Submissions

Author Guidelines

Manuscripts submitted for publication must be original, not have been published previously in print or electronically, and not be in the process of being reviewed by another journal.

ÁPICE. Revista de Educación Científica is a member of Similarity Check and uses iThenticate plagiarism checker software in order to verify the originality of all manuscripts accepted for publication.

Publication guidelines

The types of articles accepted for consideration are: science education research; science education innovation; and reviews.

• Science education research: theoretical or empirical. Word limit: max. 45,000 characters with spaces, including title, authors, abstract, keywords, tables, figures, references and appendices.

• Science education innovation: detailed, justified, innovative didactic proposals. Word limit: 25,000 characters with spaces, including title, authors, abstract, keywords, tables, figures and references. Long appendices (max. 20,000 characters with spaces) containing details of specific activities/tasks, evaluation instruments and other relevant information may also be included
• Word limit: 4000 characters with spaces.

The journal accepts manuscripts in .docx format in Spanish, English and Portuguese. Manuscripts should include an abstract (max. 1000 characters with spaces) in Spanish and English, and maximum five keywords, also in Spanish and English.

Manuscript metadata should include the names and surnames, emails, affiliations and ORCIDs of all of the authors, as well as the article abstract, keywords and references. Manuscript metadata should be submitted in Spanish and English. To change the metadata form language, select Español/English and press ‘Submit’. To end, press ‘Save and Continue’.

Ápice. Revista de Educación Científica recommends the use of inclusive language, following the recommendations of the Real Academia Española. With regard to the gender variable, it is recommended that, if it is among the data collected, it is reported whether possible differences in the results have been taken into account in relation to this variable, reporting it, if appropriate, in the conclusions of the study.

If complementary material is provided, it must also be already laid out within the template itself, but in a separate file.

Authors are obliged to blind manuscripts by removing all mention of author names, surnames or workplaces and avoiding self-citation. These elements and others required for the final layout will be reinserted once the article has been accepted for publication.

Articles accepted for publication should be resubmitted unblinded and include the criteria used to determine the order of authorship.

Authors will be responsible for laying out the manuscript in accordance with the layout templates provided by the journal (see layout template for research and innovation articles and layout template for reviews).

All tables and figures (graphs, diagrams, charts, photographs, etc.) should be numbered, referenced in the text and embedded in the exact position where the authors wish them to be placed in the final article. Figures should also be submitted as separate high-resolution .jpg files (min. 300 dpi).

All appendices used should be referenced in the main text.

In-text citations should state the authors’ surnames and year of publication. For narrative citations, the author name should be incorporated into the text as part of the sentence and followed by the year in brackets. Otherwise, author surnames and the year of publication should be stated in brackets, separated by a comma. For citations with two authors, always name both authors. For citations with three, four or five authors, name all authors on the first mention, and only the first author followed by et al. for all subsequent mentions.

All works cited in the manuscript, and only works cited in the manuscript, should be listed in the References section in alphabetical order by surname, following the APA referencing guide. References should include a DOI or URL (in the case of open digital publications).

Examples:

Sanmartí, N. (2002). Didáctica de las ciencias en la educación obligatoria. Síntesis.

Abell, S. K. (2007). Research on Science Teacher knowledge. In S. K. Abell and N. G. Lederman (Eds), Handbook of Research on Science Education (pp. 1105-1149). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Jiménez-Tenorio, N. and Oliva, J. M. (2016). Análisis reflexivo de profesores de ciencias de secundaria en formación inicial en torno a diferentes secuencias didácticas. Revista EUREKA de Enseñanza y Divulgación de las Ciencias, 13(2), 423-439. Retrieved from: http://hdl.handle.net/10498/18298

Jarvis, T. and Pell, A. (2004). Primary teachers’ changing attitudes and cognition during a two year science in-service programme and their effect on pupils. International Journal of Science Education, 26(14), 1787-1811. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/ 0950069042000243763

Layout guidelines

Page format: A4 (21 cm x 29.7 cm). Top margin: 3 cm. Bottom margin: 3 cm. Left margin: 3.5 cm. Right margin: 3.5 cm. Header: 2 cm. Footer: 1.5 cm. No page numbers.

Paragraph format: Single line spacing (no indentation, except for references).

