work in multiple formats. Student authors must identify the category that best fits their submission, following the guidelines below. In most cases, we do not impose strict limits on word count or page number. However we strongly advise that you adhere to the following recommendations:

    • Papers should ideally be no more than 15 typeset pages. 

    • The manuscript should be of a similar style and structure to that of typical articles published in professional journals.

    • In general, your manuscript submission might include sections for an Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, References, and Figures/Tables.

    • Supplementary Materials may be submitted along with the manuscript in a different file.

    • This paper cannot be the legal or intellectual property of the student’s employer, lab or faculty and shall not contain observations, results and/or claims that are part of a larger, developing paper/project. 

    • Must be a complete research paper that provides analysis, interpretation, and argument based on relevant research. 

    • Reviews should be no longer than 10 pages however longer review articles will be accepted on the basis of the quality and quantity of discussion points. 

    • Reviews must include an abstract, an introduction that outlines the main theme, brief subheadings, and an outline of important unresolved questions.

    • Submissions of this format include short stories, poetry, and essays.

    • Needs to include a title of the piece.

    • Work must be independent.

    • Must not be longer than 2000 words.

    • Submissions of this category can be:

    • Viewpoint articles: which express the submitter’s views on a topic or field of interest.

    • Scholarly responses: a perspective article in the academic context that expresses views on recently published work.

    • Opinion articles: usually offer constructive criticism of existing work, acknowledging both strengths and weaknesses. 

    • These pieces are designed to provoke a discussion by challenging current understanding of a particular issue or topic.

    • Articles/essays are shorter submissions not exceeding 1500 words. 

    • Submissions in this category must not contain political and religious bias. While scientific analysis of these topics is welcome, personal opinions must not be alluded to or enforced. Claims over right or wrong must not be made with the intention of persuasion. 

    • A solution-based summary of a technological or business problem that is no more than 1500 words. 

    • Business models must be original and innovative. Computational problems must be backed by code scripts and/or simulations of the code output. 

    • An overview of the artist’s work, medium, motivation, and body of work. 

    • The artist/creator must select 1 developing work or project to feature in the submission and highlight its key features and their creative process in depth. SPARC is looking for personal stories and experiences that serve as artistic inspiration for our readers. 

    • Any medium/artistic style is welcome. 

    • Completed work must be submitted by the mid-semester deadline to be featured in the issue. 

    • It is important to understand that SPARC is an academic journal so we follow a general theme of academia and education in our video submissions. 

    • Submitted work should be informative.

Submissions

Submissions for the Fall 2025 have closed.

You can apply for the Spring 2026 issue.

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