Compass: An Undergraduate Journal of American Political Ideas seeks to publish essays by undergraduates at colleges and universities anywhere in the world on current American political issues understood in the broad contexts of political philosophy, history, literature, and culture. The journal encourages submissions from across academic disciplines and welcomes the use of various historical, philosophic, and empirical methods of analysis. This online journal aims to provide a space for the work of talented undergraduates who have original and well-articulated insights on important ideas and issues relating to American democracy. Please submit your essays to compass@startingpointsjournal.com. Published essays will usually be 1500-2000 words in length. We encourage a lively style that is highly readable. This is a venue to relate original work, whether using interpretive textual analysis, archival work, quantitative findings, comparative historical analysis, or other methodological approaches. However, we ask that these findings not be delivered or expressed in the manner of a term paper to specialist professors but in a more journalistic fashion to a wider audience of readers eager to glean what’s interesting from your findings. Once you have submitted your essay, the editorial team will work quickly to let you know if your piece will be appropriate for this journal and whether it requires revisions. Compass is a project of the Tocqueville Forum at Northern Illinois University, in partnership with Starting Points: A Journal of American Principles and American Practices, a project of the Kinder Institute at University of Missouri.
