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Author Guidelines

Guidelines for submission of originals

Call for applications

Quality contributions that address the topics of the Journal from any perspective and source are welcome for evaluation and possible publication via e-mail revistapaz@unah.edu.hn. These contributions may consist of research articles, book reviews or critiques, and research notes, doctoral thesis summaries, academic essays academic essays or relevant experiences duly substantiated. Each contribution will be published in the corresponding section after passing a double blind evaluation process by external expert evaluators and the Editorial Committee.

The reception of originals is uninterruptedly open through the mail revistapaz@unah.edu.hn. The Editorial Team will determine the specific Volume and Number in which the work is included once the evaluation process has been passed.

Type of papers accepted and number of papers per issue:

• Original and unpublished scientific research articles that are not under evaluation or committed to any other publication. Their content will refer to some field of research related to the discipline of Peace and Conflict Studies.
• Research notes (such as reports of findings, contributions, etc.) and academic essays derived from research, summaries of research papers, doctoral theses on any of the fields of research related to the discipline of Peace and Conflict Studies and relevant practical experiences duly substantiated.
• Book reviews, as well as news and scientific meetings, bibliographic news, interviews, etc. on the journal's subject matter.

In the "Special Issues" of the Latin American Journal of Peace and Conflict Studies, are also accepted:

• Stories or opinion articles that, because of their subject matter, could be of interest to the journal's public.

Each issue corresponding to the annual volumes of the journal is composed of a minimum of six articles of scientific research - unpublished academic essays, and may incorporate, in addition, a greater or lesser number of research notes, experiences and reviews, book reviews or interviews.

The "Special Issues" of the Journal are not necessarily composed of a minimum of scientific research articles and may vary their composition according to the interest of the Editorial Team.

Submissions
Original articles should be submitted via email: revistapaz@unah.edu.hn
The original articles must be adapted to the following format. You can download the template here: https://iudpas.unah.edu.hn/assets/Uploads/Plantilla-para-articulos-Revista-Latinoamericana-Estudios-de-la-Paz-y-el-Conficto2.docx 

GUIDELINES

1. Latin American Journal of Peace and Conflict Studies is open to the publication of empirical, methodological or theoretical research articles of Latin American and international scope, as well as to the publication of research notes, academic essays based on solid theoretical and empirical foundations, significant and adequately grounded experiences, as well as reviews, book reviews and interviews. 

2. Latin American Journal of Peace and Conflict Studies prioritizes papers that report the results of original academic research and follow the IMR&DC+B structure: introduction, methodology, results and discussion, conclusions, and updated bibliography. 

3. Papers are published in Spanish, English, or Portuguese.

4. The originals should be sent in digital format (.doc / .docx) through the web platform of the e-mail revistapaz@unah.edu.hn

5. The reception of articles is uninterruptedly open, although the months of edition are May and November. In each issue, articles are accepted that have been positively evaluated at least 3 months before the month of publication.

6. Latin American Journal of Peace and Conflict Studies is an Open Access publication and does not charge authors any processing fees (APC) or publication fees.

7. Submitted papers must be unpublished. This condition must be confirmed during the process by means of an affidavit.

8. Proposals submitted to the Latin American Journal of Peace and Conflict Studies cannot be simultaneously submitted to any other publication.

9. All originals are submitted to double-blind arbitration by academic peers. In order to guarantee impartiality in the selection of articles for publication, anonymity of both authors and reviewers is observed.  To this end, the text of the articles should be sent anonymously: the name of the authors and their affiliation should not be included, nor the ORCID, and all acknowledgements, references to funding projects or any other element that could directly or indirectly allow the identification of the author should be deleted (under the label of *anonymized*). The Technical Secretariat of the Editorial Committee of the Latin American Journal of Peace and Conflict Studies will ensure that the texts comply with this condition. If the article is accepted for publication, the journal will request the non-anonymized version along with any modifications required after the review process.

