Guidelines for authors

Guidelines for authors

The Revista Perspectivas: Estudios Sociales y Educación Cívica is a biannual publication dedicated to the study of the didactics of social sciences, didactics of history or geography, and debates regarding the formation of critical citizenship and teaching of social justice. The introductions of articles submitted to the journal must include the objective of the article, as well as its theoretical background, the methodology used, and the conclusions reached.

The Revista Perspectivas: Estudios Sociales y Educación Cívica uses the citation and referencing system of the American Psychological Association (APA), 7th edition, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000. In addition to the original manual, we recommend consulting the following APA style guides:

Standards for publication

To be received and approved for submission to the peer review process, proposals must comply, without exception, with all the basic standards detailed here. If plagiarism or any other practice that contradicts the code of ethics of Revista Perspectivas: Estudios Sociales y Educación Cívica is found, the proposal will be rejected.

The works must be original and unpublished. The authors whose proposals are approved to be submitted to the formal review process must sign the Letter granting rights for publication. It is the exclusive responsibility of the authors to obtain the respective permissions for the reproduction of any work, either from the copyright holders or from the institutions which have custody over the material.

Proposals are sent in Word format (compatibility mode 97-2004) to the e-mail: r.perspectivas@una.ac.cr.

The length of refereed and non-refereed articles can vary between 5,000 and 8,000 words.

The author’s name and surnames must be indicated below the title of the article, in italics. The following information, in the indicated order, must be specified as a footnote, using an asterisk (*): 

  • Highest title or academic degree, as well as the institution of higher learning in which it was obtained, its respective acronym and the country. For example: Magister Scientiae in History from the Universidad Nacional (UNA), Sede Central «Omar Dengo » Heredia, Costa Rica.
  • Institutional affiliation: current academic position and institution. The country and official name of the institution must be specified – together with its respective acronym and the country – as well as the department in which the author is affiliated. If the author does not have any affiliation, he or she must indicate that they are an independent researcher or some equivalent position. For example: Teacher and researcher at the School of History of the Universidad Nacional (UNA), Omar Dengo campus, Heredia, Costa Rica.
  • E-mail (preferably institutional).
  • Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier (RCID): to publish in the journal each author must include his or her link their Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier. If you do not have an ORCID, you can register for an account at the following link: https://orcid.org/signin.

All proposals must contain:

  • Article title in Spanish, English and Portuguese.
  • Abstract (maximum 150 words, minimum 100) in Spanish, English and Portuguese.
  • Six keywords in Spanish, English and Portuguese, standardized to terms in the UNESCO Thesaurus.
  • Social Studies will always be a keyword phrase by default.

Types of citations:

The references section must only include the sources cited in the text, arranged alphabetically and formatted with hanging indentation.

Quotations of less than 40 words must be written within the paragraph, with quotation marks and without italics. 

Example:

«Historical thinking is understood as a series of specific cognitive operations needed to carefully interpret the past» (Duquette, 2015, p. 52).

Another way within the paragraph would be:

Plá (2005), for his part, conducted an investigation in which he emphasized the narrative of high school students to subjectivize the past and characterize historical thought. For this author, thinking historically is «the action of signifying the past through the deliberate use of strategies created by historians such as historical time, causality, objectivity, intertextuality and is represented in a particular scriptural form» (p. 16).

Quotations of more than 40 words: they are written separately from the paragraph, indented to the left throughout the paragraph and without quotation marks. The font size and line spacing of the article are preserved. The period is placed before the final parenthesis.

Example:

Duquette (2015), based on the reflection of authors such as Laville and Martineau, defines historical thought:

Historical thinking is understood as a series of specific cognitive operations needed to carefully interpret the past. It consists of two main elements: a historical perspective and historical method. In particular, a historical perspective is understood as the framework guiding the interpretation of past events (…) The historical method, in turn, refers to a deductive approach that requires students to question the past, propose a hypothesis, check the available sources, and analyze sources with respect to their reliability in order to offer a response to the initial question. (p. 52)

As the Javeriano Writing Center (2020) explains, “In paraphrasing, the ideas of another author are used, but in the writer’s own words, which implies a reworking of the information that transcends the use of synonyms” (p. 15) .

