Submissions

Author Guidelines

Deadlines for Review and Publication

Each calendar year, index.comunicación publishes a single volume composed of two biannual issues. Since 2021, issue 1 is published in January and issue 2 in July.

The issues are divided into two sections:

• January: Issue 1 with a monographic topic and a miscellaneous section for other subjects.

• July: Issue 2 with a monographic topic and a miscellaneous section for other subjects.

The workflow is as follows:

Once the article is received, it will undergo an initial review by the editorial team, which meets twice a month. If the article is rejected for not meeting the journal’s minimum requirements, the authors will be notified within a maximum of 15 days.

If the article passes this phase, it will be sent for double-blind peer review. This process may take longer depending on the reviewers' response times or, if necessary, if a tie-breaker is required. The review form to be completed by each reviewer can be downloaded.

The possible outcomes are:

• Publishable: the article proceeds to the editing stage.

• Publishable with minor changes: authors will be asked to make the required changes and must submit a report detailing the revisions made.

• Publishable with major changes: authors will be asked to make substantial revisions, and the article will have to undergo a new peer review process with different blind reviewers.

• Not publishable: the submission is rejected.

Once in the editing stage, authors will receive their manuscript with guidelines for both content and formal corrections.

When an article submitted in Spanish is accepted for publication, the authors must provide an English translation of the final, revised version. This translation must not introduce content changes, must follow the same template requirements as the Spanish version, and must be accompanied by a certificate verifying that the translation was carried out by a professional translator. A translation completed by the authors is also accepted if it has undergone professional copyediting. In this case, the translator must sign the certificate and their name must be included in the “Acknowledgments” section of the article.

This requirement also applies to articles submitted in English, which must be translated into Spanish in order to continue through the editorial process.

Finally, the layout team will request that authors conduct a final proofreading of the galley proofs of their work.

Publication Guidelines for Authors

Scope Guidelines

Academic articles (between 6,000 and 8,000 words) written in Spanish or English and related to Social Communication may be submitted for publication, provided they are of notable interest. Once the manuscript is accepted, submission in both languages is recommended to increase its visibility. Priority will be given to those works that display greater originality and address less frequently studied topics.

Articles must be unpublished and not under consideration elsewhere. Manuscripts that have already been published in conference proceedings or presented at academic events will not be accepted.

Submissions from authors who published in index.comunicación the previous year will not be considered.

Author Guidelines

Authors must be professionals, academics, or researchers.

All authors must register in the journal and provide their affiliation, email address, and ORCID number.

Even in the case of single authorship, each author must complete the section in the template detailing their specific contribution. The CRediT taxonomy (Contributor Roles Taxonomy, https://credit.niso.org/) must be used to indicate the nature of each contribution.

Articles with more than four authors will not be accepted.

Manuscripts derived from funded research must explicitly declare the funding bodies and corresponding project codes, following the format provided in the template.

Acknowledgments should be included for individuals or institutions that have significantly contributed to the research but are not listed as authors. The nature of their contribution must be clearly specified.

Authors must disclose the use of generative artificial intelligence tools and related technologies during the writing process. It is not necessary to report the use of tools for spelling correction or bibliographic management. The use of generative AI tools must be supervised by the authors and can never be listed as authors or co-authors, nor cited. The declaration of use should be included at the end of the manuscript under the title: “Statement on the Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence During the Writing Process.” In any case, this guidance refers exclusively to the writing process. The use of AI tools for data analysis or interpretation as part of the research process is not permitted.

Structure Guidelines

Research articles must follow the IMRaD academic format: Introduction (including justification, objectives, and theoretical framework), Methodology, Results, and Discussion, along with a highly up-to-date bibliography.

Submission Guidelines

The original version of the manuscript must be submitted in MS Word (.doc) format. Once the manuscript is accepted for publication, a translated version must also be submitted.
[Download template in Spanish] [Download template in English]

Supplementary files (such as graphical elements, code, datasets, etc.) must be uploaded to the platform along with the manuscript.

Additionally, a signed originality statement must be completed and submitted by the authors.

The journal’s platform enables the submission of original materials (texts and/or images) in a simple five-step process, after registration as a reader and author. Authors are also encouraged to register as reviewers for future collaboration, if they wish.

Formatting Guidelines

Use of the official template is mandatory to ensure compliance with index.comunicación style guidelines. The easiest way to proceed is to replace the template content with your own. Any sections highlighted in yellow will be completed by the editorial team.

The author’s name and signature must be removed from the Word file (including from the document’s metadata).

The manuscript must include a title in Spanish and English, an abstract and resumen, as well as keywords in both languages.

Abstract

The abstract must be written in Spanish in a single paragraph and follow this structure: objectives, methodology, results, and conclusions. It should contain approximately 150 words. An English version must also be included.

Keywords

Between four and six keywords should be provided, separated by semicolons. These should be the most relevant terms and, when possible, standardized. The same must be done in English (Keywords). The keywords should be meaningful and, if possible, standardized. Every keyword should be capitalized.

Body of the Text

The body text should use Cambria 11 pt; if unavailable, Times New Roman is acceptable. Right margins must be justified.