10. We strongly recommend that scientific articles submitted to the journal have a maximum length of 8,500 words (excluding abstracts, but including bibliographic references, tables, footnotes, graphics, etc.). Academic essays derived from research, or research notes (such as reports of findings, contributions, etc.) should ideally have a maximum length of 5,500 words (equally excluding abstracts, but including bibliographic references, tables, footnotes, graphs, etc.). Book reviews should not exceed 3,000 words, and should specify the author, title, publisher, place and date of publication of the work being reviewed, as well as the name, surname and contact address of the reviewer.

11. Submitted manuscripts should be written with care to dispense with footnotes. It is advisable to incorporate a maximum of 5 footnotes.

12. Submitted papers will include a maximum of 40 relevant academic bibliographic references (and between 40 and 60 for papers that are theoretical reviews). It is strongly advised to include 25% of current bibliographic references (published in the last 5 years).

13. The papers must be sent in the following format:

- Times New Roman font, size 12. Single space, page size Letter.

- The different TITLES will be in BOLD and CAPITAL LETTERS with the same font type and size as the body of the text, and will be numbered consecutively in Roman numerals (1., 2., 3.)

- The different Subtitles or sections will be in bold, italics and capital letters only the first letter and with the same font type and size as the body of the text.

- Words in a language other than the original must be in italics.

- The text quotations must be "quotes", indicating, in brackets, the last name of the author or authors of the text, the year of publication and the page as in this example: (Montañés, 2009, p. 21). If there are more than three authors, they will all be cited the first time and the following times the expression "et al: (Oswald et al., 2020, p.205)- Footnotes will be in the same font and in font size 10, without indentation or space between notes.- For the bibliography, at the end of the paper, the APA 7 style should be used, including, whenever possible, the complete doi or url of the publication (if available online). Some examples of formatting are given below: 
Books and chapters: 

o Surname, initial. (year). Title of the book. Publisher. Url o Doi complete (if available)

Galtung, J. (1985). On Peace. Fontamara.

o Surname, Initial. (year). Title of the chapter. In Surname, Initial, (Ed / Coord.), Title of the book (pp.XX-XX). Publisher. Complete Url or Doi (if available).

Cabezudo, A. (2015). Education for Peace and Human Rights: current pedagogical challenge in Latin America. In Serrano, S., Oswald, Ú., y de la Rúa, D., (Coords.), América Latina en el camino hacia una paz sustentable: herramientas y aportes (pp. 131-142). Response for Peace - FLACSO - CLAIP - CRIM-UNAM. 

Journals: 

o Surname, Initial. (year). Title of the article, Full title of the magazine. Volume (Issue Number), XX-XX. Complete Url or Doi (if available).

Berry, J.W. (1970). Marginality, stress, and ethnic identification in an acculturated Aboriginal community, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 1, 17-22.

Montañes, M. and Ramos-Muslera, E.A. (2012). La paz transformadora: una propuesta para la construcción participativa de paz y la gestión de conflictos desde una perspectiva sociopráxica, Revista de Ciencias Sociales Obets. Vol, 7, N. 2, 241-270. https://doi.org/10.14198/OBETS2012.7.2.04

For other types of documents, please consult the orientation guide of the Complutense University Library, which can be found at the following link: https://biblioguias.ucm.es/estilo-apa-septima/libro

- When several references from the same author are included, it is necessary to indicate the name of the author in each title and not to use dashes.

- Tables, images and diagrams should be included in the text, titled and numbered consecutively according to their category. The title of tables, images and diagrams should be in bold; Example: Table 1. Elements of the conflict structure / Table 2. General components of peace. 

- The works submitted may incorporate a maximum of 5 figures, tables or graphics in total. Each of these must be submitted as a separate file in JPG or PNG format. Its size must be less than 1 Mb.

- Papers must include the following basic elements in the original language of the article (and translated into the second and third languages of the journal - Spanish, English and Portuguese): title, abstract of no more than 200 words, and between 4 and 6 key words separated by a semicolon. If the language of the paper is Spanish, these elements will be included in Spanish, English and Portuguese. 

- For those texts whose language is different from English, an extended abstract in English of between 750 and 1500 words should be sent, in addition to the 150-word abstract, describing, in greater depth, the methods, data, findings and conclusions of the work.