Example:

Despite the previous proposals, and existing works and research, many obstacles exist for teachers when applying the methodological principles of historical thought in their classes. Lévesque (2008) affirms that the challenges of historical thought are: a) the diversification of history, the increase of social knowledge on topics such as the history of women and migrants; b) the cognitive revolution, which recognizes that learning is not a mechanical process; c) the professionalization of teachers, especially work that is done in universities on issues such as teaching practices.

Notes or explanations included in a verbatim quotation are enclosed in square brackets [ ], without italics. To indicate that the quote is fragmented, breaks in the original text are indicated using parentheses and ellipses, as follows: (...)

 If words, sentences or expressions are included in a short verbatim quotation enclosed in Latin quotation marks (« »), double quotation marks (“ ”) must be used to distinguish them from the quotation marks that enclose the entire quotation. 

Example:

As Geertz (2006) explains, «Having ritually “jumped” the image may be too athletic to describe the facts and the verb “slide” might be more exact – to the spheres of meanings (…)» (p. 115 ).

Other specifications

It is recommended to comply with the provisions of the Real Academia Española and the Fundéu BBVA (Fundación del Español Urgente) for standardized use of the Spanish language.

Proposals must be submitted in a 12 point Times New Roman font, with a spacing of 1.5 lines. The sources and notes of the figures and tables must be written using a font size of 10 points.

No page or section breaks should be included anywhere in the text. 

The title of the article must be centered, in lowercase and in bold. There is no period at the end of a title. The English translation of the title is written beneath it.

Subtitles are written in lowercase and bold, aligned to the left and with consecutive numbering. There is no period at the end of these. A maximum of four levels are allowed, each with its own format. Example:

 Subtitle 1

              Subtitle 2

                         Subtitle 3:

                                        Subtitle 4:

After the end of a paragraph, an indentation in the first line of the next paragraph should always be used.

After exclamation points or question marks, a period must not be used.

With the exception of years, periods and parenthetical citations, parentheses should not be used to include explanations within the text, but rather the em dash or line: —...—

Except for the title and subtitles, all text must be justified.

Tables and figures

In addition to being included in the article, graphs, charts and tables must be submitted separately in an Excel file.

Illustrations —maps, graphics, drawings, photographs, etc.— must be presented in 300 dots per inch (dpi) or 1600x1200 pixel resolution. If submitted in vector format, they must come as eps, ai, psd or xcf files. If they are in bitmap format, the file may be in tiff, jpg, psd or eps format.

Illustrations, maps, tables, graphics, photographs and other iconographic material are numbered separately with Arabic numerals.

In the text, mention of illustrations and tables should be made using capital letters and Arabic numerals. For example: Figure 5, Table 1.

The designation «figure» or «table» is placed above them, aligned to the left, in bold 12 point font without a final period, while titles are written below them, without bold, with italics and a final period. Titles must be clear and concise. In addition, at the foot of the Tables and Figures, the source must be indicated by the designation Note, without bold, in italics, with a period and font size.

Examples:

The comma is used for decimals and the space for thousands. Examples: 22,5%; 70 000.

 

Format for bibliographic references

Book: one author

Schiro, M. (2013). Curriculum Theory: Conflicting Visions and Enduring Concerns. SAGE Publications.

Book: several authors

Sterns, P., Seixas, P. & Wineburg, S. (2000). Knowing teaching and learning History. National and International Perspectives. New York University Press.

Chapter of a book

Pagès, J. (2008). Formar profesores de historia en España: cuando Clío se resiste al cambio. El caso de la Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona. En: Zamboni, E. & Fonseca, G. (orgs.), Espaços de formação de professor de historia (pp. 45-76). Papirus Editor

Thesis

Zarate, N. (2012). Estudio psicogenético sobre las nociones de espacio y tiempo en el aprendizaje comprensivo de la Historia en jóvenes de colegio [tesis doctoral]. Doctorado Latinoamericano en Educación. Universidad Estatal a Distancia, Costa Rica.

