Submissions

Author Guidelines

Guidelines for Authors

In order to have a manuscript submitted to the Journal, firstly, it is necessary that all authors register in the Journal of Psychology’s official website.

Texts which consist solely of a literature review on a certain subject will not be accepted, unless they consist of an unprecedented problematization of the said subject.

       Manuscripts which fit in the following categories will be accepted:

1. Research report (minimum of 10 and maximum of 25 pages);
2. Theoretical research (minimum of 10 and maximum of 25 pages);
3. Essay (minimum of 10 and maximum of 25 pages);
4. Case studies or institutional experience reports (minimum of 8 and maximum of 15 pages);

5. Review (minimum of 3 and maximum of 5 pages);
6. Keynote addresses (minimum of 10 and maximum of 25 pages);
7. Interview (minimum of 8 and maximum of 25 pages).

       Fundamental prerequisites in the submission process:

1. The authors who are submitting manuscripts must not have another manuscript in the editorial process of this Journal.
2. Having in mind the continuous nature of our Journal, the authors cannot exceed the limit of one publication a year, regardless of their position in authoring. The cases which might be characterized as exceptions will be submitted to the evaluation of the Editorial Staff.
3. All authors must include a valid ORCID ID in their profiles on the Journal’s website, so as to collaborate with the efforts of attribution of scientific authorship.

4. In case of texts with multiple authors, a maximum of four authors will be accepted, except for papers or research reports which result from partnerships established between two or more institutions and/or research centers. In this case, sending a confirmation document of the institutions/research centers will be required. It is worth mentioning that, for Reviews, multiple authorship is not accepted, but only one (01) author. And for Interviews, up to two (02) authors will be accepted.
5. Texts which have already been published in journals from countries abroad will be accepted, as long as they represent a relevant contribution to psychology and have been submitted to the same evaluation of unpublished manuscripts. In these cases, however, the author must send the authorization by the journal’s editor where the paper was first published, duly signed, to our editors.
6. Texts will be accepted in Portuguese, French, English and Spanish, provided that they have been duly proofread. The abstract, title and keywords must appear in the paper’s original language and in English.
7. Texts written in foreign languages will be published in the maximum amount of three works per edition. The opinions expressed in the papers are the authors’ full responsibility. Once they submit the manuscript to the Editorial Board of the UFC Journal of Psychology, they assume responsibility for not having previously published or submitted the same paper to another national journal. Those who are accepted for publishing will become Journal’s property, unable to be reproduced without written consent, as it has been previously indicated.
8. All papers reporting on research involving human beings must be accompanied by a confirmation document/approval protocol issued by the Research Ethics Committee (CEP) of the institution where the research has been accomplished, in accordance with National Health Council Resolutions 466/12 and 251/97. Such a requirement does not apply to texts addressing clinical cases resulting from treatments which have already been finished and as long as the patients’ identity is preserved in every way.
9. If possible, authors must avoid the reproduction of pictures, tables and drawings extracted from other publications. In case one or more of these items is included, the text will only be sent to analysis by the editors if it is followed by a written permission of the holder or the original paper’s copyrights for reproduction specified in the UFC Journal of Psychology.
10. Texts that fall into the "Review" category must be based on books that were published in the last three (03) years, but without a specific time, if it is a republished reference work. The review must contain only 1 (one) author.
11. All documents required must be sent in Word format, except for the Recommendation Letter and the Research Ethics Committee document, which must be digitized. The aforementioned files must be attached to the Journal’s website, at the Submission section.
12. Identified cover letter (in a separate file) containing: - full title in Portuguese or in the source language with a maximum of 15 words; - full title in English, compatible with the title in Portuguese; Full name of each author. The footnote must contain, for all authors: the institution and country of the institution to which they are linked (without abbreviations or acronyms), last training/degree; link to ORCID profile and email of each author. First author's professional mailing address. If necessary, acknowledgement notes.

Manuscript submission and evaluation

The swiftness of the editorial process is conditional on strict observance of the Journal’s guidelines and on the manuscript’s grammatical appropriateness. All submissions are subject to an early screening process, and any papers failing this first evaluation will be promptly returned to authors and therefore not assigned to the Editorial Board for further review.

The estimated time for evaluation and publication varies from 4 to 6 months, after the initial analysis of the submitted files and documents.

Manuscript evaluation is carried out as follows:      

1. The manuscripts received will be initially appreciated by the Editors (desk review). The manuscripts that are in accordance with the norms of the journal, are relevant to the scope of UFC Journal of Psychology and contain the framework of a scientific text will be forwarded to the members of the Editorial Board - in which international councilors and from other regions of Brazil participate - and to the body of ad hoc evaluators to issue opinions (peer review).
2. Manuscripts whose publication is considered reasonably viable are then assigned to members of the Editorial Board  – on which nationally and internationally based scholars alike may serve as reviewers – and possibly to ad-hoc reviewers, as provided for by the journal’s peer review system (phase 2 – double blind review). Once the review process is finished, the Editorial Board will issue a decision stating whether the work has been accepted, pending revisions, or rejected.
3. During the entire evaluation process, the anonymity of all parties will be preserved, following the double blind review process.
4. On average, the entire evaluation and publication process is finished within a minimum of 4 (four) and up to 6 (six) months after the initial screening has been carried out
5. In cases of controversy, manuscripts will be sent to a third ad hoc reviewer. If the controversy persists, the article will be evaluated by the Editorial Board.

Resubmission and publication

1. In those instances where revisions are required, manuscripts should only be resubmitted if all the modifications have been highlighted in the file, and if a List of Revisions indicating the page numbers of each amendment is also submitted.
2. The Editorial Board reserves the right to conduct a language review of the manuscript, whenever deemed necessary.

