Specula Revista de Humanidades y Espiritualidad

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Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.
  • The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
  • The Specula Journal template has been used to submit the article.
  • Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
  • The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.
  • I accept the authorship and granting of rights statement.

Author Guidelines

RULES OF ADMISSION AND PRESENTATION OF COLLABORATIONS

   SPECULA. Journal of Humanities and Spirituality

All those originals that do not conform to what is specified in the rules for authors or are not accompanied by what is requested below will be rejected ex officio.

1.  Theme:

SPECULA is focused on the study of the beginnings of the Modern Age in the context of Romance languages from an interdisciplinary perspective: History, Art History, Literature, Theology, Philosophy. The central area of study will be spirituality spanning the thirteenth to seventeenth centuries in Western Europe.

2.  Periodicity:

The magazine publishes three issues a year.
Additional issues are sometimes published.

3.  Peer review:

First phase. Formal analysis of the article by the Editorial Board before submitting for peer review:

  1. The article is subject to plagiarism analysis using the Turnitin.
  2. It is verified that the article, from a formal point of view (stylistic, orthographic...), conforms to the rules established by the journal Specula, in particular:
  3. whether it is original, or not;
  4. if its length fits the range between 7,000 and 15,000 words;
  5. if it complies with APA standards (in its latest version), and
  6. if it contains the required sections (in particular, abstract, keywords, bibliography, footnotes, etc.).

If the article is deemed to comply with the formal standards adequately, it moves on to the next stage. Otherwise, the article is returned to the author for appropriate modifications.
In this phase it is usually consumed one month from the receipt of the article.

Second phase. Anonymous peer review

Once the first phase has been passed, the article is sent to two specialists in the subject that constitutes its object of study:

  1. The reports are binding and can conclude with the following results: accept without modifications, accept with modifications or reject.
  2. In the event of a conflict between the two reports, a third specialist whose expertise is sufficiently recognized is used.
  3. The decision on the publication, or its reasoned rejection, will be communicated to the author within 30 calendar days, counted from the formal acceptance of the article. Each author undertakes to follow the suggestions of the reviewers to modify, where appropriate, the works accepted for publication.

4.  Rules for authors:

  • Authors who submit an article to Specula must send it exclusively through the Journal Management Platform. The author must register on this platform to submit the work and follow the entire publication process. If the author already has a user account, they must log in. Register here if you don't already have it.
  • The works will be sent by completing the template of the journal Specula.
  • The contact person is the editor of the journal.
  • Language: the originals sent to the journal may be written in Spanish, Catalan, Italian, French, Portuguese, English and German.

4.1. Citation system

Quotes from articles, book chapters and books:

The APA system (updated edition) will be used, with Times New Roman font, in size 12 and with French indentation from the left margin of 1.27 cm. Each paragraph will follow this French indentation.

Textual citations inside the article

  • If a text is cited in the body of the article, two different procedures will be followed. For example, in the case of the book just cited:
    If an opinion of the author is alluded to or his words are going to be reproduced verbatim, it will be said, for example: Navarro (1993).
  • If you want to adduce a text cited in the bibliographic references in support of some opinion, it will be said, for example: (Navarro, 1993).
  • If you want to adduce a text cited in the bibliographical references, with express indication of the page in question, you will say, for example: Navarro (1993, p. 34) or (Navarro, 1993, p. 34), as the case may be.
  • In the case of reproducing quotations of less than forty words, the system of quotation marks and indication of the page number will always be followed.