Inclusive language

index.comunicación promotes the use of inclusive and non-sexist language, avoiding expressions such as o/a in favor of generic forms, such as personas autoras or equivalent alternatives.. 

Headlines

• Sections: Titles of main sections must be in Verdana bold, 11 pt.

• Subsections: Titles of subsections must be in Verdana bold, 10.5 pt.

• Sub-subsections: Titles of sub-subsections must be in Verdana, 10.5 pt (not bold).

Sections and subsections must be numbered and left-aligned.

Citations

Direct quotes must be enclosed in quotation marks. Spanish or angular quotation marks « » should be used, and within them, English quotation marks: “ ”. Straight quotation marks " " are not to be used under any circumstance.

Quotations should be enclosed in quotation marks, without italics. In-text citations of authors must use sentence case and include the year in parentheses, followed by a colon, a space, and the page number: Eco (2005: 45).

Any data or idea taken from another author must be cited. Failure to do so constitutes plagiarism, which is a sufficient reason for rejecting a manuscript.

Quotations must be justified and relevant. Superficial or gratuitous quotes should be avoided.

Self-citations must remain below 10% of the total references used.

Examples of citations:

In in-text citations, the author's last name should appear, followed by a comma and the year in parentheses:

• Example: (Brown, 2002)

Multiple authors should be listed in alphabetical order, each separated by a semicolon.

• Example: (Brown, 2002; Krall & Johnson, 2005; Smith, 2001)

Non-literal in-text citation:

• Example: Brown (2002) establishes the value of data supported by most organizations.

Direct quote across multiple pages:

• Example: «In most organizations, data are considered an active asset» (Smith, 2001: 35 and 36), or (Smith, 2001: 35–41).

Quotations must not be altered. If shortened for space, ellipses in square brackets must be inserted within the quote: [...]. If the cut is at the beginning or end, ellipses must be placed before or after the opening or closing quotation marks. If there is a clear error in the original, it should be preserved and noted with (sic).

If quoting a text in another language, the original must be kept, and the translation provided in a footnote.

Footnotes must be used for this purpose.

Quotations of more than 40 words

Quotes under 40 words should be included in the main text and enclosed in angular quotation marks.

Long quotations (over 40 words) must be set in Verdana, 8.5 pt, with margins of 1.25 cm on the left and 0.5 cm on the right, single line spacing, without quotation marks or italics. The reference should be placed at the end of the paragraph (Last name, YEAR: page).

Footnotes

Footnotes must be in Cambria, 9 pt, justified. They are to be used exclusively for explanatory purposes and never to include references, which must be listed in the final bibliography.

Page numbers and headings

There is no need to include headers or page numbers in the manuscript. These will be added during the layout process, as will any content marked in yellow in the template.

Graphic elements

All graphs, tables, figures, or images must be numbered.

Place the graphs/tables/figures/images in their appropriate location within the manuscript.

Table headers must be in Verdana, 8 pt, bold.

Figure captions should be centered below the image or chart; table legends should be centered above the table.

Charts and tables must be editable. Images must be uploaded to the platform and also included in the body of the text.

Each manuscript may include a maximum of 12 graphic elements, regardless of type. Submissions exceeding this limit will not be accepted.

References

References must follow APA 7th edition style, using hanging indent and small caps for surnames. The section heading should not be numbered but must follow the format of the main headings.

Only references cited in the text are allowed—consulted works not cited must be excluded.

DOIs must be included for all references that have one, using the following format: https://doi.org/xxxxx

It is recommended to use the tool provided by Crossref to include DOIs where applicable.

If a URL is included, it must be shortened.

LAST NAME, N. (YEAR). Title of article. Title of Journal, volume(issue), pp–pp. https://doi.org/xxxxx
LAST NAME, N. & LAST NAME, N. (YEAR). Title of Book. Publisher.

Example:

AL-RAWI, A. (2017). Viral News on Social Media. Digital Journalism, 7(1), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2017.1387062
ANDERSON, A. A. & HUNTINGTON, H. E. (2017). Social Media, Science, and Attack Discourse: How Twitter Discussions of Climate Change Use Sarcasm and Incivility. Science Communication, 39(5), 598–620. https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547017735113
ANTUNOVIC, D., PARSONS, P. & COOKE, T. R. (2018). ‘Checking’ and Googling: Stages of News Consumption among Young Adults. Journalism, 19(5), 632–648. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884916663625
BERGER, J. & MILKMAN, K. L. (2012). What Makes Online Content Viral?. Journal of Marketing Research, 49(2), 192–205. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmr.10.0353

Dissemination and knowledge transfer

index.comunicación promotes the dissemination of published articles through its social media accounts and science communication platforms. To this end, a range of materials is produced to expand the reach of each work both within and beyond the academic sphere. In addition, the journal strongly encourages authors to share their work through their own networks and channels, expressly mentioning both the article and index.comunicación. Upon acceptance of each article, authors commit to participating in an episode of index.podcast and to writing an outreach piece based on their research for the indexfera blog. The production of these materials aligns with current frameworks for evaluating scientific activity, in which knowledge transfer carries increasing weight.