Submissions

Author Guidelines

Author Guidelines

Cuadernos de Historia Contemporánea (CHC) is an international annual peer-reviewed journal based at the Faculty of Geography and History at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. It covers the history of the 19^th and 20^th centuries using  a wide range of historical approaches and methods. CHC selects academic articles following strict criteria of intellectual quality, novelty, and relevance. Each issue consists of a thematic dossier and a miscellaneous section and includes book reviews and bibliographical notes. 

Editorial policy

Manuscripts that do not fall within the scope of Cuadernos de Historia Contemporánea and/or do not strictly follow these Author Guidelines will be returned to the authors. After an initial  assessment by the Editorial Board or Scientific Editor, manuscripts will be subjected to a double-blind review process conducted by two independent external experts, and by a third  if considered necessary. Generally speaking, there will be no more than two rounds of reviews. The Editor-in-Chief’s decision   to accept or reject the manuscript will be based on the reports and recommendations of the reviewers and the Scientific Editor.The authors of the submitted manuscripts will be notified about the acceptance for review or rejection of their paper within one month. The review process  routinely lasts between 4 to 6 months.

Any article that does not fulfill the format, presentation, content and illustration requirements will be returned to the author.

As part of the submission process, the authors must check that their submission complies with all of the following editorial guidelines, and be  aware that manuscripts that do not fulfill these indications will be returned without initiating the journal editorial review process.

1.Submission of manuscripts

Manuscripts must be uploaded to the online application available on the journal webpage (http://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/CHCO). The author must register online prior to sending the manuscript.

All manuscripts must be anonymized before submission . The specific label //anonymized// must replace all quotes, acknowledgements, references, and other allusions that might  directly or indirectly make it possible to identify the author. Any manuscripts submitted without complying with this rule will be rejected and will not proceed to the review process. References to  authorship, funding, etc., may  be indicated on the OJS webpage during the submission process; the main author will be responsible for the correct presentation of the metadata that correspond to the submitted manuscript. Should  the manuscript be approved for publication, a non-anonymized version must be submitted.

Submission of a manuscript signifies that the author is aware of and accepts these instructions.

• While the manuscript is in the process of being reviewed by Cuadernos de Historia Contemporánea, the author(s) must not submit the manuscript to other journals for review.
• The articles must not have been previously published in either  of the accepted languages (Spanish and English) and the author must duly inform the journal if this is not the case. It will be the author’s responsibility to inform the journal regarding the situation of the author’s rights. The author will be held responsible for the publication of any article that violates these rights.

The author of the manuscript  will be the interlocutor for all communications related to the proposal issued by the Editorial Board of Cuadernos de Historia Contemporánea  using the OJS platform set up by the journal. If there is more than one author, this person will be responsible  for contacting his or her co-authors  and for facilitating any necessary information, as well as for resolving potential  conflicts regarding the authorship of the manuscript. The authors must make a formal request if they wish to change the author acting as interlocutor

2.Languages of original manuscripts

Cuadernos de Historia Contemporánea accepts articles and publishes its issues in both Spanish and English . If an article is submitted in English, the language must be of a high standard, and preferably written or revised by a native speaker of English. Irrespective of the language in which the manuscript is submitted , the Board of Editors reserves the right to make the final decision regarding the language of publication and to request that the author(s) provide a translation.

3. Types of original articles accepted

- Articles ( in both the thematic dossier and the miscellaneous sections): original research articles, either theoretical or empirical. The minimum length of these articles is 8,000 words and the maximum length 10,000 words, including footnotes and bibliographic references.

[Download template for articles]

- Book reviews: Brief essays that analyze a new publication  of academic interest to the subject of the journal. The maximum length is 1,000-1,500 words. Reviews should include the bibliographic references cited, although these references should be kept to a minimum.

[Download template for book reviews]

- Bibliographical notes: Texts intended for the Bibliographical Notes section must  not exceed 6,000 words. The aim of this section is to provide  news on state of the art of research and other publications related to the field of the journal.