For example:
As already indicated, according to Castillo (2010, p. 34): "literature is a tool at the service of the promotion of human values".
In the case of entering citations of more than 40 words, the procedure will be as follows: the text will be indented at 1.27 cm (French indent on the left), which will end with the reference to the author, year and page, or to page, if the author and year have already been previously indicated. The citation will have the same line spacing (1,5) as the rest of the body of the text, the same font size and will be written in round letter, with an end period behind the quotation. For example:
It was incomprehensible and inaccessible, invisible and superior to all human thought; but now he wanted to be understood, to make himself visible and accessible to our intelligence [...] rising on the third day and showing the apostles the mark of nails, as a sign of victory; and finally ascending, before his gaze, to the innermost of heavens. (San Bernardo, 1986 ed., p. 431)
In the case of introducing a long quotation in a fragmented manner, the bracket with three dots in the place where the original text has been fragmented will be used.
The text will always be quoted in the author's original language, without translation. If deemed necessary, a brief comment on the quote can be entered.

Paraphrasing quotes

In the case of introducing paraphrase, that is, expressing with one's own words a quote from an author, the number of the page will not be indicated, but the author and the year will be indicated. For example:
literature supposes the manifestation of feelings and helps to shape education (Castillo, 2010), so...

Most commom abbreviations
The most common abbreviations that are introduced in the text are:
(page)// pp. (pages, with interval. For example: pp. 24-56).
eds. (editor/editors or edition). For example: Ovid (2016 ed.); Gil and Martínez Gil (eds.).
cap. /caps. (chapter/chapters)
vol. (volume). Indicated as it appears in the reference, in Arabic or Roman numerals.
et al. When a work by more than eight authors is cited.
Ibid. (indicates contiguous quotations from the same work).

  • 2. Title Paragraph

Descriptive text.
Format of titles in APA version 7th ed.

2.1 Subtitle level 2

Descriptive text.

2.2.1 Subtitel level 3
Descriptive text.

2.2.1.1 Subtitle level 4.
Descriptive text.

2.2.1.1.1 Subtitel level 5.
Descriptive text.

The quotation marks "English" and 'simple' are preferred to the "Latin" or "Spanish".

References

The final references will be ordered following the ascending alphabetical criterion, from A to Z, in which only the first surname will be included, followed by the initial of the name, with the exception of very frequent surnames in Spanish (García, Pérez, González, Sánchez, Martínez, López), in which the two surnames of the author will be included. Only the works cited in the article will be referenced, following these guidelines:

1. Journal articles

This pattern will be followed, in which the author's first surname is left without French indentation, while the following lines of the bibliographic entry are indented. The models will be followed, in terms of italics and punctuation marks following the following examples:

Navarro, V. (2015). New technologies? Old farms. The case of international surrogacy. Verbum, 1, 19-52.

In the case of works collected in a collective volume, the model will be:

Bobonich, C. (2009). Nicomachean Ethics, VII.7: akrasia and Self-Con- trol. En C. Natali, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Book VII (pp. 27-35). Oxford University Press.

Surname, A., Surname, B. and Surname, C. (2019). Title of the specific article. Journal title, Volume(journal number), home page number – end page number. https://doi.org/xx.xxxxxxxxxx

  • If a journal article has a DOI, include the DOI in the reference.
  • If the journal article does not have a DOI but has a URL that will resolve for readers (for example, it is from an online journal that is not part of a database), include the URL of the article at the end of the reference.

2. Books

Navarro, S. (1993). Dreams of a Final Theory. Hutchinson Radium.

If a source of a URL is cited, it will no longer include "Retrieved from" or query date, as in previous versions, but the URL will be entered directly. After the URL (abbreviated in case of occupying more than one line) no end point will be included. If the cited source has a DOI, this number will take precedence over the URL from which it was obtained, which will no longer be indicated.

Consideration: It is noted that, unlike previous versions of the APA standard, the place of publication is no longer indicated, but only the publisher.

Printed book
Surname, N. (year). Title of the work. Editorial.

Online book

Surname, N. and Surname, N. (year). Title of the book. Editorial. DOI or URL

Book with publisher

Surname, N. (Ed.). (year). Title of the work. Editorial.