3. If language revisions which may substantially alter the ideas in the manuscript are recommended by the Editorial Board, authors will be tasked with reformulating these sections personally and resubmitting the manuscript by a new deadline, to be established by the editors.
4. Evaluations may be carried out by either ad-hoc reviewers or members of the Editorial Board, whenever deemed necessary. In either case, the identities of authors and reviewers alike will be withheld throughout the entire process.
5. The recruitment of Editorial Board members will prioritize PhD-holding faculty working in graduate programs at higher learning institutions, as well as renowned members of scientific societies and/or organizations dedicated to research and knowledge diffusion.
6. The final decision on the acceptance or rejection of a submission will always rest with the journal’s Editors.
7. On average, the entire evaluation and publication process is completed within at least 4 (four) and up to 6 (six) months after the initial screening has been carried out, as stipulated in “Manuscript submission and evaluation”.
8. Authors will be kept duly apprised of the entire editorial process.
9. The number of publications per issue will depend on the Journal’s current editorial workload.

Style and formatting

The UFC Journal of Psychology adheres to the publication norms of the American Psychological Association. All submissions must therefore conform to APA Style in their entirety, including references and citations. Some of the APA guidelines can be found here. In addition, authors are encouraged to use reference management platforms such as UK Essays and ZoteroBib.

All submissions should be typeset with Microsoft Word 2007 or later versions, in Times New Roman, size 12 pt and double-spaced throughout the entire manuscript (with the exception of tables, whose line spacing may be customized to either Single or 1.5 Lines), not exceeding the maximum number of pages allowed by the manuscript’s category. The page size should be set to A4, with top and bottom page margins of 2,5 cm and left- and right-hand margins of 3 cm. Once full compliance with these typesetting requirements has been ensured, the original manuscript should be submitted through the Journal’s website, in the section “Submissions (Submissões)”.           

Supplementary documents

 All submissions must be supplemented by a Cover Letter signed by all authors (see template below). This document is designed to unequivocally state the intent to submit or resubmit a given manuscript, in addition to giving the Editorial Board full discretion over any language modifications which may be necessary in order to ensure compliance with the Journal’s publishing standards. The letter must also contain the roles of each author specified according to the CRediT taxonomy.   

No more than four authors per contribution will be allowed, with the exception of papers or research reports arising out of partnerships between two or more institutions and/or research organizations. On such occasions, proof of partnership must be submitted along with the contribution itself. It should be noted that reviews and interviews cannot exceed two (02) authors per submission.

The supplementary documentation must be uploaded to the Journal’s website in Word or (in the case of digitized documents) PDF format, along with the manuscript itself. There should be no information in the manuscript file which enables the identification of the author(s). Any embedded author information must likewise be removed from the file’s metadata (in Microsoft Word, this can be achieved in the section “Document Properties”). Submissions failing to comply with the foregoing will be returned to the author(s).

Templates for document submission

Cover Letter Template

Fill, scan and submit along with the submission. 

Manuscript structure and formatting

Editors’ note:

The section described in item 1 below (the manuscript’s cover sheet) should be submitted in a separate file from the actual manuscript in order to prevent author identification by the Journal’s reviewers.

Likewise, the sections described in items 2-4 below should each be placed in a different page of the manuscript, in the order in which they are presented here.

All figures, tables and charts should be placed at the end of the manuscript, after the list of references, respecting the limit of one (1) figure, chart or table per page (see item 5).

1. Identified cover letter (in a separate file) containing: - full title in Portuguese or in the source language with a maximum of 15 words; - full title in English, compatible with the title in Portuguese; Full name of each author. The footnote must contain, for all authors: the institution and country of the institution to which they are linked (without abbreviations or acronyms), last training/degree; link to ORCID profile and email of each author. First author's professional mailing address. If necessary, acknowledgement notes.
2. Abstract: with the exception of reviews and interviews, all manuscripts should be accompanied by an abstract of 150 to 200 words, in Portuguese or in whatever language the submission was originally written, followed by 3-5 keywords. The initial letter of the first keyword should be capitalized, with the remaining keywords typeset in lowercase and separated by semicolons.

3. Translated Abstract: this page should contain a translation of the abstract and keywords into English.
4. Figures: this page should list the captions of every figure appearing in the manuscript. The figures must be numbered in the order in which they appear throughout the manuscript.

The sum total of all figures, tables and charts must not exceed a total of 5 (five) per submission, in addition to abiding by the following guidelines.

5. All figures and captions thereof must appear at the end of the manuscript file, after the list of references, respecting the limit of one (1) figure + caption per page. To ensure reproduction quality, figures containing hand drawings must have their resolution set to a minimum of 300 dpi. No figures appearing in the print journal may be larger than 11,5 cm in width, so authors must ensure caption readability in case their size needs to be reduced.

6. Tables, including all captions and footnotes thereof, must be limited to one (1) per page, appearing at the end of the manuscript file, after the list of references. No tables in the print journal may be larger than 11,5 cm in width and 17,5 cm in length. In addition, no tables may be longer than 55 lines, including captions and footnotes.

7. With the exception of reviews, interviews and keynote addresses, all manuscripts must include the following components: introduction, methodology, results, discussion, and final considerations/conclusions. Each of these sections may, however, be titled using different terms. Footnotes, if absolutely necessary, must appear at the end of the manuscript file, rather than in the page footers, and ordered using Arabic numerals, which in turn should be seen immediately after the text segment to which the footnote refers. In addition, the manuscript should specify the position in which each of the figures, charts, and/or tables is expected to appear in body text of the published work.

No fees are charged for manuscript submission and processing.

The number of articles published per issue will correspond to the journal's editorial flow.