Author Guidelines

1) GENERAL INFORMATION BEFORE PREPARING AND SUBMITTING THE MANUSCRIPT 

1.1.- Type of manuscripts

The Spanish Journal of Health Communication (RECS from now on) publishes original works, updates and / or reviews, clinical cases, perspectives, editorials, letters to the editor, articles of special reports and articles written in Spanish, English or Portuguese and referrals to all scientific aspects or of special socio-health relevance related to communication in the field of health. 

1.2.- Commitment of authors

The authors accept the following commitments when a manuscript to this journal is submitted.

• The person submitting the manuscript acts in representation of all authors.
• Neither the manuscript nor any version or translation of it has been published in any other media or journal.
• The manuscript has not been submitted to any other publication or journal, and will not be sent during the process of evaluation in RECS.

Breach of any of these commitments will result in the automatic removal of the manuscript.

1.3.- Ethics and Malpractice Statements

We work on adhering to international publication ethics and publication malpractice statement (composed using the Publishing ethics resource kit and in compliance with Elsevier recommendations).

In addition, authors should specify on the first page of the manuscript whether or not there is a conflict of interest, and, if so, describe the manuscript (if not stated, they will be considered as non-existent), as well as sources of work funding of public (and / or private) research agencies or foundations. 

1.4. APC – Article processing charges

There are no article processing and submission charges. Publising in RECS is open access and free for all authors.

2) PREPARATION OF THE MANUSCRIPT FOR SUBMISSION.

2.1. Presentation format.

- Language: Manuscripts may be submitted in Spanish, English, or Portuguese.

- Journal style for manuscripts: APA style, from Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th edition, 2010 (http://www.apastyle.org/)

- Style for empirical manuscripts: The authors of empirical work must follow the recommendations in Statistical Methods in Psychology Journals: Guidelines and Explanations, by Wilkinson and the APA Task Force on Statistical Inference, published in the journal American Psychologist (1999, 54,594-604) which is available on https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/amp-54-8-594.pdf. They must report confidence intervals and measures of effect size for all statistical results

- Digital format: The paper will be sent for evaluation in Microsoft Word for Windows.

- Maximum length of work: It will depend on the type of work. The maximum length in each of the sections is specified below.

- Number of files: Three files must be created: the manuscript (without evidence of authors or affiliations), and two complementary files: cover letter to the Editor, and first page file (name of authors, affiliation, number of words, number of pages, corresponding author, phone, and three reviewers including name and surname, place of work and contact email).

2.2.- Structure and organization of the manuscripts

Each manuscript submitted to Spanish Journal of Health Communication must have a specific structure. Manuscripts that do not meet these conditions will be returned directly to the authors without possibility of continuing the review process.

Originals. - This type of work should consist of the following sections: Introduction, Methods (Design, Participants, Instruments, Procedure and Statistical Analysis), Results, Discussion, Conclusions and References. The tables and figures will follow the format APA and will be presented in separate pages at the end of the text after the references, indicating in the text its possible location. The maximum length will not exceed 30 pages or 8000 words. It is important to include the maximum number of tables and figures. A maximum of 6 is recommended, including both tables and figures. 

Brief Originals. - This section will consider the research works which, due to their special characteristics (series with a reduced number of observations, research work with a specific objective and results, etc.) can be published in a shorter and faster way. These papers should have a maximum length of 8 pages or 4500 words, with a maximum of 20 references and no more than three tables or charts. The maximum number of signatories shall be six. Each work should be structured as an original article.

Systematic reviews. - A systematic review is a synthesis of the research on a particular aspect of the journal subject that is topical and on which there is enough qualitative or quantitative information to carry out the review. The structure of a paper should be: Introduction, Method (Criteria for selecting studies, procedures for searching for studies, and coding of variables), Results, Discussion and Conclusions, and References. The references used directly to carry out the review will be marked with an asterisk (*) in the list of references. In case the systematic review is of psychometric properties of some test or psychological scale whose use is relatively high in the psychological practice, the work can include a study of the quality of its psychometric properties with an ad hoc scale built for this study or any other procedure. The maximum length will not exceed 30 pages or 8000 words.

Clinical cases. - RECS may publish clinical cases. These works will deal with the description of one or more cases that are due to their interest due to their special contribution to scientific knowledge or their strangeness, among other reasons. These papers should have a maximum length of 8 pages or 4500 words, with a maximum of 20 references and no more than three tables or charts.

