Submissions

Author Guidelines

1. The Didáctica. Lengua y Literatura journal consists of two sections: research and studies, and reviews.

2. All the authors wishing to submit their research and studies (articles) to the journal must attach two types of documents: a data sheet and their anonymised article.

3. This guide only contains information related to how to adapt the format and style of the manuscripts that are submitted to the journal. Help to register in the platform can be found in the submission guidelines document that is available on this same website.

Research and studies (articles)

4. The articles will be original, dealing with theoretical or empirical studies, states of the art or classroom experiences, in the fields of language and literature didactics, second and foreign language teaching, and/or infant and young literature. Originals in Spanish, English, and French will be accepted, although the studies can be about languages and literary manifestations which are other than these three. They will not have a length over 8,000 words (including notes, tables, figures, graphs, and bibliography), or lower than 5,000.

5. Before starting the double peer-review process, manuscripts will be subject to the detection of plagiarism through the Turnitin or Uni-Check software. Those articles that have been previously published in any other format (proceedings, master’s dissertation, doctoral thesis, etc.) will be rejected, unless the manuscript has been considerably re-elaborated. Manuscripts with spelling or grammar mistakes, poor punctuation, unconnected syntax, lexical inaccuracies or lack of compliance to the requirements stated in this style manual will also be rejected. Once submitted, the article will not be sent to another journal for a simultaneous assessment.

6. All the articles must be sent in Microsoft Word or in equivalent free software (such as Open Office), with the following format: paper size A4 (21cm. wide and 29.7cm high), upper and lower margins of 2.5cm, left and right margins of 3cm, Times New Roman font 12 points, and interlining of 1.5. The first line in each paragraph (save for the one at the beginning of a section) will be indented 1cm. The quotations over 3 lines (around 40 words) will be indented 2cm to the left, compared to the body of the text, and will be in Times New Roman 10 points and 1.5 interlining, without quotations marks, and with a single space before and after the citation.

7. Manuscripts must include at their starting page three essential elements translated to the three languages of publication of the journal (Spanish, English, and French). These elements are: 1) title in the language in which the article has been written, in 12 points size, in bold, and centred; 2) abstract in the language of the article (font size 10 points and justified on both sides) beginning with the heading RESUMEN, ABSTRACT or RÉSUMÉ (10 p. size, justified on both sides, and a space after the previous title); and 3) a maximum of 5 key words in the language the article is written separated by a semi-colon and beginning with the heading PALABRAS CLAVE, KEY WORDS or MOTS-CLÉS (10 p. size, justified on both sides, and a space after the previous title). Once these main elements have been included (title, abstract, and key words) in the language of the article, they will be translated to the remaining two languages and incorporated in the same format. The start of the article will finish with an INDEX (10 p. and justified on both sides) of the work’s headings (including the bibliography) numbered from 1, separated by full stops, and continuing in the next line. For a better visualization of the layout, go to page 8 of this style guide. It is important not to include any author and affiliation data in the article. These will be provided in a different document.

8. In the body of the text, each heading will have a numbered TITLE (12 p., bold, upper case, not indented). The first-level sub-headings will go in bold, Roman type, lower case, 12 p. and not indented (Title), and the second-level ones will be in italics, lower case, 12 p. and not indented (Title). A blank space will be left before the title but not between the title and the following text.

9. The footnotes must be reduced to the minimum indispensable and the notice in the text (number in superscript: 1) be added after the punctuation marks. In the footer, the note will be written with its first line indented to 0.5cm, in Times New Roman 10, and single interlining. The text of the note will be justified and the spaces before and after the paragraph will be of 0 points.

10. With regard to citation guidelines, the Publication Manual of APA (7th edition, 2020, summarised at https://biblioguias.ucm.es/estilo-apa-septima) will be followed, which implies that the minimum bibliographical information to identity a citation, content, idea, etc. will be provided in the text and not in the footnote. The Surname, year of edition, page convention will be followed. For example: (García Padrino, 1992, p. 323). It will be in the bibliography section where the whole reference will be included, according to what is indicated in the next paragraph.

11. All the bibliographical references will be gathered at the end, in the section of bibliography, whose heading will be presented as the rest of titles (bold, upper case, size 12 and not indented). Uncited works must not be included. To create that section the Publication Manual of APA (7th edition, 2020, summarised at https://biblioguias.ucm.es/estilo-apa-septima) will be followed, with these two exceptions: the place of publication of the books cited will still be indicated (not just the publisher) and the whole name of authors and editors will be written in full instead of just the initial. All the sources will be ordered alphabetically, the surnames will not be written in upper case, and hanging indentation will be used in them (first line positioned at the margin and the subsequent ones 1cm to the right of it). When there is more than one work by the same author, they will be ordered chronologically and in all cases the name will be shown (that is to say, the name will not be replaced by a dash or something similar). If the cited works or articles have a DOI number or link, this must be included, substituting it for the underlining that identifies the link and keeping only the blue colour. On p. 11 of this guide authors can find a model of bibliography to be used.

12. When the article has illustrations or tables, such elements will be identified with a numbered title in the upper part (centred and in 10 points) and the source will be provided in the lower part (positioned to the right and in 10p.). Between the title of the table or illustration and the preceding paragraph a space will be left. A space will also be introduced between the source and the following paragraph. No space will be left between the title or the source and the illustration or table that they identify. The content of the tables will be written in letter size 10. The possible illustrations that may be incorporated must be pertinent and have enough quality for their reproduction. They can go in the article, in the most usual formats (BMP, TIFF, JPG, GIF). Just in a few cases they will be requested apart, making explicit the place where the must be inserted. These indications will be respected to the extent to which the writing process allows it.

