Editorial Process

The editorial process is a set of practices and procedures that begins once the manuscript is submitted to the journal and culminates in its publication. This process consists of different stages that are interconnected, so delays in any of them can cause delays in subsequent stages. For this reason, authors must strictly comply with the deadlines requested by the Editorial Committee. Late submission of any documentation may result in rejection of a manuscript by the editors. In simplified terms, the different stages of the editorial process consist of:

1) Submission of manuscripts by the authors,

2) Initial evaluation: formal and editorial review,

3) Double-blind external review: external peer review of the content,

4) Acceptance or rejection of the manuscript,

5) Editing or editorial production, and

6) Publication.

Editorial process timeframes:

- Initial editorial decision: 30 days from the closing date of the call.

- External peer review process: 30 days.

- Submission of versions with suggested revisions: 7 days.

- Communication of final acceptance/rejection: 15 days.

- Editing and pre-print: 30 days.

- Journal publication: June of each year.

The general characteristics of each of these stages are described below.

MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION

Manuscripts will be submitted electronically through the Cuestiones de Género Journal Platform. Authors must register with a username and password. The journal will not accept manuscripts that do not adhere to the format and style guidelines stipulated in the current Guidelines for Authors, are submitted after the deadline established in the specific Calls for Papers, or are sent by mail.

As Cuestiones de Género Journal is an annual journal, submissions will be received throughout the year. The closing date for each call is February 28th of each year, unless, exceptionally, it is postponed by 15 days. The Journal will acknowledge receipt of manuscripts within a maximum of 30 (thirty) days from the closing date of the call.

FIRST-STAGE EVALUATION

Once the articles have been received, they will be reviewed by the Coordinating Committee and the Editorial Board to determine their thematic relevance and compliance with the journal's established editorial standards. Failure to meet any of the aforementioned parameters, as well as the lack of any type of documentation or late submission, may result in the editors rejecting a manuscript in the first instance.

Please note that for initial acceptance, manuscripts must meet a series of minimum requirements, which are detailed below.

The essential requirements for passing the first review phase are:

- Articles must be unpublished, the result of research, scientific communication, or original creation.

- The article must be structured within the text body to include the following duly numbered sections: introduction, objectives, methodology, results and conclusion.

- The abstract must include the following aspects: objectives, methodology, results and conclusion.

- That the in-text citations and bibliography strictly comply with the journal's standards.

- That the manuscript passes Turnitin's analysis (the results of the article's review by the program must not exceed a similarity of 20%).

If the manuscript does not meet any of the aforementioned requirements, it will be rejected in the first instance.

If the Editorial Board considers that there are minor deficiencies and that the necessary changes are minor, they will give the author the opportunity to correct them and resubmit the revised manuscript within a maximum of two (2) days.

Articles that meet all the requirements will move on to the next phase. In any of the above cases, the Journal will send the author a communication regarding the editorial decisions.

EXTERNAL DOUBLE-BLIND PEER REVIEW

In order to ensure content quality, manuscripts belonging to the "Monograph," "Open Forum," and "About" sections that have passed formal review by the editors will be subject to double-blind peer review by external specialists, following the guidelines of the Double-Blind Peer Review System for the evaluation of scientific works. It should be noted that the development of this stage is necessarily conditioned by the response times of the multiple people involved.

The reviewers will be preselected by the editors, according to their scientific level and thematic affinity with the manuscript to be reviewed. The identity of the reviewers cannot be revealed to the authors, guaranteeing the absolute anonymity of the evaluation reports and opinions. In accordance with the recommendations of the Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE), reviews should be conducted based on the following criteria: scientific relevance, originality, clarity, and pertinence. Reviewers may suggest any modifications they consider significant and pertinent, related to the content, structure, objectives, methodology, results, interpretations, and/or bibliographic references. These modifications must:

a) Be based on the criteria defined in the corresponding evaluation form;

b) Be objective and respectful of dissent; and

c) Promote critical construction and exchange to guide and improve contributions.

The evaluation process will consist of a maximum of two (2) rounds of peer review. During the first round, manuscripts will be reviewed by two (2) reviewers who will have a period of 30 (thirty) days to complete the evaluation and submit their report.

At this stage, each reviewer's opinion may result in one of the following outcomes:

a) Accept the submission. The work must be published as is, without any improvements.

b) Publishable with modifications. The work can be published after making a series of changes that will help improve its content.

c) Resubmit for revision. The work must be modified with the proposed changes and then reviewed again by you.

d) Not publishable. The work is deficient in content and, therefore, does not meet the requirements for publication.

If there are significant discrepancies between the two opinions, the Editorial Committee will review the arguments offered by the specialists and may submit the manuscript for review by a third reviewer.

If the submissions receive favorable evaluations, the papers will be sent back to the authors so that they can make all the requested corrections or modifications within 7 (seven) days.

Once the relevant modifications have been made, the authors must submit the corrected manuscript along with a Disclaimer detailing each and every one of the changes made (both minor and major). If the authors disagree with any of the comments made by the reviewers, they must justify their position in said document. The Disclaimer will be delivered to the editors in a separate file and must be signed by each and every author. The corrected manuscript file must be returned with the change log so that the Editorial Board and reviewers can corroborate the minor and major modifications made.

Finally, if any of the reviewers requested major changes, the manuscript will be submitted to a second round of review to verify whether the comments made in the first round were considered. In this case, the final opinions can only be of two (2) types: Accepted or Rejected.

ACCEPTANCE OR REJECTION OF THE MANUSCRIPT

The final decision regarding the acceptance or rejection of a manuscript will be the final decision of the Editorial Committee, and this is a final decision. The decision will be communicated to the authors within 15 (fifteen) days of receiving the final version of the manuscripts approved by the reviewers. Acceptance will be subject to the following criteria:

a) Obtaining two favorable evaluations;

b) Consideration of all corrections and/or suggestions made by reviewers and editors;

c) Compliance with editorial standards; and

d) Compliance with the deadlines established by the journal.

Once the Editorial Committee decides to accept a manuscript, it will proceed to the editing or editorial production stage. It may no longer be withdrawn by the authors, and no further changes may be made to the author's composition.

EDITORIAL PRODUCTION

During this stage, the Editorial Committee will handle the following tasks:

a) Copyediting;

b) Layout;

c) Proofreading;

d) Correcting the metadata of the final version.

The team will complete this process within 30 (thirty) days. Each process is described below.

a) Copyediting

The editorial team will review the text for spelling, grammatical, syntactical, and semantic errors, as well as the presence of filler words and the appropriate use of vocabulary specific to the discipline.

b) Layout

The formal layout of all content for the current issue will be completed. For an editorial publication to be attractive, it is important to maintain a balance between content and presentation, thus ensuring aesthetic and informational consistency. Consequently, this step involves the organization, distribution, and presentation of each of the textual and graphic elements that comprise each work.

c) Proofreading

After layout, the Editorial Committee will generate galley proofs for each manuscript. These are preliminary versions of the work to be published, prepared to detect typographical and/or layout errors before final publication. These will be made available to the authors so they can review the manuscripts and submit their comments within the deadlines stipulated by the editors. At this stage, only formal and typographical errors may be corrected, but rewriting of the text or any other changes to the content of the manuscripts (including tables and figures) will not be permitted.

d) Correction of metadata for the final version

Metadata includes data that describe other data. These refer to the description of each manuscript's properties, facilitate interoperability through the application of standards and protocols shared with other systems, and offer broader contexts of meaning in search engines, facilitating efficient information retrieval. Thus, once the galley proofs have been corrected, the Editorial Committee will proceed to correct and unify all the metadata associated with the final version of each work.