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Manuscript Preparation Guidelines

ASHRR Submission Guidelines

 

The Appalachian Student Healthcare Research Review (ASHRR) is a peer-reviewed academic research journal based at Marshall University. ASHRR has a threefold aim:

  • To highlight student healthcare research with a patient population comprised primarily or exclusively of residents of the Appalachian region.
  • To provide a publication avenue for undergraduate, graduate, and professional student research that contributes to the scientific literature about Appalachian healthcare and the practice of allied health professions within Appalachia.
  • To highlight healthcare research completed by students at Appalachian universities.

    • As a West Virginia-based institution near the center of the Appalachian region, Marshall University is uniquely suited and privileged to house ASHRR. We welcome submissions from students whose institution lies within any Appalachian state, and we are particularly interested in studies with Appalachian patient populations. Additionally, we welcome epidemiological and public health studies investigating the prevalence, prevention, and/or rehabilitation of a medical condition within the Appalachian region.

    Guide for Authors

    Relevant Submissions

    ASHRR publishes scholarly work completed by undergraduate, graduate, and professional students. This work must meet at least ONE of the following criteria:

    • The original work was completed as part of an undergraduate, graduate or professional course of study in a healthcare field at a university within the Appalachian region.
    • The original work studies the Appalachian patient population. This criteria may be met in multiple ways, including (but not limited to):
      • Research participant recruitment from within the Appalachian region;
      • Subject recruitment from the student body of Appalachian universities;
      • Epidemiological research of trends within the Appalachian healthcare system; or
      • Meta-analysis and systematic review of research conducted within Appalachia.
    • The original work contributes to the scientific literature about the practice of healthcare within Appalachia. This criteria may be met in multiple ways, including (but not limited to):
      • Research investigating inequities in medical care within the Appalachian region;
      • Research investigating the practice or provision of healthcare in Appalachia;
      • Research investigating the prevalence of a healthcare issue within the Appalachian region; or
      • Research whose path of scientific inquiry was chosen because of its uniquely high prevalence within the Appalachian region.

      Additionally, work submitted to ASHRR must meet ALL of the following criteria:

      • The work is original and does not contain plagiarism or written analysis created by generative AI.
      • The work conforms to APA citation style.
      • The work follows the scientific method and contributes to the scientific literature; a journalism/reportage approach is not appropriate for full articles.
      • The work must be completed under a faculty advisor and must have already undergone substantial editing to prepare the manuscript for publication. The ASHRR review process is designed to review submitted research for academic rigor and for relevance to the Appalachian region. Line editing will not be provided during the review process, aside from minor typographical errors discovered prior to publishing. ASHRR reserves the right to reject or return submitted work that does not meet high grammatical standards. Students must work with a faculty advisor to ensure that work submitted meets a high standard of scholarly rigor. Authors are responsible for providing manuscripts that are clearly written and contain correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
      • For quantitative works, the submitted manuscript must provide:
        • A clearly written introduction section (including the tested hypothesis);
        • A methods section (providing a description of participant demographics, participant inclusion and exclusion criteria, and all research protocols and procedures);
        • A statement that the project was approved by an Institutional Review Board and that all participants provided written informed consent to participate in the research (when applicable);
        • A results section providing numerical point estimate means and estimates of variation, and statistical probability;
        • A discussion section that provides a discussion of the limitations of the research; and
        • A clearly stated conclusion.  
      • For qualitative works, the submitted manuscript must provide:
        • A clearly written introduction section;
        • A methods section;
        • A statement that the project was approved by an Institutional Review Board, if applicable;
        • A results section containing a narrative describing the qualities or results of the methodological approach;
        • A discussion section that articulates the value or meaning of the findings as they relate to the topic of the research, and that discusses the limitations of the research; and
        • A clearly stated conclusion.
      • ASHRR is open to submissions of multiple genres of academic writing. These include:
        • Quantitative research experiments;
        • Survey research;
        • Qualitative research;
        • Research briefs;
        • Case studies;
        • Research investigating healthcare access within Appalachia; and
        • Research investigating the practice of healthcare within Appalachia.

      Please contact the editing team if you have any questions about whether your work is appropriate for submission to ASHRR. 

      Expectations of Authors

      The ASHRR editorial board is comprised primarily of faculty members at universities within Appalachia. Members of the board, comprised primarily of academic experts with considerable obligations to their students and research lines, volunteer their time to our cause with incredible generosity. Accordingly, ASHRR asks that those submitting their work respect the editorial board’s time by being responsive during the publication process. ASHRR may reject an article if the author remains unresponsive for more than one week. ASHRR allows authors to submit simultaneously to other journals; however, the authors must notify the ASHRR editor if the submitted paper is under review by other journals. It is the author’s responsibility to follow the copyright regulations of the journals that have accepted their paper for publication. Moreover, withdrawal of articles submitted to ASHRR is highly discouraged; authors and faculty mentors who withdraw an article may face penalties upon future submission of works to ASHRR. Authors are expected to be responsive to inquiries and requests from the review team within the publication cycle for which their article is being considered. Failure to submit edits in time for publication warrants rejection of the article for that cycle and, potentially, future issues of ASHRR. Submissions will be accepted on a rolling basis and collated into quarterly articles.

      How to Submit to ASHRR

      Submissions are created using the "Submit Article" link in the right sidebar of this page. Before you begin the submission process, please be sure you have the following items:

      • Article Title
      • Abstract (separate from the article body)
      • Keywords for your article (optional)
      • Article in the following format: Microsoft Word
      • Articles must be submitted without a title page. Page numbers must be inserted using the “footer” function in Microsoft Word so they can be easily removed prior to the publication process. To preserve the anonymized peer review process, DO NOT include ANY information in the manuscript that will identify the author(s) or institution(s). If the article is accepted for publication, this information will be restored after the review process.

