Submissions

Author Guidelines

#PerDebate is a year-round, annual, periodical publication of the journalism program of the College of Communication and Contemporary Arts (COCOA) at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ). Published in Spanish and English, it is of scientific interest and aims to serve as a forum for analysis and reflection on topics related to contemporary communication, with a special emphasis on journalism. Articles that demonstrate scientific and academic rigor and adhere to the subject matter and publication standards will be published. The #PerDebate Editorial Board meets to select articles. The evaluation process begins with the selection of articles that address current, original, and high-quality topics. However, articles translated into Spanish for the first time that are especially important to the field, as well as interviews or presentations, will occasionally be welcomed.

All articles must contain citations and references in APA format in accordance with the international parameters followed by the university and described at www.apastyle.com. Only interviews are excluded from this rule if the interviewed source does not cite any information. The maximum recommended length is 40,000 characters with spaces. On average, submissions are between 10 and 20 pages long.

Article Types

Authors may submit their articles to any of the following categories:

Journalistic Article. This refers to dialogues with prominent figures or journalistic investigations presented in interviews, testimonies, reports, or chronicles as a genre.
Reflection article, from the author's analytical, interpretive, or critical perspective, on a specific topic, drawing on original sources.
Review article that analyzes, systematizes, and integrates the results of published or unpublished research. Undergraduate and graduate theses are included.
Historical-epistemological foundation article that analyzes the theoretical contributions of individuals who have set the standard in a field related to communication and/or journalism.

Articles must be unpublished and not simultaneously reviewed by another publication, with certain exceptions in the case of documents translated into Spanish for the first time and of particular importance to the field. Texts submitted in Spanish or English in Word are accepted.

Writing Guidelines

The following writing guidelines for submitting academic articles are presented below. The following submission template must be followed.

1. Works must be original and unpublished. The document must have 2.5 cm margins on all four sides and single line spacing.

2. Times New Roman (12 point) must be used throughout the text. This includes references and citations, in accordance with APA format. Bold and underline are not permitted. The use of italics should be limited to a minimum within the text: book titles, magazine or newspaper titles, works of art, foreign words, or words that need to be highlighted specifically and for which the use of rounded letters in quotation marks is not sufficient.

3. The article should include: a centered title (80 to 100 characters with spaces); below and also centered, the name of the author of the work (in rounded letters); on the next line, centered, the university or institution to which the author belongs (in rounded letters), and on the last line, the contact email address.

4. Next, separated by three paragraph marks (returns), should be the abstract in Spanish (500 characters with spaces) and five keywords; followed by the abstract and key words in English.

5. Except where otherwise specified, the text alignment should be justified and hyphenation should not be used.

6. Footnotes are not permitted in APA format. Therefore, they will be discarded. References should refer only to the cited literature. Uncited sources should be deleted.

7. In-text citations (less than three lines) should be enclosed in quotation marks, not italics. Omissions within citations should be indicated by three periods in brackets: [...]. If quotation marks must be used in a quotation, single quotation marks ("˜"¦"™") must be used.

8. Quotations longer than three lines must be placed outside the text, without quotation marks, with single indentation (1.27 cm) on all lines, and the same size and font.

9. Illustrations (figures, graphs, diagrams, tables, maps, etc.) must be included in the electronic document or in separate files (clearly indicating in the text where they should be inserted). All images must be submitted in "jpg", "tif", or "gif" format with sufficient quality for reproduction, with authorization and credit to the source. 

Images must be 300 dpi and A4 in size. #PerDebate reserves the right to design and select images.

10. References must follow international APA standards, in alphabetical order and with hanging indents. Example:

Ayuso, J. (1996). Anthology of 20th Century Spanish Poetry. Madrid: Castalia.

11. If the text is divided into sections, CAPITAL LETTERS must be centered for the main title, and for subsections, aligned to the left, the following must be used: 1. small caps; 1.1. italics; 1.1.1. round font.

12. Bibliographic references should be placed at the end of the work, separated from the text by four paragraph marks (returns), under the heading REFERENCES, arranged alphabetically by author, with hanging indents and following this order:

The author's surname and initial should be indicated first (in the case of works signed by up to three authors, the surname and initial of the first author should be indicated after the surname and initial of the first author. If the work is signed by more than three authors, the surname and initial of the first author should be followed by the expression "et al."). The year of publication should then be indicated (in parentheses and with the distinction a, b, c, etc.) if an author has more than one work cited in the same year. The following should then be taken into account:

12.1. If it is a monograph, the title of the book (in italics); place of publication and publisher separated by a colon. Example:

Calvo Pérez, J. (1994). Introduction to the Pragmatics of Spanish. Madrid: Cátedra.