Perspectives. - Articles that, at the discretion or express invitation of the Editorial Committee, develop novel aspects, trends or criteria, so that they can be a link between research results, health professionals and the scientific society. These papers should have a maximum length of 8 pages or 4500 words, with a maximum of 20 references and no more than three tables or charts.

Editorials. - Articles written at the request of the Editorial Team on topics of interest or topicality.

Letters to the Director. - Observations or scientific or opinion comments on works recently published in the journal or that are a cause of high relevance.

Recensio articles.- Comments on books of interest or recent publication. Generally, at the request of the Editorial Team, but also those sent spontaneously may be considered. These papers should have a maximum length of 8 pages or 3000 words, with a maximum of 15 references and no more than three tables or charts.

Special issue articles.- The Editorial Team may order for this section, research work, training or opinion that it considered of special relevance. Those authors that would like to collaborate in this section should request it previously to the Editorial Team, sending a brief summary and personal considerations on the content and importance of the subject.

In all cases, the maximum number of words includes: First page + Manuscript + References.

2.3.- Previous changes in manuscript file, before uploading to journal website

Fit the manuscript to specific format and style of the journal.

The first page should appear left justified:

- The job title (lowercase except the first letter, without italics or bold)

- No authors or filiation data should appear as this version will be the one revised by the reviewers.

- An abstract (not exceeding 150-200 words) and its equivalent (summary) in Spanish. The abstract should be structured including the name of the different sections in bold and followed by a colon: Introduction, Objectives, Methodology, Results, Conclusion / Introducción, Objetivos, Metodología, Resultados, Conclusión.

- Between 4 and 8 keywords, separated by a semicolon. The abstract in Spanish must contain the same keywords (Palabras Clave) translated to Spanish. To maximize the visibility of the study, authors must be very careful in choosing keywords, in such a way that keywords must appear in the title, abstract, and the text of the study. This will facilitate the search for the study in the usual search engines.

In the text:

• The titles or headings are not numbered. The first level (Introduction, Methods, Result, Discussion, Conclusions and References) will be justified to the left and in bold). The second level (Participants, Procedure, etc.) will be indented 1 cm, in bold. The third level are indented 1 cm, in italics.

• The text is preferably in size 12 Arial narrow, 1.5 spacing with no space before and after. Before and after each title there is a space.

• Notes should preferably include footnotes. Only in justified cases will the end of the text, before the list of references.

Tables and figures:

Tables and figures, and their corresponding titles and legends, will be presented on separate pages after references. They will be numbered in sequential order from 1 and must always quote the immediately preceding text, with uppercase t and f in the first letter of Table or Figure (e.g., Table 1, Figure 1, …).

The title of the table must be written above. The title of the figure must be written below the figure. Tables should follow APA style (no visible vertical lines).

References

All references are inserted in the text (not footnotes) and alphabetically arranged at the end under the heading "References." All appointments will be subject to the rules of the American Psychological Association (APA) in its Publication Manual (6th ed., Washington, 2010). These rules must be followed precisely and the originals will be returned for corrections if all are not met.

 Fit the manuscript and PDF file for peer review. – Delete any information that can identify the authors.

Create three complementary files:

a) Letter to editor. A model could be:

Editor of the Spanish Journal of health Communication:

I am enclosing the manuscript entitled "............ .."which are authors xxxx, xxxx, xxxx, [center or institution] [city and country]

The manuscript is about .................. [in a few lines, main original contribution]

We want to state that:

1st. All authors of this research have participated in the design, execution and analysis of results.

2nd. All authors have read and approved the manuscript version we sent you.

3rd. All authors have read and accepted the Instructions to Authors of the journal.

4th. The content of the manuscript is original and is not subject to review by any other journal. Likewise, its content is not subject to copyright by any publication or published elsewhere.

5th. The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare related to the manuscript.

6th. If the study so requires, the ethics committees of the participating institutions have authorized the procedure followed in this study and all subjects were informed participants to obtain their consent.

7th. The research was conducted at [location or facility where there has been]

8th. If the manuscript is accepted, we transfer all copyrights to RECS, with contents and opinions expressed in the manuscript being the authors´ responsibility.

Thank you for considering the evaluation of the manuscript and I remain at your disposal for any comments or concerns.

Yours Faithfully,

[Authors]

 b) File with identification data of the manuscript: A pdf file with the title, authors (full name and surname), contact address, and acknowledgments,). We will later how to upload it to the web.

c) Manuscript with the previously mentioned specifications.