The Latin American Journal of Peace and Conflict Studies is a collaborative project, committed to the open access model, which does not receive any funding for its development. Therefore, it is expected that the first author of each approved article will accept to participate as a reviewer of the journal, committing himself to carry out the evaluation of at least one article or academic essay submitted to the peer review process of the journal, within 3 years from the date of publication of his manuscript.

"Checklist" for preparing submissions
As part of the submission process, authors are required to verify that their submission meets all the elements shown below. Submissions that do not meet these guidelines will be returned to the authors:
- The article communicates the results of original academic research and observes the IMRyDC+B structure: introduction, methodology, results and discussion, conclusions, and updated bibliography.
- The bibliography uses the APA 7 style.
- If the language of the paper is other than English, an extended abstract of between 750 and 1500 words is included in addition to the 150-word abstract.
- The article has not been previously published, does not appear in another published work or about to be published, nor has it been submitted for consideration by any other journal, and the rights to edit, publish, distribute and sell it are available.
- The authors agree not to submit the article for consideration by another publication while it is in the process of being reviewed by the Journal, or subsequently if it is accepted for publication.
- The submission file is in Microsoft Word format (.doc / .docx) .
- The paper includes a list of no more than 40 academic references (60 if it is a theoretical review), trying to include 25% of current references and provides the links -URL or complete DOI- of those references that have them.
- The text is single-spaced; 12 points Times New Roman; quotations are put in quotation marks; the surname(s) of the author(s) referred to in the text are shown in parentheses; words from another language than the one used are in italics; section titles, headings, tables, illustrations and figures are numbered consecutively and written in bold.
- The text is adapted to the corresponding template and to the stylistic and bibliographical requirements contained in the section "guidelines for authors".
- The text has been anonymized before being sent: it does not include the name of the authors or their affiliation, and all acknowledgements, references to funding projects or any other element that could directly or indirectly allow the identification of the author have been deleted (under the heading of *anonymized*).
- All the signatories of the work have contributed significantly to its elaboration and agree with its final result and with its publication, if accepted, in Revista Latinoamericana Estudios de la Paz y el Conflicto.
- The work acknowledges all the authors who have participated in its elaboration. And all those persons and institutions that, having granted their permission for such mention, have contributed substantially to the development of the work, have been mentioned in the section of acknowledgements.
- None of the institutions in which the scientific and research work is carried out have presented any objections to the publication of the manuscript being evaluated.
- The work indicates if it has received economic support for its elaboration.
- The authors have not had, nor do they have, personal or financial relationships that could introduce prejudices and biases in the development or the results of this work.
- The work is free of plagiarism.
- The data used in the article are real and authentic.
- All data and references to materials already published are duly identified with their respective credit and included in the bibliographic notes and in the citations that are highlighted as such and, in the cases that require it, have the due authorizations of those who hold the economic rights.
- The materials are free of copyright and the author is responsible for any litigation or claim related to intellectual property rights, exonerating the Journal from any responsibility.
- The presentation includes the commitment to correct and/or retract any errors detected later.
- Authors will actively participate in the realization of all those style or orthographic modifications that are necessary for the publication of the work when notified by the editorial team of the Journal.
- The authors commit themselves to facilitate, when required by the journal, access to all data and sources on which the work presented is based.
- In case the work is approved for publication, the authors authorize the publishing house to include the text in the Journal and to reproduce, edit, distribute, exhibit, and communicate it in the country and abroad by printed, electronic, CD, Internet, or any other known or unknown means.
- In case the work is approved, the main author commits to participate in the peer review process of the Latin American Journal of Peace and Conflict Studies, making, at least, the evaluation of 1 article or academic essay submitted to the journal, within 3 years from the date of publication of the manuscript itself.

Editorial policy of the journal and evaluation system

1. Ethical principles of publication

The Latin American Journal of Peace and Conflict Studies is a publication committed to the ethical principles of scientific activity in the following terms:

1.1 Publication and authorship

All articles must include a list of references, as well as indicate whether they have received financial support. Papers must be free of plagiarism or scientific fraud, whose assumptions* are not exhaustively listed below:

• Plagiarism: literal copying without quotation marks and citing the source; substantial copying (research materials, processes, tables...); paraphrasing or reproducing ideas without citing the source and/or changing the original meaning; reusing and submitting own texts already published without indicating the source and abusive paraphrasing even when citing the source.
• Scientific fraud: failure to acknowledge all the researchers involved in the preparation of the work, the simultaneous submission to several publications, the division of a work into different parts that share the same hypotheses, population and methods, as well as the use of false or unproven data. Finally, authors must declare potential conflicts of interest to the journal when submitting a paper.

