For Authors | College Mathematics

Defining Originality

We prioritize content over rigid format. Before you write, ensure your work offers a meaningful contribution. We define "Originality" in four ways:

The New Result: Proving interesting new theorems or establishing fresh mathematical truths with substantial content.
The New Angle: Restructuring a famous result to make it more intuitive or telling the "story" differently.
The Improved Proof: Substantially simplifying a proof or providing a derivation that aids learning.
The Cohesion: Discovering interesting correlations between known components or connecting disparate fields.

Emerging Scholars: If you are a high school or college student, we specifically encourage you to submit work that prioritizes clarity and potential.

Read This Before You Write

Originality is also a matter of conduct. Before preparing your manuscript, please read our Ethical Standards, which explain what we expect regarding:

Citation: when a known result or technique must be attributed.
Your own earlier work: reusing a thesis chapter, preprint, or class project.
Authorship: who qualifies as an author, and who belongs in the acknowledgments.
One journal at a time: submitting elsewhere while under review is not permitted.

If you are new to publishing, these conventions are learnable and we will help. Ask before you submit rather than after.

Submission Declaration

Know now what you will be affirming later. By submitting your manuscript, you and your co-authors declare that:

the work has not been previously published, and is not under consideration anywhere else;
it is free of any prior copyright transfer or exclusive licence that would prevent publication here;
the submission is approved by every author and, where required, by the institution at which the work was carried out;
anyone cited as the source of a personal communication has approved that citation; and
on acceptance, you will license the article under CC BY 4.0.

You keep your copyright — College Mathematics never asks you to sign it away. The form sent on acceptance is a licence, not a transfer. See Copyright & Licensing.

Writing Guidelines

A well-prepared manuscript speeds up peer review. Please follow these core guidelines:

Structure

Organize with clear section headings. Ensure your abstract tells a story, not just a summary.

Audience

Assume readers have a strong background but may not be experts in your specific subfield.

Ethics & Originality

Submit original work not under review elsewhere.
Give proper credit to existing results.
Name as authors only those who contributed substantively.
Disclose any AI assistance and any competing interest.

Full details: Ethical Standards.

AI & Human Orchestration

If your paper involves AI-assisted discovery, you must document the Human Orchestration process.

Include the prompts used to guide the AI.
Explain the logic used to verify the AI's output.
Methodology is as valuable as the result.

Submit via EditFlow

We use EditFlow to manage the peer-review process. Please prepare the following:

1. LaTeX source file (.tex), together with any figures, images, and custom style or bibliography files needed to compile it.
2. A single compiled PDF of the manuscript, including author names and affiliations.
3. Cover Letter: Please indicate if you are submitting to the Emerging Scholars Track.
4. Contact information for the corresponding author.

Go to Submission Portal

The Peer-Review Process

Your manuscript will be screened for scope. If suitable, it is sent to at least one referee.

Review is single-blind: referees are told who wrote the manuscript, while the identity of the referees is not disclosed to you. Referees are bound to keep your manuscript confidential and may not retain, circulate, or reuse it. Our full expectations for authors, referees, and editors are set out in the Ethical Standards.

While your paper is under consideration

Submitted Received and under initial screening for scope.
Under Review Referees are evaluating the paper.
Revisions Requested You are invited to revise and resubmit. The paper stays open.

Final outcomes

Accepted The paper will be published. Each author is then asked to sign the Consent to Publish — see After Acceptance.
Declined We will not be publishing the paper. You will be told why, and you are free to submit it elsewhere immediately.
Withdrawn You asked us to stop considering the paper. You may withdraw at any point before acceptance.

After Acceptance

Congratulations. Three things happen between acceptance and publication.

1. Consent to Publish — signed online

Every author receives their own secure link by email. You sign by typing your full legal name. There is nothing to print, scan, or post.

Each author signs separately, from their own personal link. Publication proceeds once everyone has signed.
You confirm three things: who owns the copyright, whether a preprint or earlier version exists, and whether the paper contains third-party material needing permission.
Authors under 18 are asked for a parent or legal guardian to co-sign. The form handles this — just tick the box.

Links are personal and time-limited. If yours has expired, email journal@aiaseducation.org and we will reissue it.

Signing grants a licence, not a transfer. You keep your copyright, and the article is published under CC BY 4.0. See Copyright & Licensing.

2. Page proofs

You receive typeset proofs to check before printing.
Read formulas, figures, tables, and references closely — this is the last point at which errors can be corrected without a published correction notice.
Proof corrections are for errors, not for rewriting. Substantive changes need the editor’s agreement.

3. Publication

Your article appears in the next issue and is freely readable worldwide, with no fee to you or your readers.
You may deposit it on arXiv, your institutional repository, or your own site straight away — see sharing and deposit.
If an error surfaces later, tell us. We correct the record openly, as set out in the Ethical Standards.

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