Example of Book with DOI

Herrero, L. A. & Asín, J. (2015). Nanotechnology: source of new paradigms. Nano World. Interdisciplinary Journal in Nanosciences and Nanotechnology, 7, 12, 45-49.
https://doi.org/10.22201/ceiich.24485691e.2014.12.49710

Chapter of a book or an entry in an encyclopedia

Last name Author, N. N. (year). Title of the chapter or entry. In N. Surname Editor (Ed.), Book title (xx ed., Vol. xx, pp. xxx–xxx). Editorial.
If you want to add information about edition number, volume number and/or number of pages, you must add it in parentheses after the title. Enter a period after parentheses. For any non-routine information that is important for proper identification and retrieval of the original text, add a description of the content in parentheses after the title.

Edition or Volume No.

Last name Author, N. N. (1994). Title of the work. (3rd ed., Vol. 4). Editorial.

When the author and publisher are equal, use the word Desktop Publishing as the publisher's name.

Surname, A. and Surname, B. (year). Chapter title. In N. Surname (Ed.), Title of the book (pp. xx-xx). Editorial.
Surname, A. and Surname, B. (year). Chapter title. In N. Surname and B. Surname (Eds.), Title of the book (pp. xx-xx). Editorial. http://www.url.com

Surname, A. and Surname, B. (year). Chapter title. In N. Surname (Ed.), Title of the book (pp. xx-xx). Editorial. https://doi.org/xxxxxxxxx

Examples

Herrera, C. & Rosillo, M. (2019). Comfort and energy efficiency in building design. Universidad del Valle.

Electronic version of the printed version

Herrera, C. & Rosillo, M. (2019). Comfort and energy efficiency in building design. Universidad del Valle. https://www.reddebibliotecas.org.co/

Note: Note that the seventh edition no longer uses the phrase "Retrieved from".

Book available only in electronic format

Panza, M. (2019). Numbers: elements of mathematics for philosophers. Universidad del Valle. https://www.reddebibliotecas.org.co/.

Thesis or monograph

Manrique, A. S. (2013). Gentrification of La Candelaria (Chile). Agents and strategies involved [Monograph].
http://bdigital.unal.edu.co/11605

Cite authors and classic works

In the case of classical works, you have to quote/reference the edition you are actually reading, i.e. if you are quoting Aristotle, you are probably not reading the original text that was published in Greek in 1311. It is advisable to add the data of the translator and the original work. For very old works cite the year of translation, preceded by the abbreviation trad., and/or the year of the version.

Appointment

(Aristotle, trad. 1931)

Reference

Aristotle (1931). Metaphysics (Trad. T. Pinilla). Editorial ABC. (Original work published ca. 1311).

Web

Web pages with static content

Surname, A., Surname, B., and Surname, C. (May 20, 2020). Title of the website. The name of the page. https://url.com

Special format within a web page

Surname, A. (August 03, 2020). The title of the file. The name of the page. https://url.com

Provide as specific a date as available in the article on the website. This could be the year, the month and year, or the day, month and year.

  • Type the title of the web page in italics.
  • When the author of the web page is the same publisher as the website, omit the publisher name to prevent it from recurring.
  • When the contents of a page are updated over time but are not archived, include a retrieval date in the reference ("Retrieved in URL DATE").

Website with an individual author

Silvestre, D. (October 7, 2019). 7 tips for applying for a mortgage.
Tracker. https://www.rastreator.com/hipotecas/consejos/pedir-una-hipoteca.aspx

Website of an organization with a corporate author

  • Enter the full name of the institution. Do not use abbreviations.
  • End the reference with the URL.
  • In the first quote in the text we show the reader the abbreviation of organization.

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. (October 1, 2018). New data reveals that one in three adolescents worldwide is bullied. https://es.unesco.org/news/nuevos-datos-revelan-que-mundo-cada-tres-adolescentes-sufre-acoso-escolar

First citation in the text

(United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization [UNICEF], 2018)

Next quotes

(UNICEF, 2018)

Website of a government agency

Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies. (n.d.). Climate change. Ministry of the Environment. http://www.ideam.gov.co/web/atencion-y-participacion-ciudadana/cambio-climatico

First citation in the text

(Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies [IDEAM], n.d.)