3. ONLINE SUBMISSIONS FOR ORIGINAL WORK TO THE JOURNAL SITE

All authors must submit articles via e-mail to recs @uc3m.es.

Please note that all correspondence regarding articles publishing should be sent to recs@uc3m.es, provided that it is not possible to perform this through the platform.

If you are experiencing problems using this email, please address (or fax) to:

Daniel Catalán Matamoros.- Editor-in-Chief (RECS)

University Carlos III of Madrid

Department of Journalism and Audiovisual Communication

Office 18.2.E22

28903 Getafe(Madrid) España

Fax?

4. PROCESS OF EVALUATION AND FOLLOW-UP OF ORIGINAL ARTICLES

Auto reply and submission to reviewers: 

RECS´ web system generates the auto reply. From that moment on, the editorial team should proceed to review format, style and editorial policies, being returned to the author if the manuscript needs to be improved or due to be refused. Those works failing to comply with the rules of APA Style must be given back to the author immediately after their review. Authors are fully responsible for ensuring the accomplishment of the above-mentioned rules and, therefore, the journal will not specify the ones being unfulfilled. Once the manuscript has been modified by the author, it can be re-evaluated until rules have been achieved.  When this stage is surpassed, the manucript will be submitted to external  reviewers who volunteer their expertise within the relevant field and methodology, if they are empirical works, and may be returned to the author to be improved or refused.

Review Methods

The Editorial Team selects external reviewers to the journal who must issue a proposal regarding the convenience or not for publishing and, when necessary, they should suggest the accurate changes (once their work has been finished, they receive a certificate). This journal uses double-blind review (both the reviewer and the author are anonymous), being a member of the Editorial Team responsible for acting as a point of contact between authors and reviewers. If the manuscript is accepted to be reviewed, the final report will be issued within 5 months.

Review Results

The result of the peer review process can be:

a)     Acceptance of the article;

b)    conditional acceptance (publishable if changes are provided by authors);

c)     reevaluation (changes and new review required);

d)    rejection (the manuscript is not publishable).

The appropriate report must be sent to authors by email with the necessary reasonable justification. If any correction is required, the author has a three-months deadline to modify what is needed. If there is no answer before the closing date, this submission will be refused and archived. In case of approval, an acceptance certificate will be issued to authors being  published according to the journal calendar.

Follow-up of the process

Authors may follow the evaluation process of their articles on the journal website (OJS system with user and password in http: //www.uc3m.es/recs).

Publishing and article offprints

Before submitting the accepted article to the printer, authors should receive the preliminary version from the printing house (galley proof) to carry out the  last misprints’correction. Once the article is published, authors can get an offsprint on the journal website’s edition.

5. REFERENCE LIST CITATIONS

Sources used to prepare the manuscript must be cited.

When citing an article with just one author, last name and publishing year are used within parentheses and separated by a comma.

e.g. En un reciente estudio acerca del impacto de la industria de la telenovela en Latinoamérica (Mazziotti, 1996) se dice que…

If the author’s name has been previously mentioned in the text, only the publishing year should be used within parentheses.

e.g. Nora Mazziotti (1996) afirma que en América Latina…

When citing an article with two authors, both of them should be mentioned every time the reference appears in the text.

e.g. La soledad está inversamente relacionada con la competencia comunicativa (Reinking & Bell, 1991)

When citing an article with less than six authors, all of them should be mentioned for the first time. From then on, only the name of the first author followed by “et al.”and the year should be used.

e.g. Los comportamientos indeseables dentro del aula de clase han sido estudiados (Kearney, Plax, Hays, & Ivey, 1991)

Los comportamientos indeseables en el aula son tres: incompetencia, indolencia y irreverencia (Kearney et al., 1991)

When citing an article with more than six authors, last name of the first author followed by “et al.” and year are only used.

e.g. .: La aprehensión de la comunicación tiene muchas ramificaciones (McCroskey et al., 1981)

When including direct quotations or a specific part of the source is mentioned, the page number(s) must follow the year.

e.g. "La falta de éxito en la carrera podría bajar el valor del hombre en las relaciones de trabajo" (Reinking & Bell, 1991: 368).

References of published material, films and oral communications

Encyclopedia articles

e.g. Begman, P. G. (1993). Relativity. In The new encyclopedia Britannica (Vol. 26, pp. 501-508). Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica.

If the author´s name is not included in the article,  reference should begin with the article title followed by the publishing date in parentheses.