13. As regards inclusive language, the Didáctica. Lengua y Literatura journal adheres to the United Nations’ objective of “speaking and writing in a way that does not discriminate against a particular sex, social gender or gender identity” (https://www.un.org/es/gender-inclusive-language/index.shtml). Such aspiration must be compatible with “other discursive and pragmatic postulates, such as those of equivalence, adequacy, convenience, aesthetics, and, especially, the principle of economy”, as well as respect for the language system (Informe de la Real Academia Española sobre el lenguaje inclusivo y cuestiones conexas, of 16th January 2020, p. 54: https://www.rae.es/sites/default/files/Informe_lenguaje_inclusivo.pdf, our own translation). Combining the guidelines of both organisations is, therefore, recommended.

14. Concerning frequent doubts, the following rules will be observed:
– In the lists of unnumbered elements an initial line will be used (–, a dash) instead of other symbols like arrows or asterisks. The symbol (–) will be spaced out 1cm. from the left margin and the text 1.5cm from it.
– In the numbered lists or lists ordered by letters parentheses will be used after the number or letter, instead of a full stop. That is to say: 1), 2), 3), instead of 1., 2., 3. Or a), b), c), instead of a., b., c. The similar type of indentation in the unnumbered lists will be used.
– If numbering examples is desired (as in the case of linguistic studies), parentheses after the number instead of a full stop will be used. That is to say: 1), 2), 3), instead of 1., 2., 3.
– If the authors wish to highlight any word or key concept, italics, not bold, will be used. Bold type will be left for the heading titles and first-level sub-heading titles.
– When making reference to a table or figure is intended its title will be written in italics. For example: see figure 1, or consult table 2.
– The use of the ampersand symbol (&) in the bibliography will only be allowed for the articles written in English. In the rest of cases y or et will be used.
– Double inverted commas must be used (“”). If the piece of text requires additional inverted commas within it, single ones will be used (‘’).
– To indicate page or similar intervals (for example: 95-106) the hyphen will be used as the symbol separating the numbers (‐, not-breaking hyphen).
– In the case of articles published in Spanish, for other doubts pertaining to punctuation, use of upper case, etc., what is stated in the Ortografía de la lengua española (2010) of the Real Academia will be met.
– In the case of articles published in French, for other doubts pertaining to punctuation, use of upper case, etc., what is stated in the ninth and last edition of the Dictionnaire de l'Académie Française (freely available online: http://www.dictionnaire-academie.fr/aide-en-ligne) will be met.

Reviews

15. The reviews will not have a length over 1,500 words and lower than 700. They will be submitted in paper size A4 (21cm. wide x 29.7cm. high), upper and lower margins of 2.5 cm., left and right margins of 3cm, Times New Roman font 12 points, and interlining of 1.5. The first line in each paragraph (save for the one beginning the review) will be indented 1cm. They will be devoted to analysing books relative to the topics dealt with in the Didáctica. Lengua y Literatura journal. They will have the whole reference of the reviewed book as header, in the following order: Name and Surnames of the author (year). Title (name of the editor, translator or compiler, if any). City: Publisher. Number of pages. The name of the author of the review, their institutional affiliation, and their email address must appear at the end of the document, in three consecutive lines that are right-justified and in letter size of 11 points. The reviews will not have footnotes, division of headings or a bibliography section. It will be in the text itself where the minimum bibliographical information to identify the source of possible citations will be added (See this guide).

Evaluation process

The manuscripts received by Didáctica. Lengua y Literatura undergo the following evaluation process:

1) Anti-plagiarism detection through the Turnitin software.
2) Pre-evaluation. The manuscripts received by the journal are subject to an initial review by the Editorial Board. The aim of that pre-evaluation is to make certain that the works received match the scope of the journal, comply with the style and citation guidelines, and have enough quality to move on to the double-blind peer review process.
3) Double-blind peer review process (the evaluators do not know the identity of the authors and vice versa). In this stage, the articles will be sent to two independent expert reviewers, who will complete this template to assess the scientific quality of the paper. The result of the review can be: a) accepted article (as submitted or needing minor modifications); b) acceptance conditioned to revision and resubmission; c) rejected.

When, derived from the evaluation, the experts determine that the original requires revision and resubmission, the authors will have a maximum of 60 days to send their work again with the requested changes. If these are not made, the article will be rejected.

Evaluation guidelines

External reviews will make their evaluation through the Open Journal System platform and will base on this template designed by the Editorial Committee of Didáctica. Lengua y Literatura. As a result of reading the article, they will select one of the following options in the final recommendation section:

A. Accept this submission. The reviewers will select this option if the article can be published as such or with the minor formal modifications that are specified in “comments”.

B. Publishable with modifications. This box will be selected if the text requires minor modifications and/or revisions that are specified in “comments” or in the attached file.

C. Resubmit for review. It will be selected if the work could be published only after making the major modifications and/or content or form revisions that are specified in “comments” or in the attached file.

D. Not publishable. In the case of marking this option, the reviewers will also include the pertinent arguments in “comments”.