[Download template for bibliographical notes]

4. Author’s rights

Following acceptance of an article for publication, the author will transfer exclusive world sales, reproduction and distribution rights to Cuadernos de Historia Contemporánea for the use of his or her manuscript in the format of a paper journal, or any other magnetic, optical, or  digital medium.

Rights of communication, public distribution  and licenses for reproduction and use  by any means of dissemination and storage of Cuadernos de Historia Contemporánea are those stipulated by the Complutense Publication Services of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

5. Dishonest practices: plagiarism and scientific fraud

In accordance with the stipulations of the Intellectual Property Law regarding actions and procedures that may  be initiated against anyone who infringes intellectual property rights, the publication of an article that violates these rights will be the responsibility of the author(s), who will be answerable  for any disagreement  arising  regarding author’s rights. It is the duty of Cuadernos de Historia Contemporánea  to advise  authors that their manuscripts may  be subjected to plagiarism checks  using   “turnitin” software. Plagiarism and scientific fraud are the principal sources of potential conflict. 

Plagiarism is defined as:

a.Presenting the work of others as one’s own
b. Adopting other authors’ words or ideas without due acknowledgement
c. Failing to use quotation marks for a literal quote
d. Giving incorrect information regarding the true source of a quote
e. Paraphrasing a source without mentioning the source
f. Abusive paraphrasing, even if the source is mentioned

The practices that constitute scientific fraud are the following:

a.Fabrication, falsification or omission of data and plagiarism
b. Duplicate publication
c. Conflicts of authorship and intellectual exploitation

6. Thematic Dossiers

CHC journal publishes thematic dossiers. A dossier proposal must include:

1.    A title and an introduction that reflects the objectives of the monographic dossier.

2.    An argued justification of the dossier’s  contribution  to the theoretical, empirical and methodological debates contained  in the journal Cuadernos de Historia Contemporánea.

3.    An index that includes between 6 (minimum) and 8 (maximum) articles, with abstracts of no more than 500 words, in which  the coherent relationship of each article with the theme of the dossier is demonstrated and  its contribution to this theme explicitly stated.

4.    A brief biography of the editors and authors (200 words maximum), also indicating their previous experience of editing monographic dossiers.

5.    A bibliography.

7. Format

Articles and reviews must  be presented in text format (doc, docx, rtf, odt), in Times New Roman 11 font, justified text with indentation for paragraphs.

Bibliographic references must appear within the text (see below for more information). For all other additional information, numbered footnotes (and not endnotes) are to  be used). To facilitate reading, notes should be kept to a minimum and not used as a means  to provide complete bibliographic citations. The sections or divisions of the text must be numbered and the titles must be in lower case letters, bold print, and Times New Roman 12 font.

- Tables and graphs
All tables and graphs must be numbered sequentially using Arabic numerals after the word “table” or “graph” (depending on the case). They must have a concise title that reflects their contents and the source must be cited below, even if they are prepared by the author, in which case the phrase “prepared by the author”  must be included . Tables and graphs must be inserted in the corresponding places in the text. They must also be sent in a separate folder in the format of the original version of the program used (Photoshop, PowerPoint, Acrobat, Excel, etc.).

Images must be inserted into the text and also be sent separately, as tif or jpeg files. They must have a 300 pixel/inch resolution, with a minimum width of 10 cm.

- Order of authors
The order of authors as presented in the original manuscript will be scrupulously respected. The following format for names is recommended:

a. Name + Surname
b. If there are two first names, we recommend using Name + Initial of Middle Name + Surname.
c. If there are two last names, Name + (initial of second name) + First surname + Second surname.

Each author must accompany their name with data related to their institutional affiliation, email address of the author(s) and ORCID number. 

- Title
Articles and reviews must have a title in both Spanish and English. We recommend that the title be no longer than 15 words; it must be clearly informative and accurately reflect the content of the article. Unnecessary words should be avoided and as far as possible the title should include descriptors taken from thesauruses of the discipline. The use of abbreviations, acronyms, symbols, and formulas should also be avoided.

