Editorial Guidelines
Editorial Guidelines
Guidelines for Authors
General:
1.- Articles must be original and unpublished, and must not be simultaneously submitted to other journals. They will be submitted to arbitration for selection and publication through the double-blind peer review system, where the evaluators do not know the identity of the authors of the articles, and the authors do not know the identity of the evaluators. All evaluators and referees are external to the Journal and the Foundation. Articles other than Spanish and English will be accepted.
2.- Articles submitted to the Journal should have a maximum of four collaborators, including the main author. Exceptions to this rule will be submitted to the consideration of the editorial committee, based on the criteria of originality, relevance, contribution and extension of the research process developed in the article.
3.- The journal is published every six months (ordinary issues).
4.- The journal may publish special issues (special editions), by agreement with groups, networks, institutions and organizations that carry out research events such as congresses, forums, conferences, lectures, among others, for which it is essential to submit articles in accordance with these editorial standards.
5.- Contributors to both ordinary and extraordinary issues should register in the Journal's OJS (Open Journal Systems): (http://fundacionkoinonia.com.ve/ojs/index.php/Iustitia_Socialis). If they are already registered, it will not be necessary to register again.
Type and structure of the articles:
6.- Articles will be classified as (see table 1):
a.- Research: Of the utmost originality and innovation. It includes the results of unpublished, theoretical or experimental, qualitative or quantitative research. The original aspects of the research should be clearly appreciated. It is structured in title in Spanish and English, name and surname(s) of the author(s), e-mail of each author in gmail preference, institution to which he/she belongs (indicating city and country), ORCID identifiers, summary, key words, abstract, keywords, introduction (including statement of the topic or problem, objectives or purposes, justification or importance, theoretical reference), methodology, results, discussion, conclusion, references consulted (only those used in the citation of the article). It must contain no less than 10 references.
b.- Review: It describes and/or compiles the most recent developments or published works on a given subject, always providing some improvement, complement or original perspective that should also be expressly highlighted. They are a theoretical synthesis and a current view of the topic addressed and, above all, to highlight what may be a novel contribution to it. It must contain no less than 25 reference citations. It is structured in title in Spanish and English, names and surnames of the author or authors, e-mail of each of the authors in gmail preference, institution to which they belong (indicating city and country), ORCID identifier, summary, key words, abstract, keywords, introduction (presentation of the topic), development of the review, contributions generated from the review, references consulted (only those used in the citation of the article).
c.- Reflection: It describes positive experiences in the application of technologies, methods and current knowledge with remarkable achievements in any field, with preference in cases that involve contributions of improvement or original details that should also be expressly highlighted. It will reflect the "positive experiences" that have been obtained with the real application of techniques or knowledge, giving priority to considerations that present a contribution to universal knowledge. It must contain no less than 25 referential quotations. It is structured in title in Spanish and English, names and surnames of the author or authors, e-mail of each of the authors in gmail preference, institution to which they belong (indicating city and country), ORCID identifier, summary, key words, abstract, keywords, introduction (presentation of the topic), development of the reflection, contributions generated from the reflection, references consulted (only those used in the citation of the article).
e.- Letter to the Editor: Section open to all readers who send contributions that complement or discuss original articles or original short articles published and/or on a thematic area addressed by the same. In these cases, up to four authors are allowed and a maximum length of 1000 words and a number of not less than 5 referential citations.
f.- Editorial: Expository-argumentative topics of editorial interest are proposed. Works commissioned by the Director - Editor.
Aesthetic configuration of the articles:
7.- Articles shall be written without indentation and without spaces between paragraphs, only to separate titles and subtitles up to a maximum of 5 levels. The use of bullets shall be reduced to the minimum necessary.
8.- Articles should be in electronic format, 1.5 line spacing font size 12 (Arial), with right, left, bottom and top margins of 2.5 cm, on letter size paper in DOC format.
The maximum length of research articles will be 25 pages (not including title, authors and abstracts). Articles with descriptive content (review and reflection) will have a maximum length of 25 pages. The title of the article should not exceed 15 words.