Newspaper article with one author and discontinuous pagination

e.g. Schwartz, J. (1993, September 30). Obesity affects economic, social status. The Washington Post, pp. A1, A4.

If the article is unsigned, reference should begin with the article title and publishing date.

Journal article or periodical publication

Basic format

Author/Editor. (Publishing year). Title of the article: Article subtltle.

Name of the journal or periodical publication, Volume, (Number), pages.

One author

e.g. Lacayo, R. (22 de abril de 1991). Global warming: A new warning. Time, 137, 32.

Two authors

e.g. Stacks, D. W., & Hickson, M. (1991). The communication investigator: Teaching research methods to undergraduates. Communication Quarterly, 39 (3), 351-357.

Book with author and book with editors

Basic format

Author/Editor. (Publishing date). Title: Subtltle. (Edition). Place of publication: Publishing house

Book with one author

e.g. Buss, A. H. (1980). Self-consciousness and social anxiety. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman

Book with two editors

e.g. Chickering, A. W., & Smith, L. E. (Eds.), (1981). The modern American college: Responding to the new realities of diverse students and a changing society. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

Article with two authors in an edited book

e.g. Good, T. L., & Brophy, J. E. (1986). School effects. In M. C. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (3era. Ed., pp. 570-602). New York: Macmillan.

Unpublished article presented at Congress

e.g. McCornack, S. A. (1988, mayo). When lovers become leery: The lie-bias of suspicion. Artículo presentado en la reunión anual de la International Communication Association, New Orleans, LA.

Unpublished doctoral dissertation

e.g. Wilfley, D. E. (1989). Interpersonal analysis of bulimia: Normal-weight and obese. Tesis de doctorado inédita, University of Missouri, Columbia.

Article at congress proceedings

e.g. Brock, D. (1981). New public broadcasting programs and services. In J. Brown (Ed.),Technology and education: Policy, implementation, evaluation. Proceedings of the National Conference on Technology and Education, enero 26-28, (pp. 30-59). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Film

e.g. Lehman, E. (Productor), & Nichols, M. (Director). (1966). Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf? [Película]. Burbank, CA: Warner Brothers.

Video/DVD

e.g. Kurosawa, A. (Director). (1950). Rashomon [cassette de video]. Embassy, 1986.

TV Programme

e.g. Crystal, L. (1993, octubre 11). The MacNeil/Lehrer news hour. New York and Washington, DC: Public Broadcasting Service.

Personal conversations, letters, conversations,etc. (Live Sources)

Unpublished communications shouldn’t be included in reference lists as they cannot be consulted by readers. That´s why they are only mentioned  in the text of the work being developed. It’is required to include the person providing information, setting and date, close to the quotation.

e.g. .: La pertinencia y gravedad de la situación hacen necesario el uso de medidas extremas de aplicación inmediata. (M. Serrano, conversación telefónica, Junio 29, 2000).

Moreover, information obtained through personal conversations and recorded interviews can be used as a reference.  If information has been obtained by email, it will be cited as follows:

e.g. No hay seguridad de que la tendencia se mantenga a lo largo del tiempo. (H. García, comunicación personal, correo-e, Junio 22, 2002).

Electronic material

World Wide Web (WWW) and electronic texts

e.g. Pellegrino, Joseph. (1998, 16 de diciembre) World Poetry Audio Library. [Homepage]. Consultado el día 4 de octubre de 1999 de la World Wide Web: http://www.english.eku.edu/pellegrino/default.htm

* Write “No Date” when there is no available date.

Encyclopedia article

e.g. Daniel, R. T. (1995). The history of Western music. En Britannica online: Macropaedia [Online]. Disponible: http://www.eb.com:180/cgi-bin/g:DocF=macro /5004/45/0.html [1995, junio 14].

Unsigned article of an enciclopedia

eg. Bosnia and Hercegovina. (1995). Academic American Encyclopedia [Online]. Available: Dow Jones News Retrieval Service/ENCYC [1995, junio 5].

Periodical publication

e.g. Kutner, L. A. (1994). Healers from the deep [Resumen], American Health, 5 (11), [Online]. Available: OCLC FirstSearch/MEDLINE/95-1847365 [1995, junio 13].

Discussion lists

e.g. RRECOME. (1995, abril 1). Top ten rules of film criticism. Discussions on All Forms of Cinema [Online]. Disponible E-mail: CINEMA-L@american.edu [1995, abril 1].

personal emails

e.g. Day, Martha (MDAY@sage.uvm.edu). (1995, julio 30). Crítica de película - Bad Lieutenant. E-mail a Xia Li (XLI@moose.uvm.edu).