* Source: http://www.ethics.elsevier.com/

1.2 Responsibility of the authors

• Submission of papers to Revista Latinoamericana Estudios de la Paz y el Conflicto implies the reading and acceptance of the journal's editorial and publication guidelines, including participation in an anonymous peer review process.
• All authors who sign a paper must have contributed significantly to its elaboration and must agree with the final result and with the submission of the paper for evaluation.
• Papers must acknowledge all authors who have participated in their preparation. The journal declines any responsibility for possible conflicts arising from the authorship of the papers to be published.
• The data used in the article must be real and authentic.
• Authors assume the obligation to correct and/or retract any errors detected later.
• Works must be unpublished and cannot be submitted simultaneously to any other publication

1.3 Ethical behavior in research and publication

It is the author's obligation to avoid the following dishonest practices in the presentation of their work to be evaluated for publication:

• Fabrication, falsification or omission of data during research.
• Plagiarism: authors are responsible for obtaining the appropriate permissions to partially reproduce material (text, tables or figures) from other publications and to cite the source correctly. These permissions should be requested both from the author and from the publisher who has published the material.
• Redundant publication: this consists of the publication of an article or work that essentially coincides with another already published. This contravenes international laws on copyright, professional ethics and the profitable use of resources.
• False authorship: the list of authors should include only those who have contributed intellectually to the development of the work.
• Conflicts of interest: the journal expects authors to declare any commercial or personal association that may involve a conflict of interest in connection with the submitted text.
• Violation of laws and human or animal rights during the research process.
• Authors should mention, in the methodology section, that the procedures used with the participants have been carried out after obtaining informed consent, when appropriate.
• Authors must have permission for publication from the institution that financed the research, when applicable.

1.4 Review Process

All scientific research articles submitted to Revista Latinoamericana Estudios de la Paz y el Conflicto undergo a peer review process with the following characteristics:

• The selection of reviewers is made according to previous rules and principles based on both their qualifications and the quality of their scientific production.
• The review process is anonymous for both authors and reviewers. Articles and their reviews are treated confidentially.
• The reviewers consider, among their evaluation criteria, respect for the essential ethical principles in scientific research and compliance with the editorial standards of the Journal, as well as perform an initial plagiarism check that is subsequently complemented by the Technical Secretariat through the use of Identicate plagiarism software.
• The judgments expressed in the reviews must be objective.
• Both authors and reviewers must disclose relationships and sources of funding that may generate potential conflicts of interest.

1.5 Responsibilities of the editors

• The Editorial Commitee has the responsibility and authority to accept or reject an article based on the reviews submitted by the peers; being the Direction of the Journal together with the General Secretariat of the same who holds the power of final acceptance or rejection.
• The Editorial Commitee will disclose any relationships or sources of funding that could potentially be considered conflicts of interest with respect to the articles it rejects or accepts.
• Only articles in which there is certain evidence of compliance with editorial standards will be accepted.
• The Editorial Commitee reserves the right to withdraw any work received, accepted or already published in case of plagiarism, falsification or duplicate publication, as well as the various cases of scientific fraud listed above.  Likewise, it will promote the publication of corrections, errata, or retractions in the event of errors detected.
• The Editorial Commitee is committed to preserving the anonymity of the reviewers so that they can never be associated with the articles reviewed.

1.6 Ethical publishing guidelines

The Editorial Board is committed to:

• To monitor and preserve the ethical principles of publication.
• Maintain the integrity of the academic record.
• Avoid publication of plagiarized or fraudulently prepared material.
• To be open to the publication of corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies whenever necessary.
• Offer support in the process of retraction of articles.
• To take all necessary actions to comply with the standards of intellectual and ethical commitment.

