Join us

The Harvard Science Review welcomes new staff writers as well as students interested in getting involved with the design, business, or web components of the organization. HSR does not institute a “comp.” If you can write a compelling article based on an approved topic outline, we will gladly publish it.

Information for the Spring 2012 issue will be announced in December 2011! If you are eager to get involved, feel free to contact staff members!

Guidelines for Writers

Writers who are interested in writing for the HSR should visit the archives to read articles from past issues.

I. Writing Opportunities

Writers have five options:

feature article
general article
report
commentary
news brief

You are free to propose multiple proposals in different sections.

II. Content

Each issue includes three major sections:

News & Views,
General Articles and
Feature Articles.

News & Views

Submissions in this section come in three types: reports, commentaries, and news briefs.

News Briefs: News Briefs are short (one-third of a page or less) and report a recent and significant scientific finding. Briefs involving Harvard researchers are preferred.

Reports: Reports are one-page pieces that provide a unique angle on a narrow topic related to science (e.g. a recent discovery that is particularly important, a specific subfield in a scientific discipline, a discussion of a professor’s accomplishments). Topics related to Harvard are preferred but not required.

Commentaries: Commentaries are about a page in length and take a clear and definite stance on some current issue in science. Commentaries are not rants; issues are presented fully and fairly, and opinions are argued cohesively.

General Articles

Approximately half of the articles in each issue will be on topics unrelated to the focus topic. These articles present groundbreaking research in any field of interest to the writer. For ideas, we suggest scanning through recent issues of major scientific or technological publications, including Scientific American, Nature, and Popular Science. Note that General Articles are not historical accounts or literature reviews; we expect timely research and discovery-driven analysis.

Feature Articles

This section is the heart of each issue, with about five feature articles published per issue. While topics should be covered in scientific depth, the presentation must remain accessible to a general audience. Articles tend to be divided into 1-2 introductory paragraphs followed by 3-5 sections focusing on future implications, fascinating possibilities, or controversy. Remember that your article should be written such that all readers regardless of background can enjoy it; our magazine is not meant to be a technical review of the primary literature.