Video and audio files

e.g. Edwards, J. y Lowery, J. (Productores y directores). (s.f.) Meditation [Video en línea]. Disponible: http://www.spiritweb.org/Spirit/audiovideo-archive-topic-yoga.html [Consulta: 1998, Febrero 20].

US Enviromental Protection Agency. (1997). Ozono: Double trouble [Video en línea]. Disponible: http://www.epa.gov/oar/oaqps/ozvideo/ozone288full.htm [Consulta: 1998, Febrero 21].

NASA. (1997). Briefing on phase III of Lunar-Mars life support test project [Audio en línea]. Disponible: http://www.nasa.gov/sts-85/images/ [Consulta: 1998, Marzo 2].

Photos and graphic designs

e.g. Ministerio del Ambiente. Servicio Autónomo de Geografía y Cartografía Nacional (1995). Mapa físico de la República de Venezuela [Mapa a escala 1:600.000]. Caracas: Autor.

Pillsbury, H. y Johns, M. (1988). Sinusitis [Serie de 54 Diapositivas con guía]. Washington, DC: American Academy of Otolaryngology.

González, F. (1997). Vivienda piaroa [Fotografía]. En Atlas Práctico de Venezuela: Amazonas (No. 2, p. 9). Caracas: El Nacional/Cartografía Nacional.

Artistic, technological and cultural objects

e.g. Van Gogh, V. (1888). Entrance to the publics gardens in Arles [Pintura]. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Barrios, A. (1952). Mural [Mosaico]. Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela.

Cirigliano, Z. y Morales, M. (Coords.). (1997). Apoyos para la enseñanza en matemáticas y ciencias naturales en la Primera Etapa de Educación Básica. [Materiales y juegos educativos]. (Disponible: Departamento de Educación Integral, Escuela de Educación, Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, Caracas).

Recommendations for an inclusive and non-sexist language

Inclusive language

RECS is committed to precise, unbiased and intersectional research, that is, sensitive to the complexity and breadth of cultural, biological, economic and social contexts. For this reason, it is essential that RECS use an inclusive language free of prejudices associated with race, functional diversity, gender, sexual orientation, beliefs, ideology or socioeconomic status.

Thus, it is inappropriate to offer information about people that is irrelevant to the study. Similarly, it is inappropriate to ignore the differences and specific characteristics of the subjects when they exist.

The use of labels to designate a group of people, as if it were a group alien to society, is also inappropriate insofar as this contributes to perpetuating stereotypes. Therefore, all those expressions that suppose the stigmatization or discrimination of groups of people will be avoided.

The negative meaning in condescending expressions and terminology is, in the specific case of people with functional diversity, a trend that should be avoided. Regarding race, comparisons between groups, essentialisms or references to «minorities» are discouraged and inappropriate.

Non-sexist language

RECS recommends the use of non-sexist language in all texts submitted for publication.

RECS is aware that not all texts are equally viable to adapt certain linguistic formulas to the demands of an egalitarian language, so we trust in the care of the content in favor of equality beyond merely morphological aspects. However, given that language has resources and mechanisms to express what it wants to say, «whoever produces the message can choose between several formulations to express themselves in an inclusive and non-sexist way, so that language is an instrument for change» (Guía para un lenguaje no sexista de la lengua, UAM, 2019: 9).

Thus, although the Real Academia Española (Royal Spanish Academy) recognizes the masculine as a non-marked gender for collective mentions, more and more formulas are demanded that make the role of women and non-binary people visible. This does not mean that the use of the generic masculine is inappropriate or always discriminatory. Its use is perfectly valid and moves away from a sexist interpretation if, for example, we also name the person or persons referred to with the term.

RECS is therefore committed to inclusive linguistic formulas, which can be used as long as they do not modify the meaning of the expression. One of the keys to detecting whether a word or expression could imply sexism is to submit it to the so-called inversion rule, which consists of replacing it with the opposite gender. If it turns out to be inadequate, then it would be advisable to replace it with a more inclusive one.

For papers written in English, the guide published by the American Phylosophical Association can be used as an orientation.

Source: CSIC Press recommendations for an inclusive and non-sexist language. Revista de Metalurgia. In: https://revistademetalurgia.revistas.csic.es/index.php/revistademetalurgia/inclusivo