Each article should present an abstract of no more than 150 words, and 5 descriptors, in English and Spanish (including title and descriptors). Descriptors should be separated by semicolons (;) and should not be capitalized and should be structured according to the UNESCO Thesaurus, both in English and Spanish (http://vocabularies.unesco.org/browser/thesaurus/es/).
9.- The abstract of the article will be structured in an indicative-informative way, which should contain: Objective or main purpose of the research, brief description of the methodology used, the discussion of the most relevant results and conclusions.
10.- The abstract of the articles under the typology: Review and Reflection; will be developed under the "unstructured indicative - descriptive type", where the typology of the article and the most outstanding contributions will be mentioned, which will complement what is exposed in the body of the work (do not repeat information found in the body of the article).
11.- The Editorial Committee may establish exceptions in papers that, due to their originality or contribution, require a longer length; thus respecting the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) subscribed by this journal (https://sfdora.org/read/es/).
12.- The APA style, sixth edition will be used for the citation of the bibliographic sources referenced in the body of the article, taking into consideration when they are less or more than 40 words, as well as the number of authors, type of referenced document. (Consult: APA Style. Javeriano Writing Center (https://n9.cl/onny).
13.- References consulted should be placed at the end of the article in alphabetical order. The title in English in square brackets should be included next to the title of the reference in Spanish.
Example:
Briceño de Osorio, A. (2019). Aprendizaje de idiomas para la diversidad cultural. [Language learning for cultural diversity]. EPISTEME KOINONIA, 2(4), 53-71. http://dx.doi.org/10.35381/e.k.v2i4.524
a.- For article references, the DOI must be provided. For this purpose, use the free tool: http://www.crossref.org/simpleTextQuery
b.- For all references consulted, if available, the URL addresses should be indicated and shortened by: https://n9.cl/es.
14.- Tables, figures or graphs should be numbered according to the order in which they appear in the text, with Arabic numerals, followed by a brief title. The source should be indicated at the end of the tables, figures or graphs. Tables, charts and graphs should be presented in Microsoft Word® or Excel® format, provided they are editable, and images (figures, maps or photos) in JPG or PNG format (resolution greater than or equal to 300 dpi).
Table 1. Length of words in title, abstract, descriptors, content, figures, graphs and tables and number of references for each article.
|
Section |
Title (words) |
Abstract (words) |
Descriptors |
Content (words) |
Figures, graphs y tables |
References consulted |
|
Research |
15 |
150 |
Min.3/Max.5 |
Min.10/Max.25 |
-- |
≥ 10 |
|
Review |
15 |
150 |
Min.3/Max.5 |
Min.10/Max.25 |
-- |
≥ 25 |
|
Reflection |
15 |
150 |
Min.3/Max.5 |
Min.10/Max.25 |
-- |
≥ 25 |
|
Letter to the Editor |
-- |
-- |
-- |
Max. 10 |
-- |
≥ 5 |
|
Editorial |
-- |
-- |
-- |
-- |
-- |
-- |
*The number of pages in the content of the article does not include the title; abstract; keywords and references.
Editorial process:
15.- The collaborators will upload the article to the Journal's OJS (See or download article model. At the beginning of the article, the names and surnames of the contributor or contributors, their (electronic) address, institution or community (indicating city and country) and their respective ORCID (https://orcid.org/) must be specified. Contributors must fill in all the requested fields when registering and uploading the article.
Write and send an affidavit of responsibility and originality of the article. See number 32 of these rules.
16.- The article will be reviewed by the Editorial Committee, so that in a period not longer than 7 continuous days, it will issue its decision of approval or non-approval for the beginning of the arbitration process in the journal. Articles not approved by the Editorial Committee cannot be resubmitted for refereeing in any of the Koinonia Foundation Journals.
17.- All articles will be submitted to anti-plagiarism programs as a policy of quality and ethics of publications (See: https://fundacionkoinonia.com.ve/ojs/index.php/Iustitia_Socialis/plagio).
18.- If the decision of the Editorial Committee is approved, the contributor or contributors will be notified that the article will be submitted to the arbitration process.
