Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

• The work is unpublished and will not be sent to other journals while awaiting the decision of the editors of the journal Ciencias Psicológicas.
• The text does not exceed 6.000 words for research articles, 7.000 for systematic reviews and 3.000 words for brief communications, excluding in all cases bibliographical references, tables and figures.
• Written authorization from the authors or publishing rights holders is provided for tables or figures taken from other publications. In all cases, it refers to the APA regulation on the presentation of tables and figures.
• In-text citations and the list of bibliographic references are presented according to the guidelines of the Publications Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA) in its 7th edition (see synthesis in the Author Guidelines).
• The average of the referenced bibliography does not exceed the last 5 years.
• For studies that involve the participation of humans or animals, the endorsement of an Ethics Committee for the research protocol is presented identifying the institution and the Ethics Committee that approved that protocol.
• For human clinical trials, a copy of the corresponding registration is required.
• The photographs and clinical materials of patients respect the anonymity of the people involved, as well as the name of the institutions that were the object of study, and the consent to publish such materials must also be included.
• The data of the investigation will be available to the referees, if they require it.
• In case of original research, the article includes the section “Data availability“ in which the authors report whether and where the data set used is available (see indications in the Author Guidelines).
• If the manuscript is accepted, it will be the responsibility of the authors to provide the English version of it, a translation that must be carried out by experts.
• The authors have read, completed and sent together with the manuscript the Declaration of Responsibility for Authorship.
• The manuscript follows the presentation format guidelines stipulated in Author Guidelines.
• The authors have prepared an anonymous version of the work, following the instructions in Author Guidelines.

Review process

The manuscript review process consists of two phases. The first phase is conducted by the editorial team within a maximum period of 3 months, with articles evaluated in the order they are received. This phase involves reviewing formal aspects (format, bibliographic references, plagiarism detection) and ensuring the article aligns with the journal‘s focus and scope criteria. During this phase, the manuscript may be rejected, modifications may be requested, or it may be sent directly for external review. The corresponding author will be notified of the outcome of this evaluation through the journal’s digital platform.

In the second phase, the manuscripts undergo a peer review process, maintaining the anonymity of both authors and reviewers, known as a double-blind system. To preserve the anonymity of authors and reviewers, extreme care is taken. At least two reviewers, who are experts in the relevant field, are selected from national or international experts. Reviewers may accept, request modifications, or reject the article. This process typically takes an average of 6 months, although the time may vary depending on the nature of the feedback or the need for consultations with other experts.

Ciencias Psicológicas uses the following article evaluation form. Manuscripts can receive one of the following ratings: recommended for publication, recommended for publication with modifications, or not recommended for publication. In all cases, reasons for the rating are required. The Editorial Board may consult additional reviewers if the conclusions are conflicting or if there are methodological concerns.

The external evaluation is reviewed by the scientific editor and sent to the authors for consideration through the journal’s online platform. Authors have one month to submit a revised version of the article. This version is reviewed by the scientific editor and/or the external reviewers if requested in their evaluation. The scientific editor is responsible for the final decision regarding the acceptance or rejection of the articles. This decision is final.

Once the final version of the manuscript is accepted, the authors are asked to provide an English translation. The translation must be done by an expert translator to ensure the quality of the work.

The journal’s technical team handles the editing and layout of the article and, if necessary, communicates with the authors for any adjustments prior to publication.

The rejection rate for articles in Ciencias Psicológicas for 2023 was 95 %.

Author Guidelines

Ciencias Psicológicas accepts submissions year-round. All submissions must be made through the online platform OJS. Since 2024, preprints are accepted.

Manuscripts’ format

The text of the article must be in a digital and editable (.docx or .doc) format. It must have a single line spacing, Times New Roman font, 12-point font size, in A4 format, with Word's default margins (top 2.5 cm; bottom 2.5 cm; right 3 cm; left 3 cm). The entire document must be written in strict APA standards (7th ed.). This includes the writing style, tables and figures, and bibliographic references (see synthesis).

Title: on top of the first pagen will apprear the title in Spanish, English and Portuguese. It must be clear and precise, and contain the research variables.

Authors and affiliation: the first page must list the authors and their complete institutional affiliation with their respective email addresses and the ORCID number of each author.

Abstract: it can have a maximum of 200 words and must appear in Spanish, English and Portuguese.

Keywords: include five keywords in the three languages ​​(Spanish, English and Portuguese). It is recommended that you consult the Thesauruses.

Internal structure: it is suggested to follow the following structure of sections in the works or a similar one: Introduction, Materials and Method, Results, Discussion, Conclusions and References.

Tables and figures: must be in the original format (.xls, .doc or .docx or other general-use software), inserted in the corresponding place in the text. Those figures that can only be presented in image format must have a high resolution.

Data availability: for articles resulting from original research, authors must explain whether their data is available in an open repository and where to access it. This information is completed in the Authorship Responsibility Statement document. Possible open data repositories are: SciELO Data, Mendeley Data, Zenodo, DANS, DataHub, FigShare,  PyschArchives.

Authorship Responsibility Statement

All authors of the article must read, complete and sign the following Authorship Responsibility Statement. This must be included in the submission, together with the manuscript and the anonymous version.

How to prepare the anonymous file for review

To ensure double-blind review, authors should prepare a file that does not contain any information that could reveal their identity to potential reviewers.

To do this, they must take into account the following aspects:

·         The document must be classified as an “anonymous version” when uploaded to the platform, and must not contain information about the authors in the file name.

·         Nor can numbers of study registrations or endorsements granted by ethics committees be included. In these cases, the information will be replaced by a description of the deleted element, in straight parentheses. Example: “The study has the endorsement of the Ethics Committee of the [name of the university] with approval number [number].”

·         In those passages where specific institutions or geographical coordinates are mentioned —which allow the authors of the work to be identified— the text will be replaced by a description of the deleted element, in straight parentheses. Examples: “The study was carried out with students from [name of university].”

·         Citations to previous works by any of the authors of the article will be preserved in the anonymized document, but care must be taken to ensure that the wording accompanying these citations does not reveal that they are the works of the authors themselves.

·         Authors must check in the word processor that there is no metadata in the file that identifies any user by name or surname. In Word for Windows, you can check and delete this information in the menu “Information> Inspect Document”. In Word for MacOS, it can be done in “Protect document> Delete personal information when saving”.

ORIGINAL ARTICLES

Original research articles and/or systematic reviews are published in this section.

COMMUNICATION

Exceptionally, the journal publishes short communications, essays or conferences of interest.

Copyright Notice

If the manuscript is accepted, the authors agree to transfer the copyright to the journal according to the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), open access system, with the authors retaining responsibility for the content and opinions expressed, which do not reflect the views or scientific policy of the journal.

The authors hereby declare that their work does not infringe on the rights of third parties and that they are the sole holders of the property rights being transferred, allowing them to dispose of these rights without any limitations or encumbrances. They also declare that, in creating the work subject to this transfer, they have not violated any third-party intellectual property rights. Consequently, the authors are obliged to guarantee the authorship and originality of the work’s content to the journal and ensure the peaceful exercise of the transferred rights. The authors will be responsible for any claims made by third parties regarding intellectual property rights over the work, thus exempting the journal from any liability. They will also be liable for any damages that may be caused to the journal due to such claims.

The article’s content will not be subject to any other rights by any other publication, nor has it been previously published. If tables or figures from other publications are reproduced, written permission from the authors or copyright holders will be provided as appropriate. In all cases, the APA guidelines for presenting tables and figures will be followed.