All manuscripts submitted to Ocnos: Revista de estudios sobre lectura must be original. Articles that have been published in any other form (conference paper, doctoral thesis, article in another language, etc.) will be rejected unless the manuscript presents a substantial reworking of the text. Once a manuscript has been submitted, it must not be sent simultaneously to another journal for consideration.
Texts may be published in Spanish, English, French or Portuguese, but for the purposes of evaluation, submission of the manuscript in Spanish is mandatory.
All submissions must be made through this platform, and at least one of the authors must be registered in the system.
Authors must review and comply with the following publication guidelines:
Types of papers or contributions
Ocnos. Revista de estudios sobre lectura publishes only two types of contributions: (1) research papers and (2) theoretical and systematic review papers. The organisation, content and structure of submissions must follow the guidelines detailed below, according to the type of paper chosen by the authors.
1) Research papers
The structure must follow these sections: Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion/Conclusions, Notes, References and Appendices. The recommended length is a minimum of 5,000 words and a maximum of 6,500 words, including notes, figures and references; the title, abstract and keywords are excluded from the overall word count. The inclusion of tables, graphs and figures that contribute to a clearer understanding of the study will be viewed favourably.
Where research includes qualitative data in which the gender/sex variable may allow the identification of significant differences, authors are encouraged to provide these data in a disaggregated form.
2) Theoretical and systematic review papers
The structure must follow these sections: Introduction (usually referring to the problem to be addressed), Development of the topic (with specific sections corresponding to the content discussed), Conclusions, References and Appendices. The recommended length is a minimum of 6,000 words and a maximum of 7,000 words, including notes, figures and references; the title, abstract and keywords are excluded from the overall word count. These papers must be based on an exhaustive and systematic literature review offering an up-to-date and international perspective on the topic addressed. The works reviewed and cited must consist mainly of articles published in other well-established scientific journals.
These sections must be clearly identified in the manuscripts.
Submission of articles that do not correspond to these formats and/or do not adhere to these structures and criteria will be grounds for rejection.
Inclusive language and preliminary linguistic criteria
All articles must be written using inclusive language. Authors are therefore advised to consult in advance the report issued by the Real Academia Española on inclusive language and related matters.
Preparation and submission of original manuscripts
Manuscripts submitted to Ocnos may be rejected at an initial stage by the Editorial Coordinator for formal reasons such as: failure to comply with the types of papers described above; not meeting the required length; spelling errors; lexical imprecision; incoherent syntax; and non-compliance with the rules established in the Publication Manual of the APA (7th ed., English version). For this reason, authors must carefully review all linguistic, orthographic and formal aspects of the text before submission. The same level of care is required for the aspects described below:
1. Presentation format and general guidelines
Manuscripts must be submitted in Times New Roman, 12-point font, with 1.5 line spacing.
Attached files must be submitted in a word-processing format compatible with PC, preferably Microsoft Word for Windows. Under no circumstances may the size of the files exceed 1 MB.
2. Submission format
Main document
The first page must include only the following sections; under no circumstances should the authors’ names, addresses, or information relating to funding or the project in which the work is framed appear:
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The title of the paper in bold. It must be precise, concise and descriptive of the article’s content. It must not exceed 15 words.
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The abstract, which must not exceed 200 words. It must be presented as a single paragraph, written in clear style, preferably with simple sentences and impersonal constructions in Spanish (“se realizó un estudio”, “se pasaron N cuestionarios”, etc.). We recommend following the IMRaD format (Introduction, Method, Results and Discussion), outlining the aim of the study, the method, and the main results and conclusions (it is not necessary to specify each section explicitly). In all cases, the abstract must be complete (covering all essential aspects of the work), concise (without redundancy or irrelevant elements), informative (not evaluative) and accurate (adding nothing not included in the paper).
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Between 4 and 6 keywords. The first letter of the first keyword must be capitalised; the rest should be in lower case. Keywords must be separated by semicolons. It is advisable to select terms from a thesaurus or list of descriptors. We recommend the UNESCO Thesaurus of Education, the ERIC database or Academic Search.
All of this information must be provided in both Spanish and English—title, abstract and keywords—and must be identical in both languages.
Body of the manuscript
The main text must be presented in accordance with the structural and stylistic guidelines of the Publication Manual of the APA (7th ed., English version). Additionally:
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Section headings must appear in bold, never in uppercase. Subsection headings must appear in bold italics. None of these headings should be numbered.
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Each paragraph must begin with a tab indentation.
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The style for text, headings and subheadings must be “Normal”.
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The use of bold type is limited to section headings. Italics are used only for words in a language other than the manuscript’s main language and for Latinisms.
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Lists using bullet points must use a standard hyphen, not circles or other symbols.
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Punctuation marks (full stops, commas, semicolons, colons, dashes, quotation marks, parentheses, brackets, slashes, etc.) must be used according to the guidelines provided on pp. 153–160 of the APA Manual (7th ed.).
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Notes must appear at the end of the text and always before the references. Notes should serve only to clarify or expand ideas, never to provide bibliographic citations, including electronic sources. In some cases, notes may need to be inserted manually, as Word’s automatic system does not comply with the journal’s requirements.
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Tables and figures, with their corresponding titles and captions, must be included at the end of the text. Their intended position must be indicated within the manuscript. Furthermore, they must be uploaded as additional files in their original format, never as image files. Their presentation must follow the guidelines in pp. 195–250 of the APA Manual (7th ed.).
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Illustrations, with titles and captions, must also be included at the end of the text and uploaded as separate files. It is essential that each file does not exceed 1 MB in order to be uploaded to the platform. Their format must follow the same structure as tables and figures.
Second mandatory document
A separate document must include the personal information of all authors who contributed to the manuscript. This information must also be entered in the metadata required during the submission process. Once the manuscript has been accepted for publication, no author who does not appear in the submission data will be added.
This document must include the following information:
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The title of the article in Spanish and English.
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The full name(s) and surname(s) of each author. For name normalisation, authors are advised to follow the recommendations issued by FECYT. Authors who choose to use two surnames must join them with a hyphen.
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A description of each author’s contribution, following the roles and tasks defined by the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) classification.
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Additional information for each author: institutional affiliation, city, country, institutional email address and ORCID number. Authors who do not yet have an ORCID identifier may obtain one from the official website: https://orcid.org/
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All articles that refer to research largely funded by European, national or regional projects or grants must include the relevant funding information, in accordance with Article 37 of Law 14/2011 on Science, Technology and Innovation.
Failure to include this information in the submission form or as accompanying documentation may result in rejection.
When uploading this file to the platform, it is essential to ensure that it is not marked as visible to reviewers.
Optional documents
When submitting the article, authors may attach any files or documents they consider necessary. When uploading these documents, authors must indicate whether they deem it appropriate for reviewers to have access to them.
The following types of files may be attached:
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Files in .jpg, .jpeg or .tif format containing illustrations included in the manuscript.
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Files in .xls, .csv or .sav format containing the research data.
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Other documents, such as questionnaires or appendices, that authors wish to make available for the evaluation of the article.