First page (font size and format):

• Title (no full point): uppercase letter on first word and proper nouns only; Calibri bold 18 pt; centred; 24-point line spacing before, 12-point line spacing after.
• Name and surname of author(s): Calibri bold 12 pt; centred; 0-point line spacing before, 6-point line spacing after.
• Affiliation (include name of Department and/or Faculty/School/Institute (optional), name of institution, city and country): Calibri normal 11 pt; centred; 0-point line spacing before, 12-point line spacing after. If the authors have different affiliations, list each one with its corresponding superscript number (0-point line spacing between them). Author emails should be included in a footnote at the bottom of the page.
• [Received DD Month 202x. Accepted DD Month 202x.] Calibri normal 11 pt; left-aligned; 0-point line spacing before, 12-point line spacing after.
• Abstract (no heading): Calibri normal 10 pt; fully justified; 0-point line spacing before, 6-point line spacing after.
• Keywords heading: Calibri bold 9 pt. Keywords: Calibri normal 8 pt; fully justified; keywords separated by a semi-colon; 0-point line spacing before and after.
• Title in English: uppercase letter on first word and proper nouns only; Calibri bold 14 pt; centred; 18-point line spacing before, 12-point line spacing after.
• Abstract in English (no heading): Calibri normal 10 pt; fully justified; 0-point line spacing before, 6-point line spacing after.
• Keywords in English: heading and keywords in same size and format as in Spanish.

Second page and rest of manuscript (font size and format):

• Level 1 section headings (no full point): uppercase letter on first word only; Calibri bold 12 pt; fully justified; 12-point line spacing before, 6-point line spacing after.
• Level 2 section headings, if used (no full point): uppercase letter on first word only; Calibri bold 11 pt; fully justified, 6-point line spacing before and after.
• Level 3 section headings, if used (no full point): uppercase letter on first word only; Calibri italics 11 pt; 6-point line spacing before and after.
• Rest of text: Calibri normal 11 pt; fully justified; 0-point line spacing before and 6-point line spacing after each paragraph. The use of italics should be avoided; words and phrases should be highlighted using inverted commas instead.
• Lists: Calibri normal 11 pt; fully justified; no space between paragraphs. Lists may be preceded by bullet points (black dot) or numbers/letters (e.g. a), b), etc.): left indent 0.5 cm; hanging paragraph 0.5 cm.
• Quotations (from references or empirical extracts, e.g. quotes from study participants) should be presented as a separate block paragraph and placed within inverted commas: Calibri normal 10 pt; indent 0.5 cm on both sides; 6-point line spacing before and after. Do not use italics for quotations.
• Table headings and captions should be placed above the table: Calibri bold 10 pt (no full point); fully justified; 6-point line spacing before and after. Only in the case of narrow tables should the heading, caption and table content be centred. The paragraph following the table should always be formatted with a 12-point line spacing before. The text in the table should be set in Calibri normal 10 pt, fully justified, 0-point line spacing before and after. For tables with narrow columns and/or little text, the text should be left-aligned instead of justified.
• Tables that are too long for one page should be split over two pages. The heading ‘Table X: Continued’ should be included at the top of the second page and the first row of the table repeated.
• Figure headings and captions should be placed below the figure (no full point): Calibri bold 10 pt; centred; 6-point line spacing before, 12-point line spacing after.
• Tables and figures should be numbered with Latin numerals, and inserted in the main text close to their first citation.

Acknowledgements, if included (e.g. funding): Heading: Calibri bold 11 pt; 12-point line spacing before, 6-point line spacing after. Text: Calibri normal 11 pt; 0-point line spacing before, 6-point line spacing after. The Acknowledgements section should be placed directly before the References section.

References heading: Calibri bold 12 pt; 12-point line spacing before, 6-point line spacing after. References list: Calibri normal 11 pt; hanging paragraph 1 cm; 0-point line spacing before, 6-point line spacing after. Italics should only be used for book titles and journal volume numbers. Author surnames should be capitalised on the first letter only. DOIs and URLs (in the case of open digital publications) should be written in plain black text and may be split over two lines to improve the appearance of the paragraph.

Reference format: a) use ‘and’ between authors (not ampersand); b) when referencing a URL, include the phrase ‘Retrieved from:’; c) when referencing a DOI, use the format ‘DOI: https://dx.doi.org/...’ or ‘DOI: http://doi.org/...’

Attachments: Title (at the start of a new page): Calibri bold 10 pt; centred. Text: same formatting and layout guidelines as for the main manuscript text but using Calibri 10 pt.