      Submission Format

      • Please adhere to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA) 7th Edition for both text and references.
      • Manuscripts should be submitted using 12 point Times New Roman font, .75” margins, and all elements of the document should be double spaced.
      • To facilitate comments from the review board, submissions must use the continuous line numbers feature in Microsoft Word.
      • Please do not use a header. Please include a footer that only contains page numbers.
      • Authors are responsible for spelling, grammar, and accuracy of references, using the APA 7th Edition format.
      • Abbreviations should be used sparingly. The first time an abbreviation is used, it should appear in parentheses following the full-text of the abbreviated words.
      • Tables and graphs must be editable in Word (not inserted as images) and must follow APA format for citation and labeling. Figures should be submitted with clear graphics. Illustrations must be supplied as high-resolution (at least 300 dpi) files. Please refrain from submitting images in HEIF format; JPEG format is preferred for photographic images and screenshots. Digital images supplied only as low-resolution files cannot be used. If Excel is used to generate figures, please use the Excel Tables function; please refrain from submitting an Excel spreadsheet with data separated into separate tabs.
      • Again, to preserve the anonymized peer review process, DO NOT include ANY information in the manuscript that will identify the author(s) or institution(s). This includes the name of the institutional review board, if applicable. If the article is accepted for publication, this information can be added back after the review process. Use placeholders like “XXXXX” or “IDENTIFYING INFORMATION REMOVED FOR PEER REVIEW.”

      Copyright

      No copyright agreement form needs to be completed. ASHRR is an open journal and therefore all authors retain the copyright of their manuscripts even after they have been published. Authors must, however, provide copyright permission for any copyrighted tables, figures, illustrations, appendices or lengthy quotations that are used in the manuscript.

      Publication Fees

      There is no cost to submit an article to ASHRR, and there are no publication fees.

      Submission Contents 

      All manuscripts should be submitted with the text, references, tables and figures. Tables, figures, and/or illustrations should be embedded near the text to which they refer (do not upload supplemental content). If there are appendices, they should be submitted after the references.

      Cover Letter

      The cover letter should provide the editors with an overview of the contents of the manuscript, as well as the contribution the manuscript makes to the practice of healthcare in Appalachia. Also include the credentials, addresses - including country - and affiliations of each author. Reviewers do not have access to this.

      Title and Authors

      The title should be succinct and it should include the population, main purpose, and method (when appropriate) of the manuscript. All authors should be listed for inclusion and the order of authors should adhere to the APA 7th edition guidelines in which the principal author is listed first with subsequent authors listed in order of decreasing contribution. Each author should have made a contribution to the text of the manuscript in order to be listed as an author.

      Acknowledgements

      A brief acknowledgement should include financial and research support. Financial support may include grants or other funding sources. Research support in terms of people who have made contributions to the project (e.g. statistical, data collection, and reviews), but who are not authors should be acknowledged. Any links to companies involved in the manufacturing or distribution of the products or assessments being used should be disclosed. Other forms of dissemination of the manuscript (e.g. presentations at conferences) should also be acknowledged. If the manuscript is subject to clinical trial registration requirements (see below), the trial registration website address and trial registration number most be included here. Again, do not include any of this information in the body of the manuscript.

      Abstract

      An abstract with a maximum of 450 words should be provided. Abstracts for original, experiment-based research should be structured to include background, method, results, and conclusion subheadings. Remember, the body of the manuscript must be submitted without an abstract, as it will be provided by the system. The author provides the abstract during the submission process, separate from the body of the article.

      Key Words

      Provide 3 to 6 key words in alphabetical order to be used for indexing purposes. The key words should reflect the main topics of your manuscript and should not repeat terms already used in the title.

      Text

      Any manuscripts with reports of research findings involving human-subjects must include a statement in the methods section of the text verifying that the study was approved by an independent, named human subjects/ethics committee and that all subjects/participants provided informed consent. Please be sure to anonymize this portion of the manuscript if it can be used to determine the institution and/or author of the piece.

      References

      The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA) 7th edition should be used for all citations in the text and in the reference list. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of references in both the text and the reference list. Articles published in ASHRR receive Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) from the CrossRef organization to ensure they can always be found. Therefore, each reference in a manuscript should include the DOI if one is assigned. Please use actionable links rather than the original alphanumeric string when possible. Refer to your APA 7th edition manual for more information.

      Tables, Figures, and Illustrations

      Tables, figures, and illustrations should be used to enhance the clarity of the information in the text, without duplication of the text. They should be embedded in the manuscript, not uploaded as supplemental content.

      Authors are responsible for providing written permission to use any materials that have been copyrighted. If a photograph of a person is used, a letter of consent that is approved by a Human Subject Institutional Review Board must be provided. A photograph in which the person's eyes are covered or the face is blurred still requires written consent.

      Each table, figure, and illustration should follow APA format, be embedded near the text to which they refer, and have a succinct title and number according to the citation. Cite tables, figures, and illustrations separately in the text, using a series of numbers according to the order in which they appear in the text (e.g. Figure 1). If abbreviations are used in the tables or figures, each one must be clearly spelled out in a footnote. The symbols *, **, and *** should be used only for P values.

      Tables and graphs must be editable in Word (not inserted as images) for copyediting and final formatting purposes.

      Please note that because we are an online publication, authors are encouraged to provide figures in color and link to external resources, such as videos, if they will increase the reader's understanding and use of the material.

      Appendices

      Submit any appendices at the end of the manuscript in the order they are referred to in the text. Appendices should be identified in order using capital letters (e.g. Appendix A). Provide a title below the appendix identification with the author/s of each appendix listed below the title. Follow APA 7th edition guidelines.