Editorial Guidelines

AI Policy

We believe that only humans can be authors and readers, and therefore, we expect human-determined content in our publications. However, we recognize that AI tools are rapidly changing editing, publishing, and academic work, and we accept that AI tools may provide some unique advantages in data analysis and can provide essential assistance to scholars with primary languages other than English. We also recognize the complex copyright legalities around AI-assisted writing and the need to protect the IP of the journal and of authors.

We have therefore established these policies concerning AI use in NCHC publications:

AI Policy for Authors

The use of assistive AI for grammar and clarity is allowed provided a human author is ultimately making each grammar or style choice. This policy covers typical grammar and style checkers built into basic word processing and the use of external grammar programs that may suggest changes but that do not totally write/rewrite the work.

Generative AI is allowed provided that the authors of the work:

• Disclose the extent, purpose, and type of AI use in the manuscript (either in methods, footnotes, or acknowledgements) and in the submission letter to the editor.
• Check any AI output for clarity and correctness and take responsibility for the output.
• Compose a majority of the manuscript (or in the guiding language of the U.S. Copyright Office, “a human author has determined sufficient expressive elements” such that it can still be copyrightable).
• Conduct responsible human reading of and citation from secondary sources, rather than substituting these scholarly practices with generative AI use.

AI Policy for Peer Reviewers

We believe that only humans have the capacity to read work thoughtfully and provide authentic and specific responses to a submitted manuscript. Furthermore, manuscripts under consideration are not the property of the journal and therefore cannot be fed into 3rd party AI programs by reviewers (since those works may then become property of the AI company or become part of an AI training set without the permissions of authors).

Manuscripts under review cannot be fed into AI programs by reviewers, and all reviews must be authored by human reviewers. Assistive AI, as described in the author policy above, is permitted to edit a reviewer’s comments for grammar and clarity, but the review content fed into an assistive AI tool may not contain any of the submitted manuscript’s content.

Submissions involving research based on data from human subjects should include reference in the text or notes that approval to conduct the research was sought and granted from a campus institutional review board (IRB) or other appropriate third party providing review and oversight of ethical protection of research subjects. If no such approval was sought or research was determined to be exempt from IRB review, an accompanying explanation should be provided. Authors should make explicit reference to the approved IRB protocol number in the text or notes of the submission.

NCHC is committed to inclusion, diversity, and equity and thus asks authors to be mindful of language that upholds these values and those expressed in NCHC’s Shared Principles and Practices of Honors Education. Writers should embrace culturally sensitive prose and avoid language that perpetuates bias.

Your submission should center on an idea, not just description or information, and, starting in your introduction, you should be clear about why and how your thesis is relevant, interesting, and useful to an audience of honors administrators, faculty, and/or staff.

Your thesis should be based on and supported by evidence that is clearly presented in the essay.

Your conclusion should explore the implications of your thesis rather than simply repeating it.

Don’t forget that you need to tie your topic to honors in a specific way and contribute to advancing the field of honors education by presenting innovative practices, observations, and/or analysis.

Avoid blanket assumptions that cannot be backed up with evidence (and thus are often wrong), e.g., “few community colleges have honors programs” or “few honors programs practice outcomes assessment.”

Similarly, be wary of statements like “Little has been written about”; chances are that a lot has been written about it, and you’re obliged to have done that research in NCHC publications as well as other sources available on your topic. Thanks to Jeff Portnoy, NCHC has made research incredibly easy: download the Bibliography, and do a key word search on your topic. The journals and monographs are available online at UNL Digital Commons.

Avoid constructions like “This paper will present research on” or “We intend to show that.” Go ahead and make statements about your topic.

Avoid rhetorical questions. Make statements instead.

Avoid redundancy. Repetition for emphasis is unnecessary if you make your point well the first time.

Use active voice whenever possible. “We found that” is better than “It was found that.”

Avoid starting a sentence with a phrase like “There is” or “It is.” “There is a common belief that” can and should be “A common belief is that.”

Beware the unclear pronoun reference: the word “this” should almost never be the subject of a sentence and should always point to a clear reference within the sentence.

If you use italics for emphasis or scare quotes, we will almost always remove them.

Capitalization is absurdly fraught, but “honors program” is capitalized ONLY when it is part of the official title of a program, e.g., “Washington State University Honors Program” but “the honors program at Washington State University.” Similarly, titles and disciplines are capitalized only when part of a formal title, e.g., “Anna is Associate Professor of Philosophy” but “Anna is an associate professor of philosophy.”