- Abstract
Articles must be preceded by a short abstract, in both Spanish and  English. The Spanish version must be limited to between 175 and 250 words (15 lines). It should be strictly informative and should always follow the objective-methods- results-conclusions model. No information should be included that does not appear in the text of the article. Words and expressions with little meaning, periphrases and excessively long sentences should be avoided.

- Key words
The articles should include between 5 (minimum) and 8 (maximum) descriptors or keywords, in both Spanish and  English. For standardization purposes, these keywords will be taken from  standardized thesauruses and vocabularies.

- Table of contents
The article must include a  table of contents containing all the sections into which it is divided.

- Acknowledgements 
If acknowledgements are included, they must appear below the table of contents. They must not exceed 250 words in extension.

- Bibliographic references
Bibliographic references must appear in the body of the text, never in footnotes. For references in the text, the Harvard author-year system must be used (author, year: page):

(Dahl, 1989: 323)

In references to documents with two authors, the last names are to be connected by “and”:

(Newton and Norris, 2000: 25)

(Telles and Ortiz, 2011)

If the work is by three or more authors, the first author must be referenced, followed by et al.:

(Amador et al., 1989)

If several works of an author or a group of authors published in the same year are referenced, a, b, c, etc., should be added after the year.

(Franzen, 2012b)

When the works of several authors are referenced, the references should be separated by a semi-colon (;):

(Bourdieu, 2001; Harvey, 2013)

When the last name of the author referenced is part of the text, the year of the work referenced must always be indicated in parentheses:

As Goldthorpe (2010) claims …

Each of the bibliographic references must correspond to a reference in the final bibliography.

Self-referencing should be avoided, and its use restricted only to indispensable cases.

- Footnotes
Footnotes should be used sparingly, and only to provide absolutely essential additional information or clarification, when inclusion of that information in the text might interrupt  the flow of the manuscript. Their use should be restricted to clarifications or citations of archival documentary sources but must not include bibliographical references. Please abstain from using endnotes. - In-text reference citations

Any textual quotation longer than three lines should be detached from the main text and indented. Italics should not be used. Short quotes (less than three lines) should be inserted into  the main text  in inverted commas. Again, italics should not be used.   

- Bibliography
The bibliography must be placed at the end of the article and should only contain references cited in the text. The authors must be listed in alphabetical order. The rules for  presenting bibliographic references at the end of the text are as follows:

Authors

In the case of multiple authors, the authors names’ must  be separated by a comma,  the last one being  separated by “and.”  From the second author onwards, the names should be written in direct order: name (only the initial), surname. If the work has several unspecified authors, “Various” should be used.

Sageman, M. and B. Hoffman (2008): “Does Osama still call the shots? Debating the containment of al Qaeda’s leadership,” Foreign Affairs, 87 (4), pp. 163-166.

Various. (2003): Introducción a la economía y administración de empresas, Madrid, Ediciones Pirámide.

When several works by the same author appear in the bibliography, they must be listed in strict chronological order, beginning with the earliest work. The surname and name must have the same form in all the references.

Navarro, C. J. (2000): “El sesgo participativo. Introducción a la teoría empírica de la democracia participativa,” Papers, 61, pp. 11-37.

Navarro, C. J. (2002): Democracia asociativa y oportunismo político, Valencia, Tirant lo Blanch.

The year of publication should be followed by a, b, c, etc. if there is more than one item by an author dated the same year (e.g.: 2008a, 2008b, etc.).

Rancière, J. (2006a): “Diez tesis sobre la política,” in Política, policía, democracia, Santiago de Chile, Ediciones Lom, pp. 10-26.

Rancière, J. (2006b): “Política, identificación, subjetivación,” in Política, policía, democracia, Santiago de Chile, Ediciones Lom, pp. 48-66.

The following are examples of the most common document types:

- Journals
Enders, W. and T. Sandler (1993): “The effectiveness of antiterrorism policies: a vector-autoregression-intervention analysis,” American Political Science Review, 87(4), pp. 829-844.

If the article is available online,  the version cited should always direct readers to  the Editor's original website, and not to duplicate files on  other websites, such as institutional repositories or aggregation platforms.