Next quotes

(IDEAM, s.f.)

Undated website

In this case we add s.f. instead of the date.

Consideration: We should only add "Retrieved from" for dynamic pages (which update information constantly).
National Savings Fund. (n.d.). Mortgage cancellation.
https://www.fna.gov.co/vivienda/tramites-especiales/cancelacion-de-hipoteca

Cita

(Fondo Nacional del Ahorro, n.d.)

Printed newspaper

Surname, N. (date of publication of the article). Headline of the article in the newspaper. Name of the newspaper in italics.

Online Newspaper

Surname, N. (newspaper date). Headline of the article in the newspaper. Name of the newspaper.
https://www.direccion.de/recuperacion-para-el-lector/

Carreño, L. (February 9, 2020). The union dispute over tariffs on garments. Spectator. https://www.elespectador.com/economia/la-disputa-gremial-por-los-aranceles-las-prendas-de-vestir-articulo-90376

General format for social networks

The generic format for the content of social networks Twitter, Instagram, Youtube is:

Name of the person or group. [User]. (Day month and year). Content of the entry in italics limited to the first twenty words including hashtags [Audiovisual description]. Name of the Social Network. https://direccion.donde/encontrar-la-entrada

To create a Facebook reference, we need to include the date of the post, the first 20 words of the post (in the absence of a title), and the name of the social media site followed by the specific URL of the post.

Cite a Facebook post

Gates, B. [BillGates]. (April 24, 2019). One of the best investments we can make in a child's life is vaccines. Every dollar spent [Image attached] [Status Post]. Facebook.
 https://www.facebook.com/BillGates/photos/a.10150331291841961

Cite a Facebook Page

Ministry of Culture. (n.d.). Home [Facebook Page]. Facebook. Retrieved May 20, 2020, https://www.facebook.com/MinisterioCultura/

Cite YouTube

Name of the author. [Youtube username] (date). Video title [Video]. Youtube. http://youtube.com/url-del-video

REDMÁS channel. (September 19, 2017). Antanas Mockus in Confessions [Video Archive]. Youtube. https://youtu.be/de_4nTCHtJs

Consideration: As you can see, we use the name of the YouTube account that uploaded the video as the author. We can also add the username and channel name as author.

Wilson, R. [Electrician]. (5, 2016). Learn about multimeter with amperimeter pliers [Video Archive]. Youtube. HTTPS://YOUTU.BE/1C6EGTZKZXA

NOTE: Abbreviating long web addresses

Sometimes we use web pages, images, online documents; These links are excessively long, which detracts from the aesthetics of the presentation of the document, for example:
http://ac.els-cdn.com/S1877042815011271/1-s2.0-S1877042815011271-main.pdf?_tid=709abb0a-a835-11e6-b94a-00000aab0f27&acdnat=1478885995_07e4cc1268f5f8ded0f77f968e7d943a

Use an online tool to make this link much shorter. For example:

As a general rule, it is recommended to adapt to any of the manuals published on APA in its latest edition (see http://normasapa.net/ ).
The Declaration of authorship and transfer of rights will be considered accepted by the author, or by the authors, at the time the box is accepted for this purpose.

5. Regulations and editorial process of the journal Specula

Articles published in the journal Specula must be original scientific contributions, and cannot have been previously published, nor be a direct translation of an article published in another language.