19.- Upon notification of the approval of the article, the author must upload the article, with the corrections made by the editorial committee, to the Journal's OJS system in order to initiate the arbitration process.
20.- Articles will be evaluated based on 4 main criteria:
1.- Originality / Innovation of the research.
2.- Usefulness / Social and cultural relevance.
3.- Expository clarity of the text.
4.- Scientific rigor from the paradigm or research approach assumed / Argumentation / Conclusions or final considerations.
21.- The articles are arbitrated and classified in the following categories: Approved, Approved with modifications and not Approved.
22.- Originality, pertinence, style and contributions to the field will be evaluated.
23.- For the arbitration of articles, double-blind peer review will be carried out; where the evaluators do not know the identity of the authors of the articles, and the authors do not know the identity of the evaluators.
24.- The work of the reviewers is strictly confidential. The journal is not responsible for the performance of the evaluators, who are completely autonomous.
25.- The articles will be submitted to reviewers external to the Journal and the Foundation. Based on the observations and recommendations made by the reviewers, the author(s) may be asked to make changes to improve the quality of the work.
26.- In the arbitration process, the evaluators and the authors will remain in mutual ignorance to guarantee the neatness of the process. In case of discrepancies between the evaluators, the Editorial Committee or the Director-Editor will be responsible for the final decision, which will be informed to the interested parties within a maximum period of 30 working days after receiving the evaluation.
27.- The articles published in Iustitia Socialis. Peer- reviewed Journal of Law and Criminal Sciences are the sole responsibility of the authors, both for their opinions, statements and methods.
28.- The evaluators will have a period of 30 continuous days, from the reception of the article, to send to the Director - Editor, the evaluation report of the same. The Director - Editor will send this report to the author within a maximum period of 5 continuous days. The projective term between the reception of the article and its publication is 8 weeks.
29.- The final decision on the evaluation process, publication or not of the articles rests exclusively with the Director and/or Editor and the Editorial Committee, and will be made on the basis of the suggestions/observations/recommendations issued by the evaluators. All articles are subjected to an editorial evaluation process, even when they have been peer-reviewed; and if necessary, the authors will receive the appropriate recommendations to improve the quality of the articles to be published.
30.- Conflicts of interest arising from the verdict of an article will be resolved by the Editorial Ethics Committee of the journal, which is based on the provisions of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) https://publicationethics.org/. As well as that established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICJME). These recommendations are available at: http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/
31.- In the case of any breach of publication ethics detected at the beginning, during the editorial process or after publication, the Journal will take the necessary corrective measures based on the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (www.publicationethics.org), the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) (http://www.icmje.org/) and the Council of Science Editors (CSE) (https://www. councilscienceeditors.org/), which may include rejection or retraction of the article, prohibition of publication of future articles to all authors in the Journal, notification to other journals, as well as communication to the respective authorities (institution of origin, institution that financed the study, professional associations and ethics committees).
The most frequent forms of unethical principles in publishing are: plagiarism, inadequate authorship and redundant publication.
Plagiarism: All proposals for publication will be submitted for review by a text similarity check program. The proposals containing a high percentage of similarity will not be accepted (more than 10%).
Inadequate authorship: Participation in authorship and order of appearance in the article is the responsibility of the authors, the journal has no interference in these aspects. Authors should not make changes in the number and order of authors once the editorial process has begun.
Redundant publication (duplicate publication and fragmented publication): The Journal does not accept duplicate publication, in case of incurring in this fault and demonstrating its occurrence, authors are subject to the guidelines established by COPE.
32.- Authors must write an affidavit of responsibility and originality of the article; and send it to koinonia@fundacionkoinonia.com.ve. See model: https://n9.cl/r6eb
33.- The controversies that could be generated about the published knowledge will be the responsibility of the author or authors of the article, who may be contacted via e-mail, and may be issued judgment or discussion on the topic addressed, as long as this is done in an academic and scientific climate, thus developing a process of feedback that builds science and knowledge.
34.- With the approval of the editorial committee, regular issues may be published before the beginning of the declared period. Approved articles will be published in the immediately available issue.
35.- What is not contemplated by the editorial standards will be under the discretion of the Editorial Committee.
