Author Guidelines

The Journal of Advanced Undergraduate Laboratory Investigations B (JAUPLI-B) “publishes” papers that will support, inform, and delight a diverse audience of undergraduate Physics students. It strives to present papers that present advanced laboratory experiments and their results in a carefully written and technically correct way that is accessible to most upper-division Physics students. Technical correctness is necessary, but it is not the only condition for acceptance. Clarity of exposition and potential interest to the readers are important considerations. It is the reader, not the author, who must receive the benefit of the doubt. To be “publishable” in JAUPLI-B, a manuscript must be written for, and also be useful, interesting, and accessible to students outside the author’s home institution and who, while generally well-versed in undergraduate physics, might not be completely familiar with the subject of the manuscript. 

Because it is expected that most readers of a particular article will not be specialists in the subject matter presented, the introductory paragraphs should carefully present the context of the experiment being discussed and provide the reader with adequate references in which they can find more detailed discussions of relevant background information. Importantly, these references should be accessible to the referees as outside readers. For example, a reference to a lab manual on how to use a particular lock-in amplifier at the author’s home institution that is not publicly available would not be as useful to the reader as a manual from the lock-in’s manufacturer that is available online or an article on lock-in amplifiers in the American Journal of Physics. Readers are also expected to be familiar with common laboratory equipment and techniques, so discussing how to connect a voltmeter with alligator clips to measure a voltage is not necessary, but specialized equipment and methodology should be discussed in sufficient detail to make it obvious why/how a particular tool or technique was used/works. The discussion of the experimental results should follow a logical, narrative thread that guides the reader through gathering and analysis of the data and provides support for the author’s conclusions. This narrative should be supported with appropriate figures (graphs, photographs, etc.), tables, and equations that help advance/clarify the narrative thread. 

Note that different instructors will likely have different requirements for their students’ papers (e.g., some might require section headings, while others won’t), so JAUPLI-B does not require any particular format for your paper. Rather referees will be asked to assess your paper for organization and how well it presents the material to its intended audience of upper division Physics students. This means that when you submit a paper to JAUPLI-B, it should be a finished product, which you would be comfortable having published for the whole world to see, and not just a rough draft. For more details on the evaluation criteria that the referees will use to assess your paper, please take a look at the JAUPLI-B Referee’s Rubric or at the institution specific referee rubric that is provided by your instructor.