12.2. If it is part of a monograph, the title of the article (in rounded letters); then the monograph should be summarized as described in the previous section. Example:

Weinreich, U., Labov, and Marvin I. Herzog (1968). Empirical Foundations for a Theory of Language Change. In P. Lehmann and Y. Malkiel (eds.), Directions for Historical Linguistics. Austin: University of Texas Press. 95-188.

12.3. If it is a journal article, the title of the article (in round letters); the title of the journal (in italics), followed by the volume number and the page numbers, separated by a colon. Example:

Alvar, M. (1963). Linguistic and Ethnographic Atlas of the Canary Islands Project. Revista de Filología Española XLVI: 315-328.

12.4. If it is a publication or computer resource, the above references regarding authors, date, and type of work should be followed, followed by the medium, electronic address or URL, and, where applicable, the date consulted. Examples:

Boixareu, M. et al. (2006). History, literature, interculturality. Ongoing studies on the reception and image of France in Spain. In Manuel Bruña et al. (eds.), The culture of the other: Spanish in France, French in Spain. The Culture of Others: Spanish in France, French in Spain. Seville: Association of French Teachers of the Spanish University, Society of French Hispanists, and Department of French Philology, University of Seville, 33-58. CD-ROM edition.

Jiménez, D. (2007). The Anecdote, a Brief Genre: Chamfort. Ædille, Journal of French Studies 3: 9-17. Retrieved February 10, 2017, from http://webpages.ull.es/users/cedille/tres/djimenez.pdf; April 14, 2008.

Royal Spanish Academy. (n.d.). CORDE. Diachronic Corpus of Spanish. Retrieved February 10, 2017, from http://corpus.rae.es/cordenet.html; 05/25/2008.

13. Charts, tables, or graphs must be included in the text in the corresponding order, with titles, sequence numbers, and sources. If a different program is required for this material, the file must be sent in high-quality PDF format.

14. Electronic documents and resources generally follow the same guidelines and citation scheme as printed documents. Efforts are made to include all relevant identification information, such as availability and access (website), as well as the date of consultation.

Articles that do not adhere to these standards will be returned to their authors, who may resubmit them after making the appropriate modifications. It should be noted that more examples of citations and references in APA format, for new sources of information on the Internet, such as a comment on a social network, are available at www.apastyle.com.

List of sections

#Now

Current events, reality, and the daily situation are the main topics of this category. Here, current trends, already established in journalism, their relevance, successes, and challenges, are analyzed.

#NowWhat?

Here, we reflect on the possible future of the profession, or rather, possible futures, on the trends and professional practices that have yet to prove their validity and use in newsrooms. They could arrive... or not. The question mark is not here by chance.

#PorVenir

In this section, we focus on the likely future, on the trends that are becoming established in the daily lives of journalists. They are not yet widespread or practiced by everyone, but their relevance is proven, for example, cross-border journalism or data journalism, which is developing exponentially in newsrooms.

#Speech y Variantes

A social fact and the ability to use sign systems to communicate, language is the foundation of the journalistic world. We seek to study language in all its functions (referential, emotive, appellative, phatic, aesthetic, linguistic) and its potential variants: (Violent) speech, (Free) speech, Speech (community), (Freedom of) Speech, Speech (analysis), (Power of) Speech, Speech (analytics), etc.

#Past

The pages saved from the past, and often from oblivion, have not necessarily lost their relevance. In this segment, professors and experts analyze their relevance and contributions to contemporary reflection on current issues in the world of communications.

Saved Pages

Building on the previous section, here we seek to rescue texts or communication references from the past that remain relevant and/or contribute to contemporary reflection on the world of Information and Communication Technologies.

#Technology

While journalism and technology evolve, they do not generally do so at the same pace, particularly in the digital age. This section seeks to analyze the links between an old profession and the new technologies that burst onto the newsroom scene daily.

#Master

In this segment, we highlight the contributions of professors or professionals on topics relevant to the #PerDebate monograph series. May what is masterfully done stand out for its perfection and relevance in our field of study.

#Alumni

Heirs to a Liberal Arts-based education, our alumni are the future. In their classrooms or in the field, they have tested, rehearsed, and developed new formats, web documentaries, journalistic comics, and more, beyond what is produced in traditional newsrooms. We are interested in their experiences and testimonies.