Your Path to Publishing an Academic Article as a STEM Undergraduate

By Nidhi Chandran on February 9, 2022

If you’re reading this article then you are probably an undergraduate student hoping to gain an insight on how to begin your journey of writing and publishing a scientific article. Perhaps you are still on the fence and aren’t sure if you even want to pursue a publication, so let’s start off with why you should consider becoming a published author.

Being an undergrad student is stressful in itself. They juggle too many responsibilities and pursuing a publication can definitely be a daunting task, and the last thing on their minds. But after reading this article, hopefully you will see that there are too many benefits in doing so. 

• It shows that you are committed

Securing a publication as an undergraduate shows that you are driven and can handle big responsibilities. Adding this to your resume or CV is sure to impress graduate school committees and employers in the future as it showcases that you had the diligence and dedication to commit to a project and see it through. 

• It expands your network

Publishing an academic article will involve a great deal of communication with other people-- whether that be with mentors, publishers, experts in the field, or even your own team members. In other words, this is one of the best ways to expand your professional network. You will hear this countless times over the course of your career, but networking plays a critical role in securing your future success. By meeting new people and exchanging ideas, you are putting yourself out there while also hearing about opportunities you otherwise may not have known existed. The best advice I received was to start early! 

• You acquire transferable skills

The skills that students acquire over the course of developing an academic article can be used in their future endeavors. When looking for employment in the future, you can use these same skills to sell yourself as an optimal candidate for a position. Just to name a few: development of writing and communication skills, ability to analyze complex data and/or papers, problem solving, developing evidence-based arguments. 

• You gain recognition

Being a published author is one of the best ways to make your name known. We personally know many undergraduates who are published authors in the STEM field and found opportunities because employers saw their potential based on the work they had done. Particularly when it comes to the research, recruiters are looking for students who possess foundational knowledge of their area of interest. By publishing a manuscript relating to their line of work, there is a good chance that they will want to collaborate with you in the future.

Now that we’ve established the advantages of publishing an article, where do you begin?

1. Choose a topic of interest

The most common route that undergrad students take is being a part of a project team, helping to further their research endeavors. In these cases, students will often be listed as co-authors for their contributions. There are many research opportunities available for students that can be found in a variety of ways. This includes asking professors at your university to be a research assistant or even finding unique opportunities through a quick Google search. If you haven’t already, making a LinkedIn profile is also a great way to expand your network and find people with common interests.

2. What to publish 

After choosing a topic of interest and carrying through with your research, it’s time to translate your work into a format that can be shared with the rest of the community. You will also want to choose a mode of publication, whether that be a journal or perhaps a magazine. Writing an article for journal publications is quite different from the average article that students are used to writing for school. Every journal is different and the general format varies depending on the type of manuscript you want to publish. Our Berkeley Pharma Tech Journal of Medicine accepts 5 types of manuscripts for publication: novel research, review papers, science/public policy forums, book review, and humorous cartoons. 

Check out this link for an in-depth explanation of each: BPT Journal of Medicine 

3. Writing the article

Once you have established the type of manuscript you are going to write, check what the requirements and guidelines are for your journal of interest. Scientific writing is a skill that is acquired through practice, and there are steps that you can take to improve as a writer.   

• Read more academic articles to get a better idea of the style of writing

• Seek guidance from experts who have published similar work

• Practice writing regularly

• Research different scientific journals and their submissions 

Overall, publishing an academic article is a commitment, yet an incredibly rewarding experience. We hope this article gave you a better idea of the steps you need to take, and provided you with the right resources. Happy writing!

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Berkeley Pharma Tech Journal of Medicine is currently accepting submissions for papers on gene and cell-based therapies for our next issue. Publishing with BPT is free and a great platform to share your work with the scientific community. Our journal is online, free-to-publish, and open-access. Students with an interest in medical research are highly encouraged to submit manuscripts! The deadline for submissions is April 15, 2022 with the publication date set to be June 17, 2022. 

**If you have any questions at all, contact our Editor-in-Chief, Kumari Nallakumar, Ph.D. at kumari@berkeleypharmatech.com.