1.7 About authorship and contribution in the papers

Only persons who have made substantial contributions to the research process (conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data), development of the article (drafting or critical revision as to the important intellectual content), and approval (of the final version of the article before sending it for publication) should appear as authors or co-authors in the submitted papers.

The number of authors of the paper should be justified by the subject, its complexity and its length. The order of signature, to which all authors must agree, will be that of the degree of contribution.

1.8 Conflicts of interest

Authors must expressly state any personal or economic ties that may be likely to influence the conclusions of an original, or otherwise declare the non-existence of a conflict of interest. The Editorial Board will evaluate the information provided and will decide on the acceptance of the manuscript.

The persons in charge of the evaluation must reject proposals for review of articles if there is a conflict of interest due to any type of affinity, contractual or direct collaboration relationship. During the evaluation procedure, they must expressly declare the non-existence of a conflict of interest.

1.9 Reports of malpractice, retractions and corrections

Any person may contact the journal to report possible cases of malpractice, plagiarism, falsification of data, etc., of articles published in the journal. The editorial board will investigate the matter, give the authors 10 days to present their allegations and decide on the matter. If malpractice is found, the files corresponding to the article will be withdrawn from the issue in which they were published, and this circumstance will be expressly stated. The Editorial Board will at all times facilitate the publication of retractions for any of the above reasons or for unintentional errors.

In the event that serious errors are discovered in articles already published by those responsible for them, they shall inform the Editorial Team, which may consider the publication of an erratum to accompany the article. Errata will not be considered serious and, therefore, will not be published in the case of spelling or grammatical errors.

1.10 Complaints and suggestions

Any person may submit a complaint or suggestion by e-mail to the main contact person of the journal, who will forward it to the Editorial Board for study and resolution, informing the person concerned.

2. Evaluation system for scientific articles and academic essays

The evaluation system for original papers is developed as follows:

Phase 1. Receipt of the original via e-mail revistapaz@unah.edu.hn, signing of the assignment of rights document in order to be published in the journal under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (CC BY 4.0), and generation of acknowledgement of receipt.

Phase 2. Anonymization of the article. The Technical Secretariat verifies the anonymization of the submitted work and, if necessary, proceeds to its adaptation. Subsequently, it processes the inclusion in the evaluation system and the work proceeds to the next phase (phase 3).

Phase 3. Thematic classification of the article (UNESCO). The Technical Secretariat verifies that the work complies with the required editorial standards and fits the thematic scope of the journal. If this is not the case, the work is not accepted. If it complies with the required standards and is considered pertinent, the work proceeds to the next phase (phase 4).

Phase 4. Review of formal and stylistic aspects. The Technical Secretariat and at least one member of the Editorial Committee carry out a general evaluation of the formal and stylistic aspects of the text. Subsequently, the author is notified and returned in case of errors. If the evaluation is positive, the paper proceeds to the next phase (phase 5).

Phase 5. Double-blind review by two external peer reviewers, according to scientific quality criteria. In case of need, due to disparate judgment, the Editorial Board requests the contribution of a third evaluator.

The evaluation rubric includes:

• Assessment of the originality and scientific contribution of the work.
• Assessment of the clarity and coherence between objectives, hypotheses, methodologies and conclusions of the work.
• Assessment of the relevance and updating of the bibliography.
• Assessment of formal aspects (writing, citations, organization of the text, tables, graphs, etc.).
• Final recommendation on the work and, where appropriate, suggestions for modification or reasons for non-publication.

Phase 6. Sending the review report to the author with the corresponding decision:

• a) acceptance without changes.
• b) acceptance pending rectifications.
• c) rejection.

The peer reviewers send the rubric to the Editorial Committee of the journal through the Web platform or e-mail within a maximum period of 6 months from receipt of the article. The evaluation process is carried out over a period of four to six months. As the journal is a biannual publication, once an article is accepted, the final publication may take up to 6 more months.

If the article is accepted for publication, the journal requests the non-anonymized version, including the author's full name, institutional affiliation, contact e-mail address and ORCID, together with any modifications required after the review process. Subsequently, the DOI is registered before final publication in the corresponding issue.

At least 3 different external reviewers participate as peer reviewers in each issue of the journal.