If the article is accessible online, include the full URL, and the accession date in  brackets. For example : Nieto, F. (2018) " Jorge Semprún y la Guerra Civil. Historia y memoria". Revista Universitaria de Historia Militar, 7 (13), pp. 134-158. Available at: http://www.ruhm.es/index.php/RUHM/article/view/383 [Accessed 3 Jun. 2019].

If the article is accessible online and has a DOI (Digital Object Identifier), always include the DOI, but not the URL and the accession date. For example : Menegus, M. (2009) "La tradición indígena frente a los cambios liberales". Revista de Indias, 69, pp. 137-156. doi: 10.3989/revindias.2009.027

- Books
Dahl, R. A. (1999): La democracia. Una guía para los ciudadanos, Madrid, Taurus.

- Chapters of books
Wildavsky, A. (1989): “A cultural theory of leadership,” in B. D. Jones (ed.), Leadership and politics: new perspectives in Political Science, Lawrence, Kansas University Press, pp. 163-164.

- Edited or compiled books (editor or compiler as "author")

Dibble, Ch. E., ed. (1980) [sixteenth century] Codice Xolotl. México, D.F.: Universidad Autónoma de México.

McHugh, W. P., ed. (1977) The Teaching of Archaeology. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.

- Papers and communications at conferences
Boundi Boundi, M. (2008): “Marruecos: estructuras sociales y tendencias de consumo en una sociedad en transición,” in Sociedad, consumo y sostenibilidad. Actas del XIII Congreso Nacional de Sociología en Castilla-La Mancha, Toledo, Asociación Castellano-Manchega de Sociología.

- Unpublished dissertations
Galais, C. (2008): ¿Socialización o contexto? La implicación política subjetiva de los españoles (1985-2006), Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona.

- Webpages
Green, M. C., J. A. Krosnick and A. L. Holbrook (2001): The survey response process in telephone and face-to-face surveys. Differences in respondent satisficing and social desirability response bias. Available at: http://www.Clas.ufl.edu/users/kenwald(pos6757/spring02/tch62.pdf [Last consulted: September 21, 2010]

The works and articles referenced that have a DOI number should include this  in the bibliographic reference.

E.g.: Surname(s), Initial of first name (Year): Title. http://dx.doi.org/xxxx

- Primary-source materials and newspapers

Primary-source (e.g., unpublished archival materials including administrative records, letters, etc.) and newspaper citations should only appear in the text or notes. They should  not be duplicated in the Reference list section.

Citations for primary-source material will be archive specific, so that it is impossible to devise a rote formula for them. Nevertheless, it is essential  to include the name of the archive, title of the work (if named), nature of the material (e.g., letter [optional], collection name, identification number (bundle, folder, folio, etc.), date (if known), and geographic location of material. Consider the following examples:

Archivo General de la Nación, Lima [AGN], Juzgado de Aguas 3.3.7.23, f. 3v; note that subsequent citations would use only the acronym AGN and the shortened "Aguas" (e.g., AGN, Aguas 3.3.4.39, 3.3.9.9)

Archivo General de Indias, Seville [AGI], Papeles de Cuba, legajo 2365, f. 345; subsequent citation = (AGI, Cuba, legajo 2365, f. 523)

Boas to E. B. Howard, letter, 9 May 1935, Boas Papers, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia

If citing primary-source material from a published source, conventional citation rules in the text and in the References list must be followed.

Newspaper

If the reference is accessible online, include the URL following the same rules as for the articles. Examples:

Diario de Cádiz [DC], 7 July 1902: page numbers [if available]). After first mention, simply use [DC] with date and page.

La Correspondencia de España [LCE] "Voladura del Maine", 16 February 1898. http://prensahistorica.mcu.es/es/publicaciones/verNumero.cmd?idNumero=7107317. [accessed 08/December/2011]

8. Acknowledgements

The author/s of the manuscript may include a section for acknowledgements. This must be placed before the bibliographic reference section, under the heading Acknowledgements. Any funding received and the reference of the research project funded may be included here. If this section is included, it will be added only in the final version of the text, in order to preserve the anonymity of the manuscript throughout the review process.