Generally, avoid contractions, slang, clichés, and other forms of casual writing; formality is appropriate in a journal essay except in rare cases when informality is a strategic choice.

Every rule is made to be broken—but only by outstanding writers.

Abstract

The abstract is what appears in catalogs and indexes, so it needs to be able to stand alone and to encourage as well as inform readers. Limited to a maximum of 250 words, it needs to give a clear, concise sense of your topic and its importance.

The abstract should describe:

• The central thesis, topic, research question, problem, and/or theory being addressed;
• The kinds of evidence used to support the thesis; in projects using data, what the data represent, where they come from, the sample size, and the research and/or statistical methods used;
• The principal finding(s) or conclusion(s);
• How the findings relate to the question or problem that inspired the research and why they are important.

Keywords

Keywords enable readers to find a research article in databases. A maximum of 5 keywords should represent the content of an article in the context of the relevant discipline(s).

as of 1 April 2021

NCHC’s Publications Board prefers that the monographs assume a scholarly and formal tone. If they include research, the text should contain the appropriate scholarly apparatus. When monographs are anthologies, all the essays must abide by the same documentation system. MLA is preferable, but authors and editors may select the one they want to employ. If authors are using MLA and are citing online sources, they are free to cite or eliminate URLs as long as the practice is consistent throughout the manuscript.

The editors of NCHC’s journals and monographs feel strongly about the importance of properly introducing the names of the authors whose exact language or paraphrased ideas are brought into the text in accordance with the documentation style being used. Readers should know whose words or ideas they are reading; mentioning the names prior to or near the beginning of the borrowing, especially for a paraphrase, is an important courtesy. Page numbers for citations of print sources should be provided parenthetically in the text itself.

YWhen talking about honors education, be wary of statements like the following: “Little has been written about….” Chances are that quite a bit has been written about the topic. Take advantage of NCHC’s Bibliography for all of its publications: download and do a key word search on your topic. The journals and monographs are available online as well as through other databases including ERIC.

Notes should be consolidated at the end of each chapter or essay rather than appear as footnotes.

Bibliography entries should be consolidated at the end of each chapter or essay and labeled References.

NCHC’s practice is not to capitalize the words “honors,” “honors program,” or “honors college” unless these words are part of a formal name. Here are examples: the Kent State University Honors College, the honors program at our university, or the Nesbit Honors College.

Similarly, titles and disciplines are capitalized only when part of a formal title, e.g., “Anna Smith is Associate Professor of Philosophy” but “Andy Smith is an associate professor of philosophy.”

To establish and maintain a formal tone, authors should avoid contractions, minimize the use of dashes, and use parentheses primarily for citations or abbreviations to be used in the text after the first use of the full name: Georgia State University (GSU). Use NCHC after writing the full name out when first naming the organization, but be sure to put NCHC in parentheses after the full name that first time.

Please write out the number for centuries rather than using the numerals and –th.

Authors should avoid second person.

The use of first person should be minimized. An author should not use we to indicate all honors administrators, faculty teaching honors courses, or honors students, especially since the readership of the monographs extends well beyond these groups. Multiple authors of a text can use "we" to refer to themselves, but again, that practice should be minimized. Using third person plural when the noun referent for they is clear is best: honors administrators/they, honors students/they, or faculty members/they.

Whenever possible, avoid wordy phrases like there is/are, it seems, and it is when “it” has no noun referent. Use active voice whenever possible. Emphasize strong, vivid verbs.

Avoid contractions, slang, clichés, and other forms of casual writing; formality is appropriate except in rare cases when informality is a shrewd strategic choice.

Authors should not use italics or quotation marks for emphasis, they will almost always be removed.

Authors should place a comma before the conjunction in a series (a/k/a the Oxford comma).

Every rule is made to be broken—but only by outstanding writers.

We accept material by email attachment in Word (not pdf).

Abstract

The abstract is what appears in catalogs and indexes, so it needs to be able to stand alone and to encourage as well as inform readers. Limited to a maximum of 250 words, it needs to give a clear, concise sense of your topic and its importance.

The abstract should describe:

• The central thesis, topic, research question, problem, and/or theory being addressed;
• The kinds of evidence used to support the thesis; in projects using data, what the data represent, where they come from, the sample size, and the research and/or statistical methods used;
• The principal finding(s) or conclusion(s);
• How the findings relate to the question or problem that inspired the research and why they are important.

Keywords

Keywords enable readers to find a research article in databases. A maximum of 5 keywords should represent the content of an article in the context of the relevant discipline(s).