Author guidelines

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Anyone who submits a manuscript for publication in Revista de Economía Crítica must previously verify that the text to be sent conforms strictly to the following norms:

  1. Manuscripts should be written in Spanish, Portuguese or English.
  2. The journal accepts four types of work:
  • Articles: they are original and developed theoretical or empirical research works. Periodically, call for papers of special issues are published. Articles must specify if their submission belongs to any special issue.
  • Debates: they consist of brief texts that discuss a recent economic issue or event which is of special interest for political economics.
  • Classic or Forgotten Authors
  • Book reviewsof interest for heterodox economic thinking. Between 1,000-2,000 words.
  1. Manuscripts cannot have been previously published and should not be under consideration in any other journal while they are being considered for publication in Revista de Economía Crítica. As an exception, and for reasons of scientific interest or diffusion of outstanding contributions, the Editorial Team may decide to publish and/or translate an already published text, as it is the case of Classic or Forgotten Authors Section.
  2. Manuscripts should be uploaded in Step 2. Manuscripts are sent in Reach Text Format (rtf), OpenOffice Writer (odt) or Microsoft Word (doc) format through the journal’s website. The journal will not accept manuscripts sent by any other method or in any other format and will not maintain correspondence about them.
  3. Articles will be sent have a maximum length of 9,000 words, including references, annex, footnotes and title and excluding abstract, keywords, graphs and tables.

The text format should conform to the following rules:

  • Font type and size: Arial 11.
  • Text should be justified and double-spaced, except footnotes.
  • Footnotes should be numbered consecutively and situated at the bottom of the corresponding page, not at the end of the manuscript. It is strongly recommended to reduce their number as much as possible and to use them for clarifying and explanatory purposes, not for bibliographical reference.
  • Pages should be numbered at the bottom starting from number 1, and beginning with the page where the abstract is (the coversheet with the information about the author/s should not be numbered).
  • Sections of the manuscript should be numbered and entitled in small letters and bold.
  • Avoid multiple carriage returns between paragraphs as well as between the titles of the different parts of an article and the next or previous paragraph.
  • Math formulas will be numbered when the author considers it appropriate, with Arabic numbers, in square brackets to the right of them.
  • To highlight a word or phrase, it should be in italics, not in bold. Likewise, if any term is expressed in English or another language other than Spanish, it must be in italics.
  1. All non-textual elements (tables, figures, maps, graphs, illustrations, etc.) should appear in the corresponding place in the text. They will be numbered and entitled; its source should be specified below them, and there should be an explicit mention of each one in the main text. Graphs should also be delivered separately in OpenOffice Calc (ods) or Microsoft Excel (xls).

Tables should go in the corresponding place in the body of the text, not as an image, and it is not necessary to add them as an attachment separate from the article. Text in Arial between 8 and 11 (depending on the content), one-single spaced and justified. Number and Title of the table in the first row in bold letters. Source in the last row with the text in italics. Titles of rows and columns in bold letters.

Table 1. Title

Row name

Column

Column

Column

Column

Row

 

 

 

Row

 

 

 

Source: Text of source, Author (year) or Own elaborations based on author (year).

Notes in tables can be at the bottom using (*) or (a, b,…).

Figures (illustrations, images, maps) should go in the corresponding place in the body of the text, justified to margins. Number and Title of the figure in the first row in bold letters. Source in the last row with the text in italics.

Figure 1. Title

Source: Text of source, Author (year) or Own elaborations based on author (year).

  1. References must be included in the text and a comprehensive bibliography should be provided based on APA Style 7th edition (https://www.mendeley.com/guides/apa-citation-guide), except for the requirement of REC to incorporate full names of authors in the reference section, in accordance with gender equality policy. The reference list provides a list of the works cited in a paper. In case of doubt, authors should refer to the APA Style 7th edition homepage for detailed instructions.
  2. After uploading the document in Step 2 of the submission, in step 3 the author(s) should add a title, an abstract in Spanish and English and a maximum of 5 keywords, in Spanish and English. Maximum is 500 words in total (including abstracts in both languages and keywords). This information must also appear at the beginning of the anonymized manuscript. Authors must supply a structured abstract in their submission, set out under 4-7 sub-headings: purpose (mandatory), design/methodology/approach (mandatory), findings (mandatory), research limitations/implications (if applicable), practical implications (if applicable), social implications (if applicable), and originality/value (mandatory).
  3. Also in step 3 you must fill in the metadata on the platform including all authors, using the "Add author" button for articles by more than one author. It is essential that all authors be added at this point. For all authors please specify roles following CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy)  The inclusion of new authors will not be accepted after the first submission. Each author should also add: Institutional affiliation: university or centre, department or unit, city and country. Email address: All correspondence will be sent to this email address. In the case of articles of multiple authorship, the person who will maintain correspondence with the journal must be specified, checking the box "main contact for editorial correspondence". ORCID Identification: If not available, REC recommends that authors register at http://orcid.org/to obtain an ORCID identification number. A brief biographical note (maximum 150 words) in which the author’s highest degrees obtained (and from which university), current position and main lines of research are specified. REVISTA DE ECONOMIA CRITICA may publish this biographical note along with the rest of the article.
  4. The text of the articles must be sent anonymized: all citations, acknowledgments, references and other information that could directly or indirectly allow the identification of the author must be deleted (and substituted with the label “anonymized”). In the list of references, anonymized articles should not include any additional information such as the title or name of the journal, only the word “anonymized” so that searching the last names of all authors with the search tool does not yield any results. The properties of the file must be blank.
  5. Articles must use a non-sexist language, include full names of authors in references and follow gender guidelines.
  6. Debates will consist of brief texts that discuss a recent economic issue or event which is of special interest for political economics. It will have an approximate length of 2,500 words. They will be sent in the same way than articles and will be evaluated by the Editorial Team.
  7. Classic or Forgotten Authors will publish the old article of a relevant economist with a discussion of the article. They will be sent in the same way than articles and will be evaluated by the Editorial Team.
  8. Book reviews will be sent in the same way than articles. It will have an approximate length of 1,000-2000 words. They will be evaluated by the Editorial team.

Selection process and publication rules

  1. Revista de Economía Crítica publishes academic works which present rigorous empirical or theoretical research on Political Economy from critical, radical and/or heterodox perspectives. It includes, without limitation, manuscripts from political economists and other critical social scientists on marxist, post-keynesian, institutional, ecological or feminist economics, radical political economy, political ecology, critical development studies, international political economy and so on. Multidisciplinary and international approaches on those topics are specifically welcome.
  2. Formatting, spelling or grammar mistakes, as well as non compliance with the journal’s rules and guidelines, may result in the rejection of a manuscript before starting an evaluation process.
  3. Manuscripts will be peer-reviewed in a double-blind way. All the works sent to Revista de Economía Crítica will be refereed according to standards of strict scientific quality.
  4. On receipt of a manuscript which complies with all the journal’s formal requirements and rules, a receipt acknowledgement message will be sent to the author/s and the evaluation process will start.
  5. In a first stage, the Editorial Team will revise the general quality and thematic adequacy of the manuscript; manuscripts whose quality is notoriously low or which do not make any contribution to the journal’s scientific fields may be directly rejected without external refereeing. For this first review, the Editorial Team may require assessment by the members of the Editorial Board or the Advisory Board. Proposals for the debate section can be accepted after passing this preliminary filter and will not necessarily be sent for further review.
  6. Manuscripts which pass the first review will be sent to two external referees, who will be experts in the pertinent field or research area. In case of discrepancy between the referees, or if considered necessary by any other reason, the Editorial Team may send the manuscript to a third referee.
  7. In the light of the referees’ reports, the Editorial Team may adopt one of the following decisions about the manuscript, which will be communicated to its author/s:
  • Publication (as it is or with very minor changes).
  • Publication after revision. In this case, publication will depend on the introduction by the author/s of all the changes and revisions required by the Editorial Team. The revised version should be sent to the journal in one month, and the author/s will attach a brief cover letter explaining how the changes satisfy the requirements of the Editorial Team. The journal may propose, as one of these changes, the conversion of a manuscript submitted as an article into a research note or a literature review, or viceversa.
  • Revise and resubmit. In this case, the manuscript is rejected in its present form but offering the author/s the possibility of rewrite and resubmit a new version. Resubmission of a new version will not entail any publication guarantee, since the selection and refereeing process will start again from the beginning.
  1. When a manuscript is accepted for publication, the proofs should be read (and, if necessary, corrected) by the author/s within two weeks since their reception.
  2. Revista de Economía Crítica will publish each year the list of all referees, as well as the aggregated data about accepted, revised and rejected manuscripts, and the average time between receipt of a manuscript and communication of the final decision to its author/s.
  3. Revista de Economía Crítica may publicize, once they are verified, the following bad scientific practices: plagiarism, data falsification or fabrication, misappropriation of authorship, and double publication.

Submission preparation checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

  1. The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
  2. The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, RTF, or WordPerfect document file format.
  3. Tables, graphs, illustrations or photographs are inserted in the Word document in their corresponding place. Likewise, the graphs in editable format (Excel) must also be delivered as complementary files.
  4. Where available, DOI or URLs for the references have been provided.
  5. The text is double-spaced; uses a 11-point Arial font; and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
  6. The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.
  7. If submitting to a peer-reviewed section of the journal, the instructions in Ensuring a Blind Peer Review have been followed.