Presentations and conferences

Ramírez, J. (2011). Encontrando mi espacio: movilización y vivencias de las mujeres de los sectores urbano-populares de San José, Costa Rica (1950- 1980) [ponencia]. Jornadas de Estudios Urbanos, Género y Feminismo, Universidad Politécnica de Barcelona, España.

Journal article without DOI or URL

Rusen, J. (2007). How to Make Sense of the Past–Salient Issues of Metahistory. The Journal of Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa, 3(1), 169-221.

Journal article: no volume

Gonzalez, B.M. (2018). Las estrategias educativas para la formación ciudadana según su alcance y sentido. Revista Perspectivas: Estudios Sociales y Educación Cívica, (17), 1-18. https://doi.org/10.15359/rp.17.3.

Journal article: with volume

Pacievitch, C. (2014). Utopia e responsabilidade docente: formação de professores de história. Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Educativos, 10(1), 87-112.

Article with DOI, URL or URI

Lopez, M. (2018). La enseñanza de la Historia en Costa Rica: un acercamiento desde los planes de la carrera de Estudios Sociales en la Universidad Nacional (1979-2005). Revista Perspectivas: Estudios Sociales y Educación Cívica, (16), 1-22. https://doi.org/10.15359/rp.16.2.

Copyright management

For all its purposes, the provisions of the Law on Copyright and Related Rights No. 6683, decreed by the Legislative Assembly of the Republic of Costa Rica, are complied with. For more information, consult:

Campos Flores, Y. B. & Céspedes Alfaro, C. M. (2014). Guardián intelectual: guía sobre formas de protección de la propiedad intelectual. San José, Costa Rica: Vicerrectoría de Investigación, Universidad de Costa Rica. http://www.proinnova.ucr.ac.cr/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Guardián-Intelectual-1.pdf.

It is the exclusive responsibility of the authors to obtain appropriate permissions to use, reproduce, create derivative works or adaptations of any work under intellectual property, either from the custodians of the rights —copyright— or from the institutions in charge of the custody of the material.

Duration of intellectual property rights. According to Campos Flores and Céspedes Alfaro (2014): «Moral rights are perpetual. As for property rights, in Costa Rica they are protected for the life of the author and up to 70 years after his or her death. Other terms exist, such as 80 or 100 years, depending on the country’s legislation. Once this period expires, the work enters the public domain» (p. 15).

Important! It is not true that any image or photograph available on any website may be quoted or used without the consent of the copyright holder.

Works in the public domain or under Creative Commons (CC) licenses do not require authorization for their use. However, it is always mandatory to indicate their origins, authors, names or titles, dates of creation, modification or reproduction and other necessary data that allow them to be identified and inform the reader.

About the origin of works. In the first place, the authors must ensure that the works consulted and cited come from their place of origin. For example, the use of photographs taken from a certain social network is considered bad practice and inappropriate, assuming, a priori, the Web address of the site as the supposed source and/or original origin of the work. In these cases, the authors must find out if it is a legal reproduction, if the person or institution that shared it by electronic means has the corresponding permission or, failing that, if it exists, contact the authentic custodian of copyright or intellectual property right to request permission to use or reuse as the case may be.

Authors must abide by the requirements of the different types of Creative Commons licenses when the works they cite or use are under such licenses.

Source: Marko Txopitea “Txopi,” https://ikusimakusi.eus/2018/cc-traffic-light-3-0/, July 22, 2018. Available under license CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication.

 Note: Creative Commons semaphore. The symbol (C) refers to the most restrictive (and frequent) copyright licenses. The inverted symbol (C) refers to copyleft. The symbol (C) crossed out refers to anticopyright. The (CC) symbol refers to the scope covered by Creative Commons. The green seal refers to open cultural works.

References

 https://www.ucentral.edu.co/sites/default/files/inline-files/guia-normas-apa-7-ed-2020-08-12.pdf.