It seems to me that the problem is one of focus, and branding.
To put it bluntly: who in their right mind would want to read essays by undergrads? Even when I was an undergrad, that's not where my interest was. I wanted to read insightful, thought-provoking, well-researched articles. If those happened to be written by undergrads, well, that was incidental.
So, my suggestion: rename the Journal as "The New England Journal of International Relations" (or some such), and kill the "undergraduate" angle.
That's a fair point: the idea of it being a "Journal" isn't so much that it's Nature or Foreign Affairs or anything carrying such weight, more that it's a collection of well-written essays that cover topics that undergraduate students of IR typically cover so they can turn to them for inspiration, ideas and as revision material...
It's kind of like a synopsis of a lot of "insightful, thought-provoking, well-researched articles" as that's what undergraduate essays tend to be, rather than necessarily outstanding works of original thought.
It's an option to consider though and I'll definitely look into it...
Comments
It seems to me that the problem is one of focus, and branding.
To put it bluntly: who in their right mind would want to read essays by undergrads? Even when I was an undergrad, that's not where my interest was. I wanted to read insightful, thought-provoking, well-researched articles. If those happened to be written by undergrads, well, that was incidental.
So, my suggestion: rename the Journal as "The New England Journal of International Relations" (or some such), and kill the "undergraduate" angle.
That's a fair point: the idea of it being a "Journal" isn't so much that it's Nature or Foreign Affairs or anything carrying such weight, more that it's a collection of well-written essays that cover topics that undergraduate students of IR typically cover so they can turn to them for inspiration, ideas and as revision material...
It's kind of like a synopsis of a lot of "insightful, thought-provoking, well-researched articles" as that's what undergraduate essays tend to be, rather than necessarily outstanding works of original thought.
It's an option to consider though and I'll definitely look into it...
Thank you for your feedback! :)