  • The management of the journal undertakes to inform the authors, within a maximum period of one month, of the acceptance or rejection of the originals. In the latter case, the authors must be provided with the reasons why the article is rejected.
  • Scientific articles will go through an external review process, managed by the director of the journal. External reviewers may recommend publication of the original without making changes, or may suggest amendments necessary for publication. Likewise, the reviewers may report negatively on the publication of the article, always adducing in a reasoned manner the reasons for non-acceptance. The director of the journal must communicate the decision taken. In case there is no agreement among the external reviewers, the Editorial Board will have the final decision, and a new review may even be requested from another evaluator. In any case, the director of the journal will follow up in order to ensure that the changes suggested by the external reviewers have been introduced in the final writing of the work.
  • In the event that the reviewers agree on a positive evaluation, the director of the journal will communicate this decision to the Editorial Board.

Frequency of publication

The journal Specula will have a quarterly periodicity, and will publish in September, January and May.
Each article will include the date of receipt and acceptance by the Editorial Board.

Open access conditions

The journal Specula is an academic publication in electronic mode, of international scope, which aims to disseminate original works in the scientific field on Humanities and Spirituality in the Romance languages between the XIII-XVII centuries. It is aimed at all researchers who are specialists or those interested in this subject under study.
The journal Specula is configured with the intention of being available in open access, in accordance with the Berlin Declaration (ACG194 / 2008), and which aims to achieve free access to publications in international arenas.
The journal Specula has an editorial team, formed by the Director, Deputy Director, Secretary, as well as the Editorial Board and the Scientific Committee. In any case, the director of the journal may renew or choose new members of the Editorial Board or the Scientific Committee, in order to be able to incorporate, where appropriate, the highest international specialists in the field of the journal.
All articles published in the journal Specula are freely accessible and owned by their authors. The journal has the right to the dissemination and distribution of texts for academic purposes. Any act of reproduction, commercialization, public communication or total or partial transformation requires the express written consent of the authors or the management of the journal.
The journal Specula does not charge authors any cost for the submission of originals or for processing articles.

6. Statement of ethics and good practices

Statement of ethical conduct and rejection of bad practices

The quality and rigor of a scientific journal are the result of complying with ethical principles that include editors, evaluators and authors.
In addition, the scientific journals of the UCV must comply with the principles expressed in the Code of Ethics of Good Practices in Research of the UCV, approved on March 25, 2022.
The Editorial Board of Specula. Revista de Humanidades y Espiritualidad declares its commitment to an ethical conductand a rejection of bad practices in its editorial process, in order to ensure scientific quality standards. In accordance with this commitment, it follows the principles established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (https://publicationethics.org/core-practices) and takes into account the ethical policies suggested by Elsevier: https://www.elsevier.com/authors/journal-authors/policies-and-ethics

Specula. Journal of Humanities and Spirituality expresses a total rejection of plagiarism in all its typologies in all publications under evaluation. Likewise, the journal rejects the practices of redundant, overlapping or multiple publication, totally or partially. If these bad practices are detected, the originals will be rejected and, in the case of being detected in articles already published, the specific modification will be requested from the author or, in cases of greater scope, its publication will be eliminated. The originals will be evaluated by a blind peer review system. The reviewers will be specialists in the object of study of the article. In all circumstances, those reviewers who may present possible conflicts of interest with the subject of the research or with its authors will be discarded. Evaluations in which a reviewer refers as an argument to the need to cite their own research as an indication of quality will be rejected. In this case, a triple review will be used when considered by the Editorial Board.
Editorial decisions will be appropriate to the quality and scientific originality of the works, as well as to the line of the journal and compliance with its editorial standards. In no case will there be reasons of race, ideology, gender or sexual option, nationality or academic affiliation.

7. Anti-plagiarism policy

Specula. Revista de Humanidades y Espiritualidad maintains a policy that guarantees the originality of all its articles through the use of Turnitin anti-plagiarism software. This instrument allows to detect coincidences or similarities between the originals sent to Specula and works previously published in other sources. The drafting team will submit the proposed articles to anti-plagiarism review before proceeding to their formal review and external evaluation. In case of detecting a possible practice of plagiarism, the article will be discarded for publication and its authors will be informed of it.

8. Writing regulations and article publication process

Phase One

  • The works will be sent by completing the template in doc, docx format.
  • The contact person is the editor of the journal.
  • The works will be sent through the platform enabled for the publication of the originals (OJS), after registration as an author. In the originals, the anonymity of the same will always be preserved.
  • In a separate file, the contact details of the author will be indicated: institutional affiliation, official contact email and postal address.
  • Each article must contain the title in the original language and the corresponding translation of it in English. In addition, it should contain an abstract of about 250 words summarizing the content of the article, as well as 5-7 keywords, in order to facilitate the search in databases; If, on the other hand, the article is written in English, this will be the first language of the title and abstract, and the translation into Spanish will be made.
  • Language: the originals sent to the journal may be written in Spanish, Catalan, English, Italian, Portuguese, French and German.

Submission of originals

Fountain

  • Normal text. Letter: Times New Roman, size: 12.
  • Footnote text. Lyrics: Times New Roman; Size: 10.
  • Titles of epigraphs. Lyrics: Times New Roman; Size: 12, in small caps.

Format

The first page will contain the title of the article in the language in which the article is written and in English; in both cases, capitalized and centered (Times New Roman font, size 15.5); the subtitle, if applicable, also in capital letters and centered (Times New Roman font, size 14).
The author's name and surname will be written in italics (Times New Roman, size 14.5) and aligned to the right.
An asterisk will be inserted over the name and surname of the author as a symbol of a footnote containing his filiation (postal address), as well as his official email.
The body of the text must necessarily be preceded by two abstracts (one in the original language of the article and the other in English), not exceeding 250 words each. It will be used as the Times New Roman font, in size 10. Keywords (between 5 and 7) will also be attached in the languages in which the abstracts have been written.
For the numbering of headings and subheadings, Arabic numerals (1,1.1, etc.) shall be used and the titles of these shall be separated by a line from the preceding and following paragraphs.
The originals will be presented in A4 format with custom margins (2.54 on the right, left, up and down), an indent of 1.27 cm at the beginning of each paragraph, full justification and line spacing at 1.5 for the body of the article.
Footnotes will appear throughout the article.
If it is relevant to incorporate an image, it must have a minimum quality of 300 dots per inch. Its origin must be indicated at the foot of the image, with the appropriate data for identification (author, work, year, URL, etc.) as the case may be. The images subject to copyright must have the authorization of the corresponding organization, which must be attached by the author with the submission of the article. In this case, the author undertakes to deliver to the body from which the image has been extracted a copy of the published volume.
The authors will send the images, in addition to including them in the body of the text, in an attached ZIP file, to facilitate the editing of them by the layout artist. It is recommended to use TIFF, JPEG format, preferably.

Other formal elements

Footnotes

They shall be intended for further explanations or clarifications. The font body shall be 10. Current word processors allow the correct use of this annotation system, which will always appear at the bottom of the page and not at the end of the article.
The footnotes will not serve in any case to indicate only bibliographic references or websites.

Typographical indications

Italics will be used for the titles of the works cited and to differentiate any term or phrases in a language other than that used in the article. Preferably the high quotation marks will be used and, if necessary, they will be used with the following gradation: " ''".

Graphic elements

The tables and figures will go in body 10. The explanation or legend will be at the foot in the case of the figures, and at the top in the case of the tables. The source from which they have been extracted will always be indicated and they should be numbered in the text according to order of appearance (Figure 1, Figure 2; Table 1, Table 2) followed by a title describing the image or table (For example: Figure 1. Scenes from everyday life of the eighteenth century. Source: ......).
The authors will send the images, in addition to including them in the body of the text, in an attached ZIP file, to facilitate the editing of them by the layout artist. It is recommended to use TIFF, JPEG format, preferably.

Miscellanea

Editing notes, discussions, reviews, tributes, etc. This section will not be subject to external review and will not